“Like I’m Gonna Lose You” Jasmine Thompson
I will the feeling of holding Camilla’s warm hand as we walk across the snow toward Trigg’s into my brain. I have approximately twelve hours left with her and it feels like each step is dragging me toward death, not just another Saturday. If I can remember the way her skin feels, I’ll make it. If I can remember the simple moments like this, where I glimpsed a life with her by my side, there’s a sliver of hope.
The roar of Trigg, Cass, Mike, Janie, Jimmy, and the rest of the gang when we walk in is almost enough to drown out my thoughts. Almost. There is no way this is their first or even second round.
“This one’s mine,” Mike growls as he grabs Camilla’s arm.
The utter fury that erupts inside me almost pours as smoke out of my ears.
“It’s okay, Jay,” Trigg says quietly as she puts her hand on my arm. “Be on my team. Make eyes at each other over the table.”
“She’s mine,” I don’t mean to growl through gritted teeth but I do.
Trigg shoots me a rather appropriate look considering.
“She’s all of ours. You’re the only one that gets to keep her.” She arches her eyebrow and pulls me toward the end of the table.
“I don’t get to keep her.”
Trigg’s face falls and her eyes dart from me to Camilla and back again. When she stops a second time to study Camilla, she sees what I do, that sullen silence hugging onto every inch of her.
“You’re kidding me?” She can barely get the words out with Mike harassing us to play.
“I can’t ask her to give up her little empire in Seattle and she won’t ask me to come with her,” I say as my heart sinks further.
“So don’t fucking ask.” Trigg’s as serious as I’ve ever seen her.
“That’s how I’ll finally lose her. Pushing her. She’d let the guilt of taking me away eat her and her happiness alive.”
Trigg is still facing me, the horror of my truths written plain on her face, when a ping pong ball lands in a red Solo cup with a splash. I don’t break her eye contact as I reach for the glass and chug. She wordlessly turns, grabs Camilla’s bourbon and refills my cup. For that, I manage a small, lifeless smile.
It slides down so easy like my hands or lips across Camilla’s skin. And it tastes like her, filling up my senses not only with wood and smoke and vanilla and cherry but also the bitter burn of loving her. Just like Thirteen, she warms my insides, melts the tension roving through my body, and after too much of Camilla, I actually get dizzy.
She watches me from her spot at Mike’s side. My temper flares a little when I can’t reach out and hold her, but seeing her bend over to toss her ping pong ball toward the cups helps. Her dark, wavy ponytail dipping into the generous swell of her tits peeking out from the V of her shirt does too. Her shy smile tugs on the corner of her lips and it splits wide when she misses, complete with a pouty stomp.
Maybe watching her isn’t so bad.
And when we’re good and sauced from too many rounds of beer pong and shots of Thirteen, watching her becomes a blissful moment of quiet in the roaring crowd of high school friends. Everything fades away beside the way Camilla teeters on her high heels or talks a little too animatedly with her hands or sometimes teeters because she’s making those wild gestures.
When she turns toward me, when she watches me in return, my world blurs. For a minute, it’s just us. It’s going to only ever be us. But then she looks away and reality filters in. I can’t decide if I’m grateful or pained by each small smile she flashes.
“It can’t end this way,” Trigg says a little too roughly as she sidles up to me.
“This isn’t a Hallmark movie, Trigg.” I smile despite the weight pummeling my chest. “So it can. Tomorrow it will.”
I can’t keep talking about it. I can’t keep away from her any longer either. I have enough B reel in my mind to replay during the long winter months in Willow Creek and, inevitably, my life. Her touch will chase that frost away, if only for a few more hours.
“Hi,” I whisper in her ear only for her to wordlessly melt back into my body. “Think it can be my turn? Or maybe I can grab you a drink this time around?” I can feel my words skate across the nape of her neck almost as well as her answering purr.
“Bourbon,” she says. “And pool.”
I’m a slave to both of those requests, grabbing a bottle then her waist as I pull her into the other room where Trigg’s pool table sits.
Cam grabs a cue and rolls it on the table to check that it’s straight then bends to collect the colorful balls from their pockets. My hand skates along her spine as she does, my fingers completely enrapt. After she’s set up the table, she brings me a cue, nestling between my knees as she hands it over. I can barely breathe as I trade her for bourbon.
“Can you really play?” I manage.
She bites her plump crimson lip and something both mischievous and shy dances behind her eyes.
“I always could.”
Her cheeks flush as my heart gets obliterated by the answer. I snap my cue up behind her and use it to pull her closer to me, taking her lips as soon as she wobbles into me. A throat clears behind us, someone else whistles and the murmurs break loose but I can’t bring myself to care. They can watch us kiss if for no other reason than later, they’ll know how hard I’ve fallen and maybe they’ll help lift me up. They can watch as I nibble on her lips and trace the seam of her mouth with my tongue. They can watch as she gasps and lets me in, her body giving up the last whisper-thin space between us.
The catcalls finally pull us apart. Well, Camilla shrinking away from the attention and into the crook of my neck does. Her skin’s on fire and I know it’s not just the kiss. It makes the tiny mark left by her lips when she presses them to my throat in front of everyone all the more endearing.
She’s still a dark shade of scarlet as she turns from me and back toward the table. I let my hand roll down her spine, hoping to ease the flame in her cheeks. The splotches on the back of her neck don’t fade but she bends over the table all the same.
Part of me wants to watch her again, see her bent gracefully over the table, running pool balls left and right, but my eyes have feasted tonight. My body’s still starving.
I set my pool cue aside and follow her, pressing my body to hers and reaching my arms down to clasp her hands. She doesn’t flinch at my touch. Matter of fact, I fool myself into thinking that she breathes out a sigh of relief when my body lays against hers. I hope she doesn’t feel my heart break when we break the pool balls together, but I can’t help thinking I’ve felt hers shatter.