HYSTERICAL || observations [Kheft]

The suit sat a little off on his body, like a skin that needed shedding to make way for a new growth spurt. Still, to Sam’s suddenly shy observations, he looked like nearly the handsomest boy she’d seen. Her sisterly concern made small reservations for Brooke being tied with Gage for the position, but it was a momentary pause that quickly swept aside in the renewed thundering her heartbeat made in competition for rapidity with her indrawn breaths. She paused, just ‘round the corner, one hand resting lightly on the building’s cool brick siding. Was he always this much taller than her? Even with heels, she felt oddly dwarfed by her friend’s tall figure. Not just physically smaller…but some awareness in her chest whispered that he looked older, wiser, holding himself in a calm, almost bored manner that had her wondering why he’d agreed to come. This entire event must look childish, a dance, something so frivolous in comparison to the intellectual challenges that he was so enamored with.

She felt her cheeks flushing when a smile pulled at his mouth, and her focus wavered, fixing on that point for longer than a moment. Did his mouth always look that gentle, amused, she must have noticed it before, but it was fascinating in this light. Her blush deepened with the gentlemanly gesture, something relegated to the dusty pages of old stories, or the archaically amusing fairytales of one Brooke DelMar. Why was there this sudden tension between them, and did he feel it as well? It was heady and frightening, like diving beneath the surface of the waves with a new world spread out in hues of teal and purple and glints of gold, but coupled with a burning hunger for oxygen.

Saamina wanted more than anything to close her eyes and duck into the darkness of Gage’s jacket. As if that hiding place would return them to everything that was easy and balanced and safe…and another part of her head was whispering that maybe, just maybe, she wanted to occupy that space for a different reason. To feel the closeness to him she had experienced the other night, his breath heating her neck and hand cradling the side of her face. Sharing warmth beneath the blankets created by two bodies in a single bed, two heads on one pillow. Sam shivered; steadying herself and trying to find some solid footing in the alien landscape she found herself unexpectedly treading.

She wanted to turn and run as quickly as the ridiculous shoes would allow. Abandon dress and party to hole up in the familiarity of a sheltering mangrove wood, listen to lapping water, and try to find her way back from this unknown precipice. Her mouth opened to tell Gage that she wasn’t feeling well, that maybe the dance had been a bad idea. She didn’t want this feeling of losing control, of crossing some undefined line in the sand that might sweep her away from her best friend. She was going to say the words, but then she noticed how, despite obvious attempts to slick his hair down, Gage’s curls were escaping the gelled style. The wind licked at them teasingly, taunting them back towards their usual disorder. It was one thing, one touch of the every day; just enough to settle the violent churning in her stomach and soothe frayed and nervous senses.

What was she so afraid of? This was Gage! She almost laughed aloud at her own foolishness. What could possibly have come over her? Sam let her legs bend a bit at the knee, dipping a curtsey that combined childish grace with adolescent awkwardness.

“Mr. Bystrom, you look very handsome.” The compliment slid with an easy sincerity, Sam stubbornly refusing to examine its motivation. She was determined that these new doubts and uncertainties wouldn’t taint her evening. If only it was quite that easy to banish the approach of adulthood…

The music felt too loud, and her dress too tight. The previously beautiful scenery seemed to spin around her in the flickering light of the room. Waves appeared to truly dip and sway, and for one breath-holding moment, she had the impression that she was locked back beneath the surface of the ocean, drowning, searching for air to breathe as water rose and fell and swirled all around and over her head. It was a suffocating impression, one that had her heart performing strange feats of acrobatics and her lungs burning slightly with remembered sensation of being hungry for oxygen.

Gage, where was Gage?

Her eyes hunted the room, picking his tall figure out of the huddled couples on the dance floor, and immediately she felt better. Her muscles relaxing slowly, releasing their taut energy, and her fingers loosening the death grip they maintained on her chair. Panic, it was an unpleasant taste in her throat that finally seemed to dispel, letting her gulp down a deep breath of the warm air around. It was only after a good two minutes spent breathing in and out through her nose, that she was capable of discerning the tenor of looks Gage sent in her direction.

