On the Outside

by Siera Maley

My argument died in my throat and I swallowed hard as Riley seemed to lose her train of thought. She watched her own fingers as they slid along my jawline, but she didn’t pull away. Her hand froze by my mouth, and she hesitated briefly. Then she reached out with her thumb and ran it slowly, gently, along my bottom lip. I stared back at her, struggling to breathe correctly, until, at last, her eyes flicked up from my lips to meet my gaze. Her thumb drifted back across my bottom lip again. I made a strange noise in my throat and knocked her hand away, then leaned in to close the small gap between us.

  Riley tangled her fingers in my hair and pressed herself closer to me, parting her lips slightly to kiss me back, and I forgot what my hands were supposed to do, too caught up in the feeling of Riley’s lips and my own thundering heartbeat. I felt more light-headed than I was ready for. Kissing Riley was not like kissing anyone else, not even Josh. If kissing the last boy before Josh had been the kindergarten of kisses, then Josh was around late middle school and this was Graduation Day, complete with celebratory fireworks.

  At some point, we took a very brief break to rest our foreheads together, and I used the opportunity to lift my fifty-pound arms and rest them on her shoulders, hooking my hands behind her head. She moved her hands to my hips and initiated the kiss this time, much more slowly and with just the slightest tilt of her head, and I lost track of time, certain I’d be content to just kiss Riley until we died from dehydration, starvation, or lack of sleep. I couldn’t recall which would come sooner.

  She pulled away from me first, a little out of breath, and rubbed her nose back and forth against mine affectionately. I kept my eyes closed as she pressed her forehead to mine again and murmured a quiet, “Hey.”

  I had to swallow a few times before I found my voice. “Hey.”

  She chuckled quietly and tilted her head up to kiss me again, just for a second this time. “That was really nice,” she breathed out at last, once she’d pulled away. Her hands left my hips and she wrapped her arms around me, urging me closer until I could feel the warmth of her body against mine.

  I let out a breath, mind still buzzing. I didn’t know what to say, but then I remembered I’d been the one to kiss her first, and so I mumbled a quiet, “Whoops.”

  Riley dissolved into giggles and buried her face in my neck, and I found a dopey smile spreading across my lips despite myself. Riley didn’t giggle. Ever. Not since we were kids.

  I shrugged my shoulder in a silent message for her to sit up, and she did, leaning away from me so I could get a good look at her. Her lips were swollen and I stared as they formed a gentle smile. Her eyes were practically twinkling when I looked into them.

  “You’re really very pretty,” I told her, flushing, and then pulled her closer again.

  “You too,” she mumbled, cupping my face in her hands and kissing me again for a moment. Then, breathless once again, she added a gentle, “Okay,” and leaned away from me to look into my eyes. I had to blink a few times to bring myself back down to earth. “What do you think we should we do?” she asked me, licking at her lips, and we stared at each other for several seconds.

  She cracked first, biting at her lip to try to keep from smiling, and I laughed openly at her, then felt awful for it and raised a hand to cover my mouth.

  “Okay, yes, that was a dumb question,” she admitted, pulling my hand away from my mouth. “But seriously. What’s next?”

  “I don’t know,” I complained, running a hand through my hair. “Can’t we just… make out for a few more hours?”

  “If we lacked consciences, we could make out every day for the rest of our lives. But we’re only awful people, as opposed to downright evil ones.”

  “He’s gonna kill us,” I realized, my heart dropping into my stomach. “He’ll never forgive us.”

  “Maybe you’re underestimating him,” Riley offered, sliding her fingers through the spaces between mine and resting our joined hands on her lap. “Maybe he just needs time.”

  “So we just sneak around?” I asked. “That’s worse than the plan we had before.”

  “We didn’t have a plan.”

  “We sort of did,” I insisted. “Our plan was to choose between dating openly or waiting for him to get over you. Now apparently our choices are to date openly or to date in secret.”

