We lay on the cushy surface, making out, touching, dry humping.
He and I shared French class together. Despite my mother being bilingual, it was always my worst subject. She didn’t speak French with me as a child, which I mildly resent, and I struggled, languages never a strong suit. So, it was a delight to have a reason to escape, especially when a covert operation was taking place. He’d sit behind me and pass me a note.
Meet me at the boys’ bathroom
Raising his hand, the teacher nodded.
“Est-ce que je peux aller aux toilettes?”
“Oui.”
My lover rose and left the room. I let some time pass and then stuck my arm up.
“Est-ce que je peux aller aux toilettes?”
“Oui.”
I left the room and took a right down the deserted hallway. He stood outside les toilettes with an endearing confidence that couldn’t quite conceal his nerves. The bathroom was vacant, soundless. We crept in, whispering, and sped into a stall, looking at each other with mischievous smirks. Lips smacking, he put this hand on my breasts, my nipples grew hard. Fussing with his pants, he zipped open the fly, and pulled his cock out, perky and firm. He spit on his hand to moisten his dick, stroking it until my hand replaced his.
“Will you suck it?” he asked, his eyes begging for it.
I got on my knees. Holding his penis, I lined it up with my mouth, opening wide, inviting it in.
Our extracurricular activities were typically focused on his pleasure.
A staggered return to class, him first, me second.
I wanted to be in Nikki’s friend circle, but I wasn’t, not quite yet.
My French class escapades started to taper off. The thrill faded, sensation not outweighing risk. And you can’t be going to the bathroom the same time every class or le professeur will catch on. Dry humping in the soccer room also lost its appeal—I had grown bored and numb. Why couldn’t I feel more? I wondered at the time. The salivating that surrounded me, the urges, the boys, the girls … were others pretending, too?
Nikki and I were becoming more and more comfortable with each other. Transitioning from acquaintances to companions, an equal desire for closeness. My crush deepened. If she sat close, I’d wonder, was that on purpose? When she laughed and squeezed my upper arm, I’d think, maybe I should laugh and touch her back? I would giggle and quickly touch her shoulder. It felt like a new form of communication, disguised Morse code. I could not say the words outright, so my body searched for a way to transcribe them.
On Nikki’s eighteenth birthday, I biked across the city, heart thundering, to bring her a card. The front had an illustration of two women communicating something suggestive, lesbian innuendo. I wish I could remember what it was. I purchased it at Biscuit General Store downtown, one of the first, if not the first, hipstery clothing spots in the city. We loved that place.
Could I say what my intention was? I don’t know. It all felt mindless, it was just happening. When I bought the card, when I wrote in the card, when I sped across the city to deliver it to her with a gift. I had texted her on my thick Nokia cell phone to let her know I was on the way. Pumping my thighs, propelling forward, that vibration again. I couldn’t get there fast enough.
I tracked her down and handed it to her. She held the white envelope with two hands, staring down. Sweat dripped between the middle of my breasts. Nikki opened it, laughed at the card, and then I handed her Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, one of my favorite books.
She hugged me, thanked me for the gift, and went back to her day. The instant I left I was mortified. A feeling reminiscent of when at sixteen I fell in love with a woman in her thirties I’d met on a film. I made her a mix CD and dropped it in the lobby of the Drake—a chic hotel in Toronto. After the fifteen-minute walk, when I returned to the silence of my small yellow room, I turned to pieces. What the fuck did I just do? I flew downstairs, raced the laces, and took off. Raining now, I sprinted, fraught with humiliation. No no no no. Out of breath I pushed on. Okay, run in, get the CD back and no one will be the wiser.
I waited impatiently behind someone checking in. Come on, come on.
“Hi, I just dropped something off for someone, but I need to get it back…”
“Oh, she actually just got back and took it up with her,” a clerk with a cool haircut at the desk responded.
She was probably listening to “Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl” right now, finding it adorable that I had a crush. I may as well have shat blood. My heart itself passing through, straight into the toilet.
“Thank you for the music, I really like it,” she said the next time I saw her. Staring down with an endearing smile, an invisible pat on the head, as if to say—how cute.
I hoped, without much faith, that this time would be different.
Nikki and I skirted around our chemistry, hovering and ducking. We’d hang out constantly, it felt romantic at times. I was nearly certain it was not just me, but maybe it was, maybe I was the only queer.
I remember sitting together in her mother’s beige Toyota Camry at Dingle Park, not wanting to drive home just yet. The sun was setting, just about to disappear for the night. We sat in the quiet, staring out at the Arm. I thought we might kiss. Eventually, the sun winked from the tip of the horizon, saying its final goodbyes. I smiled at her, she smiled back. I remember how beautiful she looked. I could hear my heart and hoped she couldn’t also. A few beats went by and we both exhaled, circumventing once more, we turned our heads to face forward. We waited in the car until the night took hold.
Moments like these hid in our friendship, tucked away, unnamed. Another time we were huddled in a small tree house in her backyard. The classic kind, just wood, a small trapdoor. Nikki’s dad had made it for her. He had died when she was eight.
We smoked a joint, getting lost in conversation as the crickets joined in. The house was dark, except for the living room, the light radiated out. Inside, her mother watched television, distracted by the flickering glow. Our faces were close, Nikki looked right at me and I looked right back. Time stopped, the corners of our mouths offering the tiniest beginnings of a grin. We did not move.
Lean in, I thought. You just need to lean in.
I didn’t, neither did she, and the moment passed. We climbed down from the tree.
So many times where all I had to do was lean in, lean in to her and to myself, but I couldn’t. And eventually, I lost my chance. One evening, we lay on her bed talking. Her arm was around me, allowing me to nestle into her, the closest we’d ever been. I glanced up, a new angle. Her neck stretched as she looked to the ceiling, her chin pointed proudly. Nikki’s eyes moved downward, her head following behind, a new angle for her, too. Her lips, pink and full. I wanted them on my mouth.
“Nikki?” The door opened.
Immediately disconnecting, we created space in between. This was useless, we had already been caught.
Slowly, we began to drift apart.
The lead of the school musical asked Nikki to prom shortly after. He was tall, handsome, popular, friends with everyone, the kind of person who can move their way in and out of various groups and cliques without having to mutate. Talented, smart, funny … desirable.
Nikki said yes. The moment I found out, I felt my heart split. Earlier in the year she and I made casual remarks about going together, a hidden moment that evaporated like the rest. Yet some small part of me believed we would. I wanted to yell, to say go with me, to say I love you, but nothing came out. The image of someone else’s lips on hers stirred a new sensation. Pumped by the heart, jealousy revealed itself, cycling through my body.
Nikki and I did not completely lose touch. Years later, she told me she had felt the same.
I resent that we were cheated out of our love, that beautiful surge in the heart stolen from us. I am furious at the seeds planted without our consent, the voices and the actions that made our roads to the truth unnecessarily brutal.
She still has the copy of Siddhartha I gave her, with the inscription inside:
NIKKI—
I am not always great with words in regards to expressing feelings and sharing my thoughts. As you turn 18 I just wanted to let you know that I really do think you are amazing. I have an immense amount of love and respect for you. Please be kind to yourself and know that no matter what you wish to talk about or to not talk about, I am here. I hope you enjoy this book. It has played an important role in my life and I hope it touches your heart as it did mine. I don’t know many people like you. So giving, so kind and so hilarious. I wish you all the peace and love in the world, you deserve so much.
Ellen xo
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