He was swaying with the music, hands resting against Charissa’s waist, which brought another bitter flair of jealousy that left Sam stunned and uncomfortable with her own reactions. What was this? Why did she mind so much if Gage danced with someone else? Charissa seemed to be in the clouds as she chattered away, her mouth working miles a minute, and her arms strained upwards to wrap around Gage’s neck. His face, however, was angled toward Saamina over his partner’s shoulder, and a look of confused pleading was written so clearly on it that Sam actually burst out snickering. The song was ending anyway, so she might as well rescue her friend before any other enterprising girls snatched him up.

Despite wobbly heels and skirts, she managed to cross the dance floor with dignity intact, her dress making unaccustomed swishes about her legs. The music had just whispered to a conclusion and the couples were all making either their thanks and returning to tables, or requesting new partners as others flooded out to join them. Saamina halted behind Gage and Charissa in time to hear the girl hurriedly attempting to secure him for the next song.

“Oh, but this one’s my favorite, you really should dance this one too.”

The soft laughter of her peer had Sam’s teeth clenching together for some unidentified reason, and she made a sudden step that brought her close alongside Gage. Her hand moved to rest with a possessive grasp on his arm. Moving her lips into a smile was harder than she’d anticipated, but she maintained the friendly expression.

“Thanks for getting him out here, Charissa, but he promised me that if this song came on we would dance. It’s my favorite.” She echoed the other girl’s earlier sentiment, barely giving her time to make a departure or objection before sliding between the two and settling against Gage’s chest, her arms occupying the space she’d seen the others maintain. As the lights dipped down a bit lower for the slow number, she relaxed a bit, noting when Charissa disappeared towards a gaggle of girls hovered by one table. Saamina tilted her head back enough to see upward into Gage’s face, and she grinned. “Now you owe me one.”

Their fingers woven together felt like the only anchor keeping her body from lifting off and floating away like a bird with spread wings catching an updraft. She still tingled, warm from head to toe from the remembered feeling of dancing toe to toe with him. What did that mean? Sam wasn’t completely ignorant, there’s lots that gets passed along on hushed whispers from one giggling adolescent to the next. Colorful cheeks and glistening eyes harbingers of the scandalizing girl talk to take place, little revelations of stolen kisses and awkward attempts at things that had always seemed so unpleasant and ridiculous to her young vision. What attraction was there in mouths touching mouths, it sounded so unpleasant and…gross.

Still, glancing up occasionally at Gage’s taller figure beside her, the silly things her classmates had said were pricking at the back of her mind. Half the girls attending had gushed over their hopes for a first kiss from one or other of the boys they had either come with or hoped to spend time with. It never occurred to Sam that she should anticipate anything of the sort with her best friend. That’s all they were, just friends going somewhere together in the way they always did. Having a new experience, sharing some time together. Maybe she never would have given it a second thought if that night hadn’t happened, if she hadn’t felt something…new, scary, exhilarating tucked into that bed beside him.

Now she wanted another taste. Dancing together had sparked that same emotion, like walking on the cliff edge, daring herself to leap off for a soaring, plummeting, screaming thrill all the way into the blue ocean depths that would catch her. Just enough danger and excitement to have her heart racing, palms sweating, lips dry in nervous anticipation…but with the same expectation that she would come out the other side with a safe stability. Gage wouldn’t let her drown.