  “I do kind of prefer the second set of choices,” Riley admitted, though she looked guilty as she said it. “But that’s completely selfish and I know it.”

  “We aren’t thinking clearly,” I told her. “This is literally the worst time to make a decision.”

  “I know,” Riley sighed.

  “You didn’t cheat,” I pointed out. “We waited. We did the right thing.”

  “Then why doesn’t it feel like it?” she mumbled. “I mean… it feels right, of course, but it feels wrong, too.”

  “Because we don’t have his permission.”

  “We shouldn’t have to ask. I don’t think we have to ask,” said Riley, but she looked dubious. “Right?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But maybe we’d feel better if we did.”

  “And until we get the courage to do that?” she asked me.

  I bit my lip and stared down at hers. They were so swollen. I wanted to kiss them again. “I am definitely not responsible enough to make that decision.”

  She scoffed. “Well, neither am I.”

  “We could be logical,” I suggested, and then glared when she looked like she wanted to laugh at me. “Seriously. Say we’re telling Evan about us, and we’re asking if it’s okay, and he’s really furious and totally hates us and isn’t okay with it. Does it make a difference if we made out once and then held off for a little while, as opposed to having been hooking up the whole time?”

  “If he’s gonna totally hate us, then probably not.”

  “What if he’s a little hurt but is considering trying to accept it?” I offered. “Does it make a difference then?”

  “…No?” Riley guessed. I arched an eyebrow at her and she mumbled, “Yeah, maybe.”

  “So… we hold off, then,” I declared half-heartedly. “And so when we tell him, we can just say we had a thing at one sleepover. And…” I trailed off and then realized, “And if we word it that way, the whole sleepover’s kind of already covered, right?”

  “Totally.” Riley nodded emphatically. “We already screwed up tonight. This whole night could be, like, one big encounter. We could just… not mention how long we kissed for.”

  “Mhmm.” I hesitated, staring at her lips again and swallowing hard. “And how long would we be waiting for after this?”

  “A couple weeks?” Riley guessed, and then grimaced. “…A month?” She paused again. “Two months, max?”

  “Better get it all out tonight, then,” I decided, and Riley was already nodding furiously and tugging me forward by my shirt as I leaned back in to press my lips to hers.

  Chapter Ten

  Vanessa slid into the desk next to me in third period English Lit on our first day back at school, her skin a shade darker than it’d been when she’d left for France.

  “Hey!” she greeted me, smiling widely.

  “Oh my God. Europe was good to you,” I told her. “Your tan looks great!”

  “It’s full-body,” she whispered to me with a smirk. “My uncle has a fenced-in backyard, so every time I was home alone I took advantage. You should see how dark my ass is.”

  “Did you meet any cute boys?” I asked her.

  “Hell yes. It’s France; of course I did. None I’m keeping in touch with now, but I definitely had an eventful summer.” She shot me a curious look. “How about you? I’m sorry I had to leave you here; I bet it was hell with your friends hooking up the whole time.”

  “It actually wasn’t all that bad,” I told her. “And they broke up.”

  “Oh? Well, good. I just hope they’re over it, because you do not need their drama on your mind while we’re trying to get a squad together this year. I’m excited. You know we�
�re shoo-ins for co-captains, and I hear Danny Romano is going to be our new quarterback this year.” She sat up straighter but kept her voice down as she told me, “You and I are both newly single, and it’s our senior year, so I propose we land dates with as many senior members of the football and basketball teams as we can this year. Starting with Danny.”

  “Uh,” I began and laughed a little when she raised an eyebrow at me, “I think I’ll leave that to you. I’ve had enough jocks to last a lifetime.”

  “But the whole point is to make Josh jealous. He might meet girls in California, and you want him to remember what he lost, don’t you?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Not really. I’ve kind of moved on.”

  “With who?” she pressed immediately, and I laughed again.

  “What’s with the third degree? Who says there has to be someone else?”

