No Expectations

We ran across the gravel and into the graveyard, leaping over the rounded headstones in a wild dash to the corner by the woods. Lindsey, drunk and high, stumbled into the briars that shielded the trees from knife-bearing engravers like us.

After we settled into a circle, Adam unrolled the flimsy cigarette wrapper and took out the joint. Legs tucked under him, balanced on one hip, he dug the lighter out of his pocket. The smoke popped and snapped as he inhaled. A spark disappeared above him. I took a big hit and laid my head in the middle of the circle.

There she was, peeping out from behind the black clouds like a dancer's knees beneath her skirt. My eyelids fell. The cicadas were climbing out. I lay there, my body too alive to move, listening to their spiked legs rake against the bark at the base of the tree.

A hand palmed my belly. My ribs rose in staccato under the perspired warmth. "What do you think?" Jenny asked, her black hair shining white under the moon. "Mmm, about what?" I mumbled. "Driving to the club. Do you want to go or not?"

"I'm cool. Just pick me up later, okay?"

"Whatever you want, chicky. Come on boys. She's staying."

Feet shuffled. Mike Ness's croon faded away with the old chipped blue escort. Belly still warm from her touch, I thought about Jenny's room with the little pink flowered wallpaper, the vase of dead roses and moldy water sitting on her desk for at least the three years I'd known her. She was so naive, wanting to be what she wasn't….rich and thick, hurt and injured. She had a good life, a good family but wanted to come from destruction.

"Taste?" Adam asked, extending the bottle.

"I can't move," I grinned.

"Open up." He poured it into my mouth, a warm trickle ran down my neck. I tried not to gag from laughing, letting it slowly fill my mouth before swallowing the two shots.

"Why didn't you go with them?" I asked. He pushed me over to my belly, lying down next to me.

"Why didn't you?" Blade of grass between his thumbs, whistling at the night creatures.

"Didn't need to," I plucked the spear of grass from his fingers and gave it a toss.

"Me neither."

That closeness with no expectations. There isn't a word to describe it. The occasional innocent brush of skin on skin that we fear, hide from as adults but crave as teenagers. Locking eyes and not turning away. Heart pounding in your head knowing you won't dare move and ruin the moment. It isn't sex. It isn't love. It's intimacy. It's coming as close as you can to another living being with no expectations.