Saamina steered them out of the main hall and towards a side door that she knew led outside. It’s wooden frame creaked slightly, but it gave way with weighted swing, and cool air rushed over them both, cooling heated cheeks, and doing much to still the rapid pattering of her heartbeat. Peaceful. With the music a muted rush held back from overwhelming her ears by the solid door panel, she could think and calm her heightened awareness. Out here, they reverted to Gage and Saamina, not a couple of refined and gussied up boy and girl counterparts to follow in ritually defined patterns. No. What was she thinking? The ideas that had been occupying the last ten minutes felt more than a little foolish beneath the open sky with its crisp coating of stars. Sam could almost laugh at herself, almost. Except for the quiet pang of disappointment that her return to rationality elicited, however quickly she stuffed it away.

Squeezing Gage’s hand once, she finally let go, blushing as she swiped the sweaty palm against her skirt with as much subtly as she could manage. Her shadowy figure guided them around the school’s corner and to a point in the fence where the overhung branches of a tree formed a mottled canopy, enough breaks in cover to let starlight still creep through. Placing palms on the splintery boards, Sam hoisted herself onto the top rung, never considering her state of dress in the need to feel like Saamina DelMar again.

When Gage joined her, she closed the space between them, resting one cheek against his coated shoulder and letting her gaze travel over the velvet black span of darkened lawn.

“Did you like dancing with Charissa, then?” It was a question that burst out before she’d even recognized the desire to ask. “I mean, I bet she dances better than me. She’s a little older, turned fourteen two months back, so I guess she’s closer your age than I am.”

The lips whispering across her knuckles were warm, soft, and ever so gentle. The eyes that turned upwards to meet her own gaze held a hint of questioning behind them, no accusation at her reticence to confide in him, just…concern. It was as if she could read that obscure mind for one moment and see so clearly that Gage disliked what she was doing, this distance she was forcing between them as she scrabbled about, trying to adjust to the sudden changes. He had been morphing before her eyes, like the tadpoles she watched in the pond by her house, going from squirmy little minnow bodies to the fat green frogs she’d catch later in summer. Not, of course, that Gage looked like a frog…but then didn’t princes come from frogs? She remembered a story that Brooke used to tease her with when they went on bullfrog hunts, about a prince cursed into the body of a frog. He’d hold up their bulgy bodies and chase her around with them, trying to convince her that she should kiss it and set free the trapped prince.

Her mouth quirked slightly at the memory, and Gage’s face was close as he grasped her hands between his. So close. Her eyes flicked down to his mouth and back up, cheeks blushing a little when she realized that she had suddenly transferred those thoughts of princes and kissing onto him. She was curious… what exactly would it be like? Unconsciously she inched closer, the soft smile previously curving her lips now pursing into something a little more intent. But before any further thoughts or actions could transpire in the breath of distance between the pair with heads bent close together, the side door of the school house swung open with loudly protesting hinges.

Charissa popped her head through, and spying them, she trotted out the door and down the steps to join them.

“Oh there you two are! They just started serving food and I noticed you weren’t at our table. It smells so delicious, you don’t want to miss it.” Her words bubbled over, shattering the sustained stillness and any thoughts that Sam had entertained. She snatched her face back from the awkward position, and flushed even brighter beneath Charissa’s fixed gaze that held more than a little knowingness to it. There was a rush of disappointment, relief, and a little resentment towards the intrusion—but there was no way she would allow Charissa to think that she’d upset her. Saamina slid carefully off the fence, brushing a few clinging splinters from the back of the dress and keeping her hold on Gage’s hand.

“Thanks, Charissa, we’ll be right in.” Then she turned her back, as if there was nothing more to be said and tilted her face up to grin at Gage. “I guess we ought’a go in then, can’t miss the food!” she chirped cheerfully. When he slid off the fence to stand beside her, she gently tugged him down a little lower and pressed a chaste kiss agaisnt his cheek, imitating his own affectionate gestures. “It’s ok, Gage…cross my heart,” the childish words were whispered with an echo of their familiar comfort, “Let’s go get some food and then I want ta show you something.” Her face crinkled with secretive mischief.

“I’d like to cook for you.”

