Cassie lay beside me. We were on the overhang, both flat on our backs. She had closed her eyes a few minutes earlier, but I could tell she wasn’t snoozing. I waited and let random thoughts float around my head, as I stared at the whitey-blue ceiling-sky above us.
When we first dropped to the ground after messing around fighting, Cassie’s breathing had been loud and rapid. We’d certainly been going at it, pushing and pulling one another, testing out what worked and what didn’t. When I showed her, I had hoped she would understand why I wanted to know how humans might have fought one another; I never expected her to want to try it out.
Cassie may have learnt something new today, but then, so had I. I’d never done this with a real person before, and understanding what differences the weight and movements of your opponents would make, was interesting.
Mirroring Cassie, I closed my eyes, blocking out the bright daylight and generating funny white shapes against the dark inside my eyelids. The shapes swirled and rolled around in the blackness, never forming a clear picture or anything sensible.
I sensed Cassie moving beside me and opened my eyes, turning in her direction as I did so.
“Hey,” I was surprised to find her face mere inches from mine. The noise had been her rolling over.
“Hey,” she echoed softly.
I watched Cassie, watching me, her eyes searching for mine. At first they didn’t find them, because my eyes were busy, drinking in every aspect of her as she lay tilted towards me. The residual pink in her cheeks from exercise, made her green eyes even more vibrant than normal. She was looking up at me through her eyelashes, as if they might hide some of her intentions; but eyelashes were too thin a shield when we were this close to one another. I realised then, that Cassie was going to kiss me. My eyes found hers and something opened up between us. It was as if I was seeing something deeper inside her, than I ever had before. Without any words – forgetting what I knew about our vitamins – I think what I was seeing in that moment, was that Cassie loved me.
Slowly, Cassie’s face drew closer. Tiny freckles on her nose, merged into a creamy blur before my eyes as I waited, frozen in place. Slowly – so slow – the suspense was electric. I knew what it felt like to kiss her, but for Cassie to want me back, to be leaning into me now – that was something else altogether.
Finally, we touched. Her nose grazed along the side of mine, as our faces came together, and she paused a moment before our lips touched. The sliver of air in that tiny space prickled with static, before Cassie closed the gap and brought her mouth onto mine. As first she moved gently, but as my lips parted beneath hers, I felt her fingers winding into my hair and she pulled me closer, our bodies pressing into one another. Automatically, my arm circled around her hips, holding us together. It was a long while before I let go.