Jenna got there first and it shouldn’t have been that way. For our entire lives she’d always been later than me but the one time I arrived after her became the day I’d regret forever, because those four minutes could have changed my entire life.
If only I’d met him first. If only I’d walked faster. If only I’d ignored the road signals and run through the static traffic and not stopped at the newsagent for chewing gum. If only, if only, if only. But I was late. And by the time I got to the bar, she and Noah were already deep in conversation, laughing like they’d known each other for years.
“Zoe!” Jenna jumped up when she saw me. “This is Noah. We just met. Noah, this is my sister, Zoe.”
“Hey,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”
We looked at each other. He smiled. I smiled. He didn’t see my heart drop like it knew just how much trouble I was already in. Nobody saw. I had a perfect poker face. If I’d have been looking in the mirror, even I wouldn’t have seen. But I felt the desperation like I’d been dealt the worst hand possible. I sat down at the tiny table. Jenna and I had planned to have drinks to celebrate her new job but with Noah there, the evening changed course.
They were all over each other. I watched from behind an endless stream of mojitos. He wasn’t her type. Didn’t she see it? He didn’t look neat enough to be her type. I knew the kind of guys she dated. Groomed hair and button down shirts. Noah wore a leather jacket and a silver chain. He smelt like cigarette smoke, not Armani For Him. The swirling end of a tattoo crept out of the neckline of his t-shirt.
Jenna shouldn’t have liked him but god help me, she did. I knew it in the way she touched his arm, the way she laughed at everything he said, the way her blue eyes sparkled like her Midnight Kiss cocktail. They were so into each other. It was like watching a case study on mutual attraction and even though they engaged me in conversation, I felt like a useless third wheel on their tandem bicycle. They clicked as easily and sleekly as a seatbelt.
The evening wore on, the bar teeming with revellers. It was a hot summer night; everyone out for a good time. People were drinking, laughing, glasses clinking in the endless buzz of conversation. Noah and Jenna seemed oblivious to everything but each other, not even glancing up when a fight spilled out into the street. I drank enough to get tired of drinking. The lights were too bright, the crowds too loud. Eventually, I cracked.
“Jenna, we should really go home.” My voice sounded loud, unnecessary, the most blatant and unwelcome of interruptions.
My sister looked at me, faintly disoriented as though she’d forgotten I was there.
“Right.”
Noah shifted as she stood up.
“Well, we should do this again sometime,” he said as though he were talking to both of us.
“Of course,” Jenna gushed and they smiled and looked at each other and wouldn’t stop looking until I literally pulled her away.
We walked the two miles home the midnight sky hued with deep, indigo light.
“You’re not actually gonna see him again, are you?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Jenna was practically skipping alongside me, the streetlights catching the sequins on her dress. “He’s such a gentleman.”
“What about Jackson?” I asked. It was a mean question and I wanted it to be. Jackson was her on/off boyfriend, and he’d become something of a vice in her life. It was cruel to bring him up but some part of me felt annoyed at her happiness. I wanted to puncture the fairy dust cloud of spun sugar she seemed to be floating on.
“Jackson? He’s dead and buried,” Jenna caught my hand, as though trying to impart some of her excitement. “Forget him. Don’t you think Noah is just fucking edible?”
I shrugged, pulling my hand away. “If you like that kind of thing.”
I walked faster but it didn’t deter her. She floated effortlessly beside me, her steps not even making a sound on the sidewalk.
“Do you think he was into me? Do you think he thought I was pretty?”
I glared at her. Her blonde hair was loose around her bare shoulders, her skirt dangerously short and her legs tanned and endless. Noah had been hanging off her every word.
“Everyone thinks you’re pretty,” I said and it came out colder and more jealous than I would have liked so I laughed to cover it up but the laugh was awkward and cold too. A car raced past, guys hanging out the windows and whooping drunkenly.
“But do you think Noah thinks I’m pretty?” Jenna pressed, oblivious to their attentions.
“Of course he does. He wouldn’t stop staring at you. You’re beautiful.” I said and I was overcompensating even though she was too high for my earlier tone to have offended her. “I’m surprised you even liked him though,” I commented casually. “He had a tattoo, you know.”
“Yeah, I thought so.”
“I thought you hated tattoos. You said you’d disown me if I got one.”
“Yeah, but he kinda suits it, don’t you think?”
She tried to stop smiling but couldn’t. She was gone, and with every minute she seemed to spiral further down into his dizzying charm. There was nothing I could do. He was simply too attractive. I couldn’t drag her back. I should have been happy for her but all I felt was desperation. If I hadn’t had to see him again, it wouldn’t have mattered. But if they started dating, I’d be stuck at the sideline, hating every moment they spent together. I didn’t want it. But the whole thing was out of my control.
We got home and went into our stifling apartment and threw the windows open and cleaned our teeth and she didn’t stop talking about him until I finally escaped to my room.