The words seemed to spring out of nowhere, and by Gage’s slightly sheepish look, he hadn’t intended to say them. That in itself was unusual enough to perk Saamina’s ears up and have her peering at him intently over her punch glass. The idea of Gage cooking for her was a novel one, and she’d never given much thought to the fact that he must possess some rudimentary knowledge born out of necessity. It wasn’t as if his mum cooked for him, but she’d always assumed they had someone in to prepare meals. Now her brain was busy weaving an image of him stirring pots over the stove while she sat by the counter, watching, teasing him about some amusing little detail. In the idle daydream, she ended up with sauce painted on her nose for the cheeky comment. That brought a grin. But Gage was skimming past the statement with abnormal swiftness, and she let him lead her away from the bustling room once more.

The quiet of the hallway outside the auditorium soon turned into the muted hush of abandoned rooms as they crept up a disused staircase and into the small attic apartment that looked to have been neglected for years. Dust laid thickly everywhere, undisturbed by any footprints or sign of life. Somehow this added a touch of secrecy that was fitting. It was a place Gage was bringing her, somewhere that obviously no one else shared, another of his little retreats. The mangrove cove, and now here…Sam relished it, knowing he trusted her, wanted her in these silent corners of his life. Without thinking, she slid her grip from his arm down to grasp his hand, weaving her fingers through with a warm pressure.

Together they lay on the floor, their bodies leaving unspoken signs in the dust, claiming this as their private territory. This room was marked out by Sam and Gage, no trespassers allowed. Above them, a single square of glass in the ceiling stared sightlessly upwards as a eye to the heavens, a frosting of stars gleaming back.

There was a jewelry shop that occupied a space beside Margot’s, and often times Sam had paused by their displays, admiring the sparkling allure of gems set out in such artistic structure. The sky reminded her of that window, with its glossy gleam of valuable stones. The color of each star reminiscent of the small pearl that Gage had found and given to her. It was safely wrapped in tissue and stored in the top drawer of Brooke’s bureau, beneath the abandoned socks and shirts, along with all of the other treasures she didn’t want her parents to discover. The thought of it drew her attention back to the boy beside her.

Gage’s face was only half lit by the silvery fog of light filtering down through the window, and almost the entire room was swallowed in shadow, leaving it to her imagination. It enclosed them in the only bubble of visibility, as if the rest of the world stopped existing for the moment and it was just those two remaining. Even the music had died away, perhaps all the other students had gone home, the dance over, and the building was empty below them. That was fine by Saamina, she hadn’t come to socialize anyhow. Levering one arm beneath her, she rolled to face Gage, her thin face puckering in thought for a long pause. It was obvious she wanted to say something, but was still reluctant.

“Gage?” her thin voice finally broke the silence. “If…if I ask you somethin'…promise you won’t laugh?”

Close…he was suddenly closer than she’d ever experienced anyone, even on that night spent curled up beside the warm, solidity of his body in the shared bed. Her chest clamped down tightly, and the sudden squeeze felt as if her heart had been smothered into silence and her lungs burned with forgotten impulse to inhale and exhale. All her suddenly stupefied mind could focus on was the hand that cradled her cheek with an infinite gentility, guiding her face upwards. There was a pause, a single second that ticked by and gave her the opportunity to change her mind, to pull away and laugh as though the whole matter was just a joke between friends.

One…

And then before the next second was spent with eyelids fluttered shut, anticipating a touch that was not denied.

He kissed her

What Sam could have imagined or dreamed up in her youthful inexperience would have been far removed from what occurred. Because no one can truly picture a moment that is engraved in pure sensation and drowning in the confusing inability to define. His lips were heat against her own, heat and soft texture that cautiously molded themselves to the contour of her own mouth. His breath mixed with hers for that fraction of time, spilling over their cheeks, and filling lungs that craved its presence. She had just a splinter of consciousness that catalogued how he tasted and the way his cheek was just slightly rough against hers, his fingers drawing firm on her skin as he anchored them together, and the tickle of hair sweeping against her forehead as his wild locks blended with her escaping curls.

