more first person baljeet
ps leave me some little prompts and i'll be happy to fill them, i can always use more ideas!
One, Two, Three
We had stopped under one of the park's gates.
"What?" I turned my head to catch Buford's eyes pointed up above us. They looked right at me, his mouth a straight line, then flicked back up. His fingers tightened around my arm.
A sprig of mistletoe, tied up high as if to only catch the attention of those desperate for the excuse, hung there by a bright red bow. When I was finally able to look back at him, Buford was looking back down to me. My knees locked.
We could not be standing there in the middle of the public park (a practically empty public park at this time of night, but public nevertheless) and… and…
"Just one." It was not a suggestion- not a compromise- but an order.
He leaned in. It seemed inevitable. But still, I felt I had to intervene.
"You know, ancient Norsemen would hang mistletoe in their doorways to protect them from thunder and lightening." I soon lost track of my words, pointless trivia and tidbits spilled into themselves. A pounding rang in my ears while I said whatever came to mind, anything to stave off that inevitable. For what reason I was not quite sure of. I heard a meek "it was not until the 18th century that-" when Buford tugged hard on my arm, and I fell quiet to look back over at him.
His eyelids drooped, unimpressed. "You done?"
My cheeks burned. Bitten on the outside from the cold, boiled on the inside from his words. How could he have been so calm, so passive about this, while my stomach and heart had trouble keeping still and keeping up?
Breath finally left my body in fast, brief segments of fog. His grip loosened a little after I glanced down to my wrist. Just a little, just enough to let my blood continue circulation but still be held hostage. "Yes."
He leaned forward again.
All I could wonder was if I had been his first kiss. I knew that he was far from mine.
It turned out to be not one, but three, each more chaste and restrained than the last. All the while Buford's hold on my wrist turned so our palms were pressed together and his other hand reached up to fist into my collar, pulling me up and closer. Suddenly, his lips pursed then pulled away.
Without another word he stepped back, turned around, and started walking again. His hand still crushing my own I was, without any choice or chance to catch my breath, dragged along after.
There was less of an attraction and more of a magnetism between us. I know I had never had a crush on him. He certainly was the only boy I had ever done, or wanted to do, anything with. We simply fit together, regardless of our actual tastes. As for Buford's feelings, I still have no idea what they really were. Maybe he did have dreams about me. Look at me in a different way when my head was turned. Wring his hands as he wondered how I felt about him.
But, then again, maybe he only did it because he knew I had to let him.
At fourteen, I felt far too old to be holding hands for the first time. There had been others before, pretty girls in passing, but this felt entirely different, maybe if only for the fact that he was another boy. A boy that I, especially I, and the rest of the neighborhood were supposed to be terrified of. But if he did not like like me and I did not like like him, at least we could simply like each other. That was more than I could ever say about our relationship.
Through our layers of cotton and elastic I could feel Buford's pulse in his palm. It was beating nearly as fast as mine, even though his face stayed blank as a slate. What I would not have given to read his mind right then, or at least to gather enough courage up to ask him what he was thinking. Ask him anything. But we just kept silent the whole way, columns of questions and answers left unsaid on the frost behind us.
And we did not let go until he brought me home.