‘Me too.’ Dina sighs against me. She tugs at the buttons of my blouse, and surprisingly quickly and smoothly, she manages to pull it off me.
I move back on the bed, until I’m against the headboard, pulling Dina with me. She hesitates for only a moment, before she climbs on top of me, her legs straddling me. Her thumb caresses my bottom lip for only a second before she’s kissing me again.
Her kisses are different from how I remember. Before, it was like neither of us knew exactly what we were doing. We would fumble and bump noses, and laugh and kiss. We were each other’s firsts, still learning. But now, things are different. Nine years have taught both of us a lot, clearly, Ithink as Dina presses herself flush against me, running her fingers through my hair, skimming my ear, my cheeks, my neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps that seem to be sending pools of desire through me.
All of my thoughts about this being a bad idea, about moving past Dina, melt away. Because how couldthisbe a bad idea? How could Dina ever be a bad idea?
We pull apart, breathless, but Dina doesn’t let go of me and I’m not sure if I want her to.
‘Are you OK? With this?’ Dina asks, her eyes boring into mine.
‘Yes,’ I say, without even thinking about it.
We’re both breathing hard and my whole body is flushed with heat. Dina brushes a lock of hair behind my ear before her teeth nib at my neck, my jaw; her lips trail kisses down to my collarbone. I feel like a livewire everywhere Dina touches. And as much as I know that I should stop her, that we should stop, period, I don’t want to.
Then, a creak pierces the silence of the night. Dina stops and leans back, and suddenly it feels like the rest of the world rushes back into focus. I can hear Abba’s soft snoring in the other room, the creak of the bed as Amma tosses and turns, the rush of wind outside, creating a soft hum as it passes through the trees.
Dina and I are still staring at each other, but the moment is gone. Even if the ache of longing in my chest isn’t. Dina swiftly clambers off me and I sidle off the bed, trying to comb my hair into something more than a restless tousle.
Dina sits on edge of the bed now, her hands pressed against the duvet, knuckles a little white from how hard she seems to be pressing down. She’s staring at the ground, like she can’t look at me now. I can’t look at her either.I have a million questions. I want to know why Dina kissed me and why now. But, mostly, I’m still feeling the ghost of her fingers caressing my neck, her phantom kisses still on my lips.
‘We should get some sleep,’ I say, not looking directly at Dina, and instead ducking past her and opening up my wardrobe. I can feel her staring at my back, but I don’t turn around. I busy myself rooting around for a set of pyjamas, like I should have before. Maybe if I hadn’t sat down next to her on the bed, if I hadn’t told her about that photo I’d found, we wouldn’t have felt emboldened to kiss each other and things wouldn’t feel even more complicated than they were before.
When I finally find the pyjamas, I toss them in Dina’s direction, and she catches them perfectly, like she had been expecting the throw.
‘You can change in the bathroom,’ I say.
She nods, and softly opens the bedroom door to head into the bathroom.
I close my eyes for a minute and take a deep lungful of breath, trying to calm my heartbeat. The kiss had been just a kiss. A spur-of-the-moment thing. After all, Dina only called me because she was locked out of her apartment with nobody else to call. I tell myself all of this, no matter how much I desperately want to hold on to that kiss as the start of something between the two of us again.
Once my heart has stopped racing, I quickly change into my own pyjamas, and make up a bed with pillows and sheets on the floor.
‘You can take my bed,’ I say to Dina once she comes back to the room. She frowns between the bed and the makeshift one on the floor.
‘It’s fine, I can sleep on the floor.’
‘Just take the bed,’ I say firmly.
‘Fine,’ Dina agrees in a disgruntled voice.
She climbs onto the bed, while I turn off the light. Shuffling to the makeshift bed, I lie down. I stare up at the ceiling, trying not to think about the fact that Dina is lying down only a few feet away from me. It’s difficult when I can hear the sound of her soft breathing, when I can hear the rustle of her blanket every time she turns. I don’t turn on my side, afraid of catching a glimpse of her and it sending my heart into a panic.
‘Does it feel weird being back?’ Dina asks in a whisper after a few minutes.
‘A little,’ I say.
‘What was your room like, over there?’ she asks.
We’re veering into dangerous territory, but in the darkness of my room, it feels easier to talk.
‘I shared an apartment with two of my teammates,’ I say. ‘It was pretty small. My room was, like, half the size of this. But it was fine, because we travelled a lot and I was barely ever home.’
‘Did you miss being home?’ Dina asks. I know which home she’s talking about.
‘Sometimes. I missed …’You, I want to say, but I can’t. That would be admitting something too vulnerable, revealing too much of myself. ‘My parents.’
The room settles into silence. After a few minutes, I think that Dina must have fallen asleep. But then she breaks the silence again.
