You lean on me. Slowly, I feel your breath
so close to my face. And I could smell the alcohol seeping from your tongue. I
don't want to be kissed the way you want it to be. I don't want to fall victim
to those ogle-ly eyes that lure me into your arms and your voice that tells me
that I am your prey.
Saying that I'm pretty over and over
doesn't help at all, it only makes my notion of you, being the typical player
that you are, stronger brick by brick. I gulped and inched away and playfully
shoved you to the side as I take the whole thing as a joke.
But your face for a matter of two to three seconds show signs of disappointment
and irritation blending all so perfectly well. I beamed at you and nudged you
again to lighten up the mood, and of course you play along. You don't want to
lose me. To lose the challenge you put yourself up with.
I am the challenge. The prize. And the sore
loser of your game.
I knew it all along, but here I am still
clinging onto you. Dazzled by your flawed and clichéd act of strumming the
chords of my heart (or every girl's heart), I lose my logic. Or maybe it's there
but I had it on 'passive' mode.
Seriously, you play by the book in which I
had already skimmed but you have mastered. You are a true player but I refuse
to admit that you're better at it.
Here it goes again, your hands snake along
my arms down to my immobile hands and your fingers intertwining along with
mine. I obliged. I let you hypnotize me once more. We are too close for comfort
and the lack of distance suffocates me to the core.
In need of space and clear thoughts I
pushed you away further. There I could breathe. And I untangled myself from the
invisible bonds you wished were real.
You cooed me and pulled me a little closer,
gently, afraid that I might fight your touch. I don't but I stayed where I was.
It was for a second or two that I realized
I was holding my breath. You sighed and relented to your side, anticipating my next
move.
Like chess, like checkers, like a splendid
game of scrabble and snakes and ladders.
I don't want to be kissed the way you
expected it to happen. I don't want to kiss someone I think I know, nearly a
stranger, a passerby. I want to make sure you're still there in the morning,
have breakfast together, celebrate an anniversary for the 20th time at our
favorite spot, have afternoon teas as we talk about mundane things and spend
the night cuddling till we're fast asleep again. That was the kind of kiss I
wanted to give and share.
But you put up your effervescent wall every
time and there's just nothing I could do at all. I left it at that. What can I
do with such a seasoned firewall?
We shared a forced smile and a laugh that
faded all too quickly, maybe because it was fake? We didn't care.
After the most awkward 15 minutes of our
lives, we called it a night. And later told ourselves that nothing ever
happened.
People, especially the weakest in facing
their fears, are good at that. Ignoring what obviously can't be disregarded,
but still it had to be so.
It was no more less than fiction. Just a
sudden test of attraction, leading to an almost epic failure.
No one will believe us anyway.
