I wore that skirt I had spilled gin on the week before.
I drank too much, I was nervous.
A month earlier, at Thanksgiving, you told me you were a little bit still in love with me. I laughed. You decided you were going to sleep with that girl, the shrill one with brown hair.
We held hands by the washing machine. Your voice sounded the way it does when you’re impressed with me, when you’re taking me seriously. We kissed on the patio and in the kitchen and outside the bathroom. I don’t remember the order. I remember saying “Above the belt, okay?” in my sweetest, most earnest voice. I meant it. I don’t remember what you said back.
We went outside and I had a cigarette. You told me you’d never smoked one, ever. We talked to that girl we grew up with who always has a boyfriend. She told us all about her sorority and “philanthropy” while your hand made its way from my back, under my skirt, into my tights, into my body. Your fingers were inside me. They used to feel familiar. This was the first time they didn’t feel like anything. I didn’t want them there. I didn’t know how to say that in front of her.
I didn’t want to draw her attention to it. I didn’t want to fight with you. I didn’t want to hear you tell me you knew I liked it, that we had done things like that when we were sixteen.
So I smoked and listened to her talk and waited for you to get bored. Eventually you did.
We went inside and I took off my tights and brushed my teeth and fell asleep on the couch. You stayed up. In the morning you were next to me. Your body is solid and you were warm. You must have known better than to try again. You must have known that this time, when we were alone, I could have said no. We didn’t kiss goodbye.
In the afternoon, I had lunch with that guy who told me I deserved someone better for me than you. I think that if I told him about how I had said no but you decided yes, that he would take your side. He would tell me I must have meant yes, that you thought it was okay because you and I had done things like that when we were sixteen.