Finally alone, I lay on my bed, the dark room feeling like a sauna. I thought of Noah. His voice. His eyes. His mouth looked hard, like he was constantly on guard but his smile curled in a way that warmed my entire world. I let out a long sigh, my hands curling into fists. She met him first. He wasn’t meant to be hers but what could I do?
My hand moved recklessly down under the waistband of my shorts and pressed against my snatch. Wet heat. I’d been turned on by the first word he’d said to me. Nobody had ever affected me so effortlessly before. I slid my fingertip down, pushing it against my entrance. The room felt too hot, my shorts too restrictive and I kicked them off until I was wearing only my t-shirt.
My hand felt almost soothing against my snatch. I thought of Noah and bit my lip hard enough to taste blood. I imagined kissing him, feeling his whisky-sharp tongue deep in my mouth, his hands digging into the curve of my ass. My free hand fumbled for my phone, clumsily bringing up porn videos. They took forever to load and I wondered idly how he’d fuck, the things he was into. Oral? Rough sex? Anal?
My hand moved faster, spurred on by the blurred displays of obscenity. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly it made my stomach hurt. I wanted him to be right there so I could touch him and feel him and make him feel as desperate as I did. My breath came out ragged, my t-shirt clinging to my damp body, my hand bringing me closer and closer to the edge. I dropped the phone and gripped my breast, kneading it desperately as my finger rubbed relentlessly at my clit.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whispered the word, my perspiration-drenched body clenched in anticipation. When it finally came, the pleasure was everything. I had to push my face into the pillow to keep quiet and it went on, the orgasm beautifully draining.
***
They started dating. I told myself I could deal with it. Noah was nothing special. He was just a man. Just a man. I’d always learned to despise things I didn’t have but god help me, Noah wasn’t a thing. He was a person. A living human being and try as I might, I couldn’t stop wanting him. I’d never felt so helplessly attracted to anyone. It was the little things. The precise angle of his jaw. The ridges in his fingernails. The depth of his laugh.
He’d come over to pick Jenna up and she wouldn’t be ready but it didn’t matter because even her lateness was charming and beautiful. And Noah and I would make small talk and he’d sit on the arm of the sofa and pace up and down our tidy living room until we eventually broke onto the balcony so he could smoke. It happened every time. Jenna always took forever to get ready and I’d crave the time alone with Noah and dread it at the same time because I always laughed too hard or said something off kilter, talking too fast to filter the words.
But I could romanticise those moments. The time would last forever when we were alone together. Sitting on the balcony, legs dangling, his cigarette angling to the sky, his laugh strangling the darkness until light overflowed and made me feel like every dream I’d ever had glowed on the brink of reality. I always sweated when I talked to him and when Jenna was ready and the door clicked shut behind them, I’d lean against it and think of him so hard that my knees would feel weak and I’d reach down to touch myself until my legs gave out and I’d sink to the floor in a gasping heap of cheap pleasure.
All I knew was what I saw right in front of me. The light in his dark eyes. The way his mouth curled when he looked at me. God, how I wanted him. It felt solid almost. Sometimes I feared Jenna would see it. We did everything together and it had always been that way. Whenever one of us dated, it didn’t get between the things we did or the places we went. I went out with them sometimes, a useless and dragging third wheel but she wouldn’t have it any other way because that was just who she was
Bars and concerts. Hot summer nights. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I watched the way their fingers tangled, the way his chin rested on the top of her head and I watched from behind oversized sunglasses as they made out. I couldn’t get over just how beautiful they looked together.
***
I dreamt of fucking him. It was inevitable. My waking mind was so occupied by thoughts of him that it only made sense for his presence to eventually invade my dreams. And god, how he invaded them. I touched him, felt the muscle in his arms, felt his mouth crush mine and his fingers push inside me until I writhed against his immovable weight.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said and the words weren’t even necessary because he looked at me with that reluctant smile and nothing made me feel more beautiful than being the cause of that smile. Our mouths clashed, his hands clawing at my skirt, fingers dragging up my legs and digging into my ass. His breath felt hot against me and his hand ground between my thighs until desperate sighs spilled from my mouth and into his.
“I’ve wanted you so long,” he said and it was wrong but the urge was too strong to purge and I let him push me down onto some soft, perfect bed and crawl on top of me. He kissed a path down my neck and my shirt had miraculously disappeared so his lips moved unhindered over my collarbones before his mouth brushed my nipple and his tongue circled it wetly. My hands were in his hair and it felt soft, so soft and warm just like I’d known it would. And then he was between my legs, his cock pushing against my snatch until he finally eased inside and nothing had ever felt so sublime.
“You feel so good,” he whispered and his voice dragged over the words like it always did, scratched and grazed with chainsmoking and it went inside me, just like his cock was inside me. He fucked hard; pushed in and out until I couldn’t keep up and then I just had to take it; had to feel the delicious way he slammed in and out until we were both sweating. He was still wearing his t-shirt and I frowned, holding out a hand to pause him.
