Lips
December 17, 2022 • Written by Emma Leone
Junior in Communication Design
My silence had been so comfortable for so long. I now found myself lethargically counting the popcorn on the ceiling of my girlfriend's bedroom choking on it. Beside me on the bed, Ryan’s hand drifts through my hair as if each strand is made of glass. Her other arm clicks at my waist while her head seeks comfort in the crook of my neck. Lazy, stuffy breaths itch on the back of my neck.
She turns to kiss my lips, interrupting my count. She yearns for oxygen that I keep in my lungs. It's as if she needs it to survive. The alarm clock on her bedside table ticks insistently. I count the ticks. The silence has been too loud for a while now. But I don't mind loud noises. And I'm not someone who breaks hearts. Her lips pull away from mine after forty three excruciating seconds.
“You know June-bug,” Ryan's words hanging gently in the air, “I love you,” a pause to kiss my lips, “so much”.
The sweetness which lingers on my lips becomes sour. I don't feel like saying it back. I feel sick. I look to the corner of the room, focusing on the mound of clothes accumulated on the floor. I know they are clean, yet Ryan always managed to leave the nice folds I prepare in disarray. Somewhere in that pile was the new jersey that I’d be taking to Brazil in two months. God, wouldn’t you just put your laundry in the goddamn dresser?
“I replay the day we met in my head, imagine if you actually switched rooms.”
The two of us had a rough beginning. Ryan likes to say we met on a college tour a year prior, saying it was love at first sight. I don’t remember seeing her. I met Ryan moving into the dorms, I quickly found out that Ryan is everything I'm not. Loud, abrasive, and funny. And a total slob. Our room was a mess before I started to move my stuff in. She talked to me the whole time too, telling me she was from Vermont. Not that you couldn't tell. She stuck out like a sore thumb, her hair was dyed black, shaved on the sides and had multiple piercings in her nose. I can't lie, she did look absolutely badass. Her wardrobe was full of black garments, directly contrasting the amount of white I owned. After move-in my parents made it apparent that they did not approve of my roommate over lunch. Mom was worried Ryan was gay and that I would be exposed to homosexual tenancies. She was right about both things. I requested a room switch the same day which was quickly turned down. When Ryan found out I had tried to request to switching rooms, she blew up and stormed out of the room. We spent that weekend avoiding each others glares. We didn’t even talk to each other until Monday.
Monday was when we met again at soccer practice. We managed to make up by making out in the locker rooms. I certainly don’t hate Ryan anymore, even now.
“June, it’s everything about you that I love,” Ryan's hand moves from behind my ear to caress my face, “Your cheeks, how red they get when I kiss you.”
It’s just because it’s so freakin’ hot in here. Ryan moved to kiss each of my cheeks, her hands now cupping my face, turning my face back to look at her.
“How shy you get,” Ryan said, “being affectionate.”
My heart aches, an unsettling amount of guilt starts to build up. Ryan’s hands continue down the curvature of my body, stopping to grope through my old University of Texas soccer jersey, her head moving down into the cradle of my neck. My body moves involuntarily as Ryan bites down on a soft spot on my neck. The heat of it all makes my stomach churn. Ryan pulls up on my shirt, kissing every moment on my body. The collarbones, my nipples, those three moles that look like Orion's Belt on my stomach. Somewhere along the way, tears fall down my face, covering the places that Ryan's hands left burning. Her nails teasingly scrape my stomach, making my hips uncomfortably shift.
“Tell me you love me,” my breath hitches, “Look me in my eyes.”
I look at her, and it the shame that vomits up, “I think we should break up.”
A quiet that could span lifetimes fills the room like a helium balloon waiting to burst. Ryan doesn't utter a word. Her face contorts, her lips hanging open, then shut again, to morph into an emotion I can't make out, and then repeating. If the silence was suffocating before, it was even more unpleasant now.
My mind races to find something to say. Words rattle around in my brain like a bingo machine. I feel like all I can do now is wait patiently for bingo.
“Why?”
“Ryan I'm sorry, I just need a moment to think-”
Ryan sighed, shifting back to the space on the bed next to me, “Actually. I don’t want to hear it. You are going to tell me it’s because you are moving to Brazil in a month. You are going to say I can’t do long distance, you are going to tell me how much better you are for getting immediately recruited after college. You never bother to ask me how I feel, June. How I feel about you moving, how I feel about you going to Brazil.” Tears were falling down her face, her voice raising at each sentence, “You know I would move down there in a heartbeat. For all I care I'd quit soccer to be able to see you living out your dream”
“It’s not-”
Ryan shook her head, for once in her life being quiet. She kicks her feet off the bed and stomps to the door. Ryan stands in the doorway for a moment. I reach to say something but she's out the door before I get the chance. I can hear the front door swing open with a loud slam on her way out. She probably forgot her keys and in 10 minutes I’m going to have to let her back in. There is no reason to chase her, she will be back. And as for me, I'm laying in the first comfortable silence I had experienced in ages.
