Four Times Our Lips Almost Met
And The One Time They Spoke
(Another Five Things Fic.)
v. Juliet Would Not Be Swayed By The Moon. And I Will Not Be Taken Without It.
Three days before he's due to leave, he takes to wandering around the city. He catalogs the buildings and the memories, he stays at the corner and watches his ghost pick up a baseball and grin at the world around him.
He tries to keep still in his mind the exact look of Gerald Field and the smell of the city after the sun has set.
"Football head." The voice is just shy of sadness. He feels his heart button up. He remembers the color of her eyes, without even turning to look.
"Hey."
She nods and stands beside him. "Remember…" She starts but it fades out to air as thin as smoke.
"I will." Everything, he thinks.
"Good luck." When he does turn, her eyes are wet and he can see the moon perfectly reflected in them.
You'll be fine is on the tip of his tongue, but he wants to say, I'll miss you. I think maybe I love you. He thinks about taking hold of her hand or running his finger across her cheek. He thinks, quietly about a kiss, her wet lips and sad eyes, to remember a play or saved neighborhood by. She'd keep her eyes open and when their lips met, in air and almost, she'd burn or he would. Or maybe the whole world would. And everything would change. But all he says is, "Thanks."
Later, he's sitting in his boxed up room and the stars are still shining and he's still leaving.
But the moon, that was so clear in her eyes, is hidden and gone.
He thinks, maybe he doesn't love her and isn't sure what a kiss would do. He's got a jungle and parents and whole world waiting for him.
But he still can't forget the color of her eyes.
vi. There's The Could Bes And The Almosts. I Wish I Could Regret Them All.
He comes back before Senior year, his skin a shade darker and his parents a world wiser.
The neighborhood smells the same and looks the same, but nothing really is. There's the field he remembers but it's filled with different eyed children and faces he recalls only in almost.
The buildings are grey and green and sometimes it makes him sigh to remember the way it was versus the way it is.
"I didn't think I'd ever see the day." Stinky's face is narrow and thin but his lips are turned toward the sky in a smile to big for him not to return. "When'd you get back?"
"This morning. I… I guess I wanted to surprise everyone."
"Well it certainly is a surprise."
Stinky takes him to the new hang out. Some dingy little side dinner, with a missing letter in the sign and a stale cigarette smell that makes his throat close up.
"Jimmy's is where everyone goes. Even the freaks. They have their own little corner." He nods his head to the back where the lights are the lowest and everyone's got a tired look to their faces. "Of course, there's the jocks and the geeks and the popular and the middles."
In the front, where the stools are lined in red and peeling silver, sits Gerald, his back hunched over a burger and a blonde thing leaned over talking to him.
He had meant to write. Meant to remember the best friend he'd left behind.
But the jungle was big and the distance long. Or maybe he'd gotten tired of feeling more like a memory than real.
All the things that were happening to his city, were things he could only hear about. Wonder about, and never feel the change of anything at all. One day, he couldn't stand to look at another word about Hillwood and the P.S gang that he'd known always. Because he was no longer theirs.
"I bet your real excited to see Gerald again."
"Yeah."
He wipes his hands on his pants and takes a seat in the wobbly stool beside him.
And when the waitress looks up, he holds his breath.
He's never forgotten her eyes.
"Football Head. Would you like something to eat or drink?" Her face is curved and small, her lips to thin and her eyes almost to wide. Or too old. Too something for him to look at long and not feel wounded. Even if there was no reason.
"Coke."
She nods and moves.
Gerald stares. His dark eyes keeping still on his skin. He can't think of what to say. Sorry seems wrong. And it's been to long and he's been to far gone to step back to that place they were.
Childhood had never seemed as far away as it did then. In a town he'd always know with people he always knew, and nothing but distance to keep them still.
"Hey Arnold." There's mustard on his lips and he's mouth is downward.
"Gerald, what's happening?"
"Just eating some dinner, waiting for Pataki to get off, we got plans for a movie." He steals a glance at the soda machine and says to loudly. "if she'd ever just hurry the fuck up."
"Watch your mouth, Gerald-O, else you'll get kicked out." She smirks and slides him his coke. "Again." She glances at him and he notices the scar on chin, just under her bottom lip. "What else can I get you?"
"I'm not going to get kicked out." Gerald grins.
"Of course you're not. Just like I'm going to get Miss Teen America and Rhonda's going to admit to shopping at Wal-Mart."
"Meatloaf." He says, because he can't stand to watch and know that everything is different and he's alone.
"Coming up. And do me a favor keep Tall Hair Boy quiet, he tends to be a bit…rowdy." She skims her fingers over Gerald's hand and they look at each other for long moments.
"When-" But maybe he doesn't want to know how or when. Because he should already know.
"Phoebe left." Gerald pokes a fry around his plate and doesn't even look Arnold in the eye. And it shouldn't be this hard, Arnold thinks. "She left and you were gone and not writing and maybe it's about wanting something you can't have so you make do with what you do have."