“Why’ve you got your shirt on?” I asked. It shouldn’t have mattered but it was a dream so the stupid things mattered and bizarrely, I wanted to see his tattoo. I’d only ever seen the part on his neck and I desperately wanted to know what the rest of it was.
He sat up, his cock easing out of me as he pulled off the shirt and I stared at his chest because the tattoo was a tattoo of my sister and how could it be when he’d had it before he met her? And she looked beautiful even in the black ink; she looked like a princess, an angel, something too clean for me to ever touch with my guilt stained hands. And as I stared blankly at the tattoo, Noah stared at me, confused and impatient.
“What’s wrong?” he asked and the answer was too huge for me to give and the question echoed in my mind (what’s wrong? what’s wrong? what’s wrong?) until it was all I could hear and then I heard a crash followed by laughter and the fantasy curled away like cigarette smoke as the world came back.
“Shhh! Zoe must be asleep. Stop it!”
I sat up, disoriented and dazed, mind ablaze with the receding dream. I heard their voices as the front door clicked shut and my eyes flicked to the nightstand clock. 01:18. Early, almost. They stumbled through the flat, laughter interspersed with the occasional empty shhhh. My t-shirt was damp with sweat, my heart beating fast beneath it. They eventually made it to her room and the door slammed shut. I lay back, overflowing with guilt.
Why didn’t I meet him first? Why didn’t I get to the goddamn bar five minutes earlier? Why did he have to enter my life as nothing more than something untouchable? It was like having to stare at an enormous pile of money and never being able to lay a hand on it, let alone spend it. But I had to watch Jenna spent it and she did. Fast and reckless.
Because while time only intensified my desire for Noah, for Jenna the sparkle seemed to wear off. She was still all over him but a month in and I’d hear her on the phone with her ex-boyfriend Jackson, making calls that lasted longer than they ever did with Noah. Sometimes Jackson would even come over. She tried to hide it but I knew. I’d come home to the smell of Armani Stronger With You and she always had perfect excuses, layers of lies built up like a dam to stop the truth flooding out. She knew I knew but it didn’t stop her playing the game maybe because to pretend would avoid the inevitable confrontation.
I tolerated it because she wasn’t perfect. Nobody’s perfect. And when Noah asked me if everything was okay with my sister, I gave him her excuses because to do anything else would be to betray and how could I betray someone who’d stood by me my entire life? We always caught each other on the way down. I should have hated her for the duplicity but I could never hate her. I’d do anything for her because I knew her. I knew where she’d come from and why she did the things she did.
I was her sister. Our connection ran deep and strong and anything that got between us would be drowned in the rush. And so I didn’t let Noah get between us. I didn’t chase him. I didn’t tell her how I felt. I followed the code. Swallowed the envy and wallowed in the lonely circus of my emotions.
I felt constantly on the verge of tears. It took all my effort to hold them back. I could imagine the spilling flow killing the months of careful, clinical restraint. I couldn’t. I had to hold up, fold up the hurt and hide it deep inside. I tried. I lied. Defied every selfish impulse. What would breaking them achieve?
It took me back to every time I’d resented her. Like the time we were kids and she had a colouring book and she coloured so hard and went outside of every line and I so desperately wanted to snatch it from her because she was ruining it but I couldn’t because it was hers and I had no right to it. I just had to watch and now all I could do was watch as she took Noah and ruined everything they could have been. I’d seen her do it with other guys but I’d never really taken it to heart. They drifted in and out, unimportant and inconsequential but Noah was more. Silhouettes and cigarettes.
Selfishly, helplessly, I hoped that they’d fall apart but the summer was just the start.
Winter came, Christmas bringing listless lingering in the warm glitter of department stores. Jenna and I had always spent the holidays together, and since we were kids we’d waste hours wandering through the gaudily lit city, spending imaginary credit limits in wild fantasies. But it was different with Noah. Somehow his presence made the whole thing seem foolish and immature. Unfazed, Jenna dragged me to jewellery displays in an attempt to revive our tradition.
“Come on, Zoe!”
But everything had changed. The winter days seemed colder that year, and he’d hold her hand and I’d look at their fingers entangling and I wanted to go home and sleep until the whole nightmare was over. But maybe it wouldn’t end. I watched them lean over the case of wedding rings and my heart thudded as cold as a snowball as my mind fast forwarded the unthinkable.
Maybe he would marry her. Maybe he’d walk to the gleaming counter of that overpriced jewellery store and buy a diamond ring and propose and then they’d be together forever and surely I would be able to stop then. Why couldn’t I stop? What would I do if they spent the rest of their lives together? Could I ever switch off the emotions? I felt my eyes water and pressed my forehead hard against the cool glass screening the display before me.
Emeralds. Emerald earrings and necklaces and rings and bracelets and some Colombian and some Zambian and the Colombian ones were more expensive even though the colour wasn’t half as pretty as the Zambian.