Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The days that followed our little trip, Emma became oddly touchy-feely. First came the arm touches, which spread to my shoulder, then my entire back. Then she obtained a proclivity for whispering things so close to my ear, it felt like my auricle was burning.
I had never been so physically close to someone, even a girl. Such chaste touches left me in cold sweats and clinical tachycardia.
I convinced myself it was friendly. Emma just couldn't read my tenseness, perhaps. Salome did it to her girl-friends, and they did it to her – fully platonic gestures. I considered letting Emma know I didn't think of her touches as merely friendly, that she was driving me absolutely nuts, but there were too many considerations. Would she think me a freak for thinking of it in such a lewd way? Or worse, would she stop utterly, never laying a hand on me again?
So, I promised myself a line – nothing below the elbows. I had a reason for that at least, what with the peculiarity and all. But she never crossed that unsaid line.
"What's with the two of you?" laughed Horace. He had seen Emma wrap an arm around me as I cut carrots in the kitchen. "Ooh, did you save her from drowning while I was bedbound?"
"No, shush. I have a knife in hand," I said, brandishing the blade at him. "Girls do it all the time."
"You lucky rascal, you."
"What, are you envious?" I nudged him with my elbow. "Is that it? Do you fancy Emma?"
"Used to," he said unabashedly. "But look at your progress versus mine. She is all yours, Miss Abraham."
"Progress," I repeated, too shrilly. "Shush, honestly. It's a different dynamic between girls."
And how I wish it wasn't – it made things undecipherable. My head ached from the effort to think about what anything even meant.