Gerald slurps his drink and does everything but look his way.
"I'm sorry." And he means it. Only maybe for all the wrong reasons.
"Yeah. Me too." And when he looks at him again, it's almost okay. "No, I'm not. I… I don't mean that, the part about it being not what you really want. I do. Want." But his eyes are shadows. "You were right. She isn't what she seems." Gerald throws cash on the counter and shrugs his jacket on. "Tell her I had to go. She'll get it. Tell her I'm sorry. She should know that by now."
And when she comes back, she doesn't look surprised. "He's gone, right?"
"Sor-"
"What have you got to be sorry for. He does this. Oh, well I'll see the new Evil Twin movie myself."
"I can go with you?"
"Is that a question."
He grins and nods and she smiles back. Her scar thins into nothing.
The walk to the movies, it reminds him to much of the night he left. Her bright eyes and moonless faces.
They talk about nothing, the way the groups divide after he left, and five years changes everything.
He wants to ask her about her and Gerald and what it all means.
Instead he tells her about the green and the dark and how the jungle smells. The rotten trees and the moss and the living things that keep him still and awake.
They wander the city after the movie and somehow he wants to hold her hand. He keeps it tucked into his pocket just in case.
When they get to her door, she leans in close to him, her lips on his ears and she smells of grease and sweat and the city. "I'm surprised you haven't asked." His fingers fall to her waist and she doesn't move for a moment. And when she stands up straight he already misses the feel of her under his skin. "We aren't dating. Not really." She laughs and it's sounds to soft to be nice. "After you and Phoebe… we were lonely. Two lonely people without the ones that they loved the most. Even if the love was young and stupid. Gerald and I knew we were stuck here till it's over. And there's something to be said for having someone that knows." She runs her fingers over his shoulder and smiles. "I use to be so in love with you." Her smile is real and whole and it leaves him a melancholy. "It's good to have you back, Football Head. Real good."
When she goes back inside he wonders about the might have been. About the kiss that couldn't come and the place he couldn't stay.
He almost wishes it were different. Almost.
iii. I Would Love You More If Only I Knew How.
It was sweat and heat and his brow was wet. The expensive tuxedo was heavy on his limbs and he wished it would go ahead and rain already.
"You should be having more fun than this Arnold!" Gerald's eyes were merry and warm and somehow it was almost like before.
"Don't listen to him. Have as much fun as you want. I know I am." Was the dry response for the blonde on his arm. Her face was moist and she looked miserable.
"What's wrong?"
Gerald rolled his eyes. "She's all pissy because she hot. You know how it is." He smirked at her and she grinned back.
Arnold felt more heat rise to his face. "I'm going to-"
"If he leaves. I leave." She growls. Gerald rolls his eyes and untangles their arms. "Why do you always make everything less fun."
She shrugs. "It's a gift."
Gerald huffs and walks to the punch bowl.
"He'll get over it. Prom and dances and social events are more his thing than mine." She stands with her back straight.
"Dance?"
Before she answers he wraps his hands around her waist and sways with her.
She's refuses to look at him.
"This isn't a problem is it?"
She shakes her head. "Gerald thinks I still want you."
"Do-"
"I don't know why we still do this. Him and me. Only I do love him. More than. I just do. Only it's…we don't match. Everything's almost there."
"You love him?" He squeezes her harder and sways a little to fast.
"Yes." But her face lands on his shoulder.
He can feel her breath on his shoulder and he keeps the shiver still. His lips slide across her cheek.
Her face bolts up and for a moment, nothing else seems real. Her body breaks from him. She shakes her head and touches her cheek.
"I should find Gerald."
"I should find Nadine. She was only going to the bathroom."
His lips still feel warm.
ii. In The Dark, You Were The Thing I Feared The Most.
College is far away and he almost forgets the feel of her skin beneath his fingers.
When she visits, he leans in close with only air between him and her and she closes her eyes and he remembers every curve of her face.
She opens them before there's nothing between them at all and they laugh it off over pizza.
It feels as if this all has been going on to long.
"Why can't I kiss you?"
He thinks she might be asleep, her body pressed behind him and her breath on his neck. He thinks maybe he should have sprung for a hotel.
She kisses the back of his neck and sighs.
"Gerald says he'd understand." Is all she says.
He turns to face her and in the dark all he can make out is her wide open eyes and the heat of her escaping to the air.
He kisses because maybe it's all come to this.
She scrapes her teeth over his bottom lip and he keeps his hands steady on her hips.
They fall asleep somewhere between her breast and his lips.
She leaves the next day and they never talk about the dark.
i. Breathe And Air and This.
He sees her again on a Wednesday. Her hair loose and her feet bare. She's sitting with her feet swinging under her at the park.
"I think, maybe, I've always loved you."
She laughs and shakes her head. "Maybe."
"I'd like to."
"Love me always?"
His answer is a kiss.
Maybe. Always. This.