And then he was breaking them apart, stealing away from the contact to look at her with eyes that melded worry and desire together.

“All right?"

But if Gage was analytical and measured each experience with a meticulous hand, Sam burned with the energy and impulsivity of a white-hot brand, and she closed that distance between them again without pausing to consider consequences. She’d been given one moment, just a small taste of this, and now she wanted more…a sudden hunger that blossomed in her belly and blocked out every other rational thought until her fingers shook where they crept to find a soft hold on the back of his neck.

Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight
Just a touch of the fire burning so bright

She kissed him then…pushing past all of the sturdy barriers he had erected to hold her at a safe distance, a chaste distance. Saamina slid beneath even Gage’s finest efforts to protect her, and she unashamedly gave him every bit of herself in one instant that sent them crashing through the delicate bubble of their friendship and into the murkier and frightening waters of every other possibility. There wasn’t a scrap that she held back from him, as her mouth spelled out her feelings in actions many times clearer than words could have allowed for. She kissed him until the blood pounded through her temples in a deafening roar, and she leaned back, breathless and stunned by the swift intensity.

When at last she opened her eyes to look up at the silhouetted face, all she could manage was a soft repetition of his name, into which she poured all the implied question that the moment deserved.

“Gage?”

please…please…

Though what her mind was begging him for was a mystery even to herself.

Why should it matter? She was fiercely stubborn in that thought. Why did he care that she was thirteen…it had never seemed to bother him before. Was it that he wanted someone his own age? And that made some version of sense amidst the remaining confusion. Of course Gage would want a girl who was older, more experienced, something closer and more like himself. In that revelation, she began to reflect on just exactly how silly she must have looked, throwing herself into the arms of her friend as if it was the most natural thing in the world that he would willingly explore this with her like some idle romp in the woods or along the cliffs. But kisses aren’t fishes, and she shouldn’t expect him to toss aside everything to grab onto this inexplicable something that she was clinging to.

Gage was wonderful and loyal and protective, he wouldn’t want to hurt her, in fact she was sure that he’d bend over backwards to keep her from getting hurt. Wasn’t that what he was doing now? All of this, maybe she’d just read the passion into it, the mutual desire…maybe what it really had been was Gage’s inability to disappoint his friend. Now, he sat up, disturbing their cocoon of filtered light and muffled sound. It was as if the world had broken in once more, and the drifting music and voices returned to interrupt the quiet.

“I want…this…Saamina. But you need to understand what we’re getting ourselves into.”

What that could mean was out of her grasp, and she rapidly felt like the tide was sweeping in beneath her straining feet and pushing solid ground ever further down beneath the riptide. What did he want…and what was he trying to warn her about? His mouth stroked her own, stoking up the smoldering coals and threatening to set them into a steady blaze once again. Why couldn’t he just see that she didn’t care about ages or parents or anyone else in the little village…she was only thirteen, but who says that is too young to know what you want?

She didn’t know how to answer or beg for what her sinking stomach told her she wouldn’t get. She would have begged if it looked likely to do an ounce of good, but Gage’s jaw was set in a line that Saamina knew well. He was in control again, determined to stay that way and keep her at a cautious distance once again. What was the point in explaining how she felt and what she wanted? So she said nothing. Contenting herself with hiding her face deeply into Gage’s shoulder, and squashing the newly birthed feelings even more deeply back where they had emerged from until she could whisper what he would want to hear.

“It’s ok, Gage. You’re right…this…this is good.” No it wasn’t, it was far from good, but she carried the lie along with a bit of false bravado in her tone. “Maybe we should stop.” And in any other instance Sam would have fought tooth and nail to secure what she wanted so badly, but not against Gage. Not when he deserved to be protected in the same way he was always trying to protect her – no, this time she would learn not to be so stubborn.