  “Because everyone knows how the saying goes: the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. I know you didn’t just sit back and spend your summer alone while your friends were all over each other.”

  “I spent some time with my sister when they got bad, but I actually hung out with them for most of it,” I told her. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. And, for the record, I never had sex with Josh, so throwing myself into bed with someone I hardly knew wasn’t exactly Plan A when I wanted to try and get over him.”

  “If you say so. I’ve found it’s the best approach.” Vanessa shrugged her shoulders and leaned down to retrieve a tube of lip gloss and a small mirror from her purse. “I hear our teacher’s cute,” she told me.

  “Cool.” I didn’t know what more she expected me to say.

  “So if there’s no one,” she suggested, “then you can help me with Danny.”

  “How?” I asked, apprehensive. I didn’t want to tell her that technically there was someone, because then she wouldn’t rest until she got it out of me. But I didn’t want to accidentally find myself roped into some ridiculous date plan, like I was certain I was about to be.

  “He’s going to ask me out, and when he does, I want to suggest a double.” And there it was: a ridiculous date plan. “So I need you to come with us.”

  “What if I don’t like the guy?”

  “You don’t have to. You just have to play wingwoman. Make sure things go well for me and Danny. Then I’ll handle the next one alone, and you never have to go out with your guy again if you don’t want to. Plus, you get a fun night and a dinner out of it.” She closed her mirror and put it away, along with the tube of lip gloss, and then shot me a smile. “Sound good?”

  “I guess,” I agreed half-heartedly. I wasn’t sure how to get out of it without either upsetting Vanessa or telling her the truth. There was also a good chance that telling her the truth would upset her anyway. She probably didn’t hate gay people, but that didn’t mean she’d be celebrating the fact that I was interested in another girl, especially given that it was Riley. It was already shocking enough that she didn’t judge me just for being friends with Riley and Evan.

  I turned away from her and licked my lips, my mind wandering back to Friday night. Even just thinking about it gave me goosebumps. In retrospect, I was stunned we’d had enough self-control to stop at making out.

  I daydreamed throughout the rest of the period and then parted ways with Vanessa to go join Evan and Riley at lunch. I found Evan first, and we grabbed a table and claimed three chairs at it once we’d gotten our food.

  At first, I didn’t see Riley, but then Evan pointed her out and announced, “Hey, there she is. With one of her guy friends or whatever.”

  Dylan, Brett, whoever, was standing by one of the lunch lines, and he and Riley were talking with trays in their hands, both of them all smiles. He said something, and Riley laughed so hard she nearly dropped her tray.

  If I hadn’t known what I knew about Riley, I might’ve even been jealous, and so it didn’t surprise me when Evan let out a quiet huff and began to scarf down the spaghetti on his tray, shaking his head all the while.

  “You okay?” I asked him as he chewed.

  “I guess,” he replied through a mouthful of noodles, and I waited for him to swallow before he continued, “It’s always that same guy, though, you know? The other one isn’t all over her like he is.”

  “Maybe he has a crush,” I conceded. “Would that be so bad? Someone else liking her?”

  “He could show a little respect,” Evan retorted. “She just got out of a relationship. Moving in the second she’s single is a dick move.”

  I looked down at my tray and picked up my fork, then nudged at one of the meatballs on top of my own spaghetti. I suddenly wasn’t very hungry. “How long should he wait, then?” I asked him, trying to sound casual.

  Evan shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s not, like, an official rule. It just seems too soon.”

  “You still like her,” I guessed. There was no way he’d gotten over a several-years-long crush in just a couple of weeks.

  “I mean, I know it’s over. I’m not gonna act like I have a right to tell her who she can and can’t date. But it’d still hurt to see her with someone else, and I wouldn’t exactly be a fan of the new guy, you know?”

  “Makes sense,” I agreed, still prodding at my food. “But maybe you’ll feel better in… I don’t know, another month?”

  “Maybe,” he said, but he shrugged again.

