Fingertips
Fingertips.
That’s all it was: his fingertips touching mine.
But it was in the dark, and it was secret, and it froze my entire body with shock at my incredible luck. It iced my stomach, chopped up my breath, and when I worked up the courage to turn to him breathlessly for just one second, it was enough to make me pray right then and there.
O God, I thought. I, who don’t pray for little things. O God, I know I’ll get old and I know I’ll forget a million things. Don’t ever, ever let this be one of them. Don’t ever let me forget the way he is looking at me right now.
It would not have meant so much if it were not for the two years spent longing for the man attached to those perfect fingertips. Two years spent swimming in an intense teenage crush that kills your appetite, fills entire notebooks with hopeless poems, and makes you buy strange sweaters on the off chance that you will suddenly become astonishingly attractive.
And the answer to it all is this one young man, except he seems to sense all this and he wisely avoids it, like a deer and human urine. He keeps a wide berth. He maintains a very careful distance at all times.
Except, for some reason, this one night.
And his fingertips and my fingertips, were touching. Secretly. In the dark.
That’s all it was: his fingertips touching mine.
But it was in the dark, and it was secret, and it froze my entire body with shock at my incredible luck. It iced my stomach, chopped up my breath, and when I worked up the courage to turn to him breathlessly for just one second, it was enough to make me pray right then and there.
O God, I thought. I, who don’t pray for little things. O God, I know I’ll get old and I know I’ll forget a million things. Don’t ever, ever let this be one of them. Don’t ever let me forget the way he is looking at me right now.
It would not have meant so much if it were not for the two years spent longing for the man attached to those perfect fingertips. Two years spent swimming in an intense teenage crush that kills your appetite, fills entire notebooks with hopeless poems, and makes you buy strange sweaters on the off chance that you will suddenly become astonishingly attractive.
And the answer to it all is this one young man, except he seems to sense all this and he wisely avoids it, like a deer and human urine. He keeps a wide berth. He maintains a very careful distance at all times.
Except, for some reason, this one night.
And his fingertips and my fingertips, were touching. Secretly. In the dark.
posted by Cupcake at 2:46 PM
2 Comments:
level of interest: 7
Once again, we have a seeming moment of romance which will inevitably lead to disappointment/dispair/teenage suicide. Reading about her getting what she wants for the moment is more painful than if he had just ignored her forever.
On the flip side, it feels like you took a little longer communicating the desire/desperation she has than you needed to. If it got to the tocuh a little faster, I think it would be a lot more powerful.
Post a Comment
<< Home