  Riley left her friend and joined us at our table, and we shared a brief smile before I had to look away for fear I’d start blushing if I didn’t. I knew exactly what we were both thinking about.

  “Who was that?” Evan asked her, unknowingly interrupting our moment.

  “Hmm?” Riley looked confused, and then glanced over her shoulder. “Oh. You know my friend. His name’s-“

  “No, I know who he is, but he seems into you.” Evan had a hard time hiding the frustration in his tone, and Riley frowned, her eyebrows furrowing.

  “Oh. Well, I don’t think he is. We’re just friends.”

  “You can date him if you want. I wouldn’t care,” Evan told her flippantly. He looked down at his tray, and Riley shot me a look, clearly searching for confirmation. I widened my eyes in warning and shook my head hastily.

  “I’m really not interested,” she said to Evan, after I was sure she’d gotten my message loud and clear. “You and I just broke up, anyway, so even if I was, I wouldn’t start dating him.”

  “So you are into him, then. You don’t have to act like it’s hypothetical.”

  “I’m not,” Riley insisted. “We’re just friends.”

  “Whatever.”

  We ate in silence for a few moments and, as if it wasn’t already unbearably awkward, I temporarily lost all sense of social awareness and blurted out, “So Vanessa wants me to go on a double date with her or something.”

  “What?” Riley asked me, her jaw dropping and her eyes widening.

  “I was just trying to make conversation,” I squeaked out.

  “You should go,” Evan encouraged me, oblivious to Riley’s venomous look across the table. “It’s about time you got to go out with someone. Do you know who she’s trying to set you up with?”

  “No idea yet,” I muttered, avoiding Riley’s eyes. “I guess we’ll see.”

  ***

  “What are you doing?”

  Riley cornered me after lunch in our shared Art class, looking more hurt than angry. I led her to one of the tables and we sat down together, talking in hushed whispers as other students began to file into the room.

  “It’s just something she mentioned to me today. It might not even happen,” I insisted, backpedaling. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “If she goes through with it, you have to find a way to get out of it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Just… say you don’t feel well the night of the date.”

  “She’ll just reschedule.”

  “Then tell her you’re not interested.”

  �
��Tried that one already. She says I don’t have to be,” I sighed. “I’m telling you, it wouldn’t mean anything.”

  “So I should go out with Dylan, then?” she asked.

  “Wait, that guy from lunch asked you out?” I replied, stiffening.

  “No, that was Brett. Dylan asked me out on Sunday. I turned him down.”

  “You did?” I asked quietly, unable to hold back a small smile. “Really?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself; I’m not attracted to guys,” she countered, but when she looked away I could see her trying not to smile herself.

  I nudged her to get her attention again, then leaned in to whisper in her ear, “If I have to go out with Vanessa, I’ll make it up to you.”

  “How?” she whispered back. “In case you haven’t noticed, we have a friend who was seeing red a few minutes ago over me talking to another guy he doesn’t even know and who I’m not even interested in. He knows you – he trusts you – and I’m very much interested in you. You think he was angry at lunch today? Something tells me we haven’t even scratched the surface.”

  “He’d never blow up on us,” I told her. “He’d probably just shout a little. Or even worse, he’d cry.”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to it,” she mumbled. “I just feel so helpless. Like, all we can do is wait it out.”

  “Maybe not. We could help him move on,” I suggested. “Try to help him heal and stuff.”

  She perked up and looked at me like I’d just told her I’d gotten a perfect score on my SATs. “Oh my God. Why didn’t we think of that? That’s genius!” She looked around at the other students in our classroom. “We can set him up on a date!”

  “I don’t know if that’s exactly what I was thinking,” I said, but it was clear she wasn’t listening to me.

  “There’s a cute girl in our English class. She asked him for a sheet of paper today, you know. Who doesn’t bring paper on the first day of school? I bet she just wanted to talk to him.”

  “Or she didn’t think she’d have to write anything down today,” I proposed, but that went unanswered.