RED DRESS

We walked into his apartment to pick up the jacket I had left there before. After a night of dancing we were definitely exhausted and the only thing I was focused on was getting home to bed. We had been out all night and peter, as usual, wanted to show off, but only when we were the best on the dance floor in order to protect his ego. There was plenty of arguing with him since he stalled most of the time to avoid being shown up by the Latino salsa dancers. It was a ruined night, unlike the others we had had before. The others were more about each other than trying to look good. We would salsa into the night to the Cuban band, us eventually sticky from sweat and unable to look away from each other’s eyes. Unfortunately, it was not one of those nights. To peter, tonight, the stranger’s opinions mattered.

I put my purse down on his couch and stared at the blank TV, no longer self conscious of wrinkling my red dress I bought specially for this night.

“I’ve got to rest, for a second before I take you home. do you want some water or something?”

“you barely danced. Tonight, I had to dance alone to our favorite song!” I stared frustrated with him. “wine, red.”

“here, come get it.” He put the glass of wine down on his table. “I didn’t want to look bad next to that one couple.”

“peter, they are Latin. That one guy had to be fifty. They learned to dance when they were five,” I sat on the couch, not getting up for the wine “We’re just a couple of white college students there to have fun.”

He didn’t look at me and put some water to boil on the stove. He then picked up the wine glass and brought it over to me on the couch as I made room indicating him to sit.

“we’re out there to have fun, not look good.” I put my hand on his leg

“give me the remote….”

I handed it to him. He wasn’t into me. We had gone dancing at our favorite café since we were teenagers. I always thought he was into me, ending the nights with phrases like “I’m at least getting a hug” but it was nights like this I knew I was unnoticed in his world of romance. I might as well have been a guy as opposed to a skinny blonde girl in a gorgeous red dress. Those teenage fantasies I dreamed about were nothing and he would never know how I felt. The red dress didn’t help.

Leaning forward with eyes glued to the Wisconsin game, peter failed to notice the water boiling in the kitchen. I went to fix him his usual hot chocolate, another kind gesture to go unnoticed, when my dress caught on a cabinet and ripped. It was then I began crying, something uncharacteristic of a girl like me. But somehow, tonight, this action caught his attention. Was my independence my enemy?

“whats wrong?” he got up and walked over to me.

“what the ******** peter? What can I do? what do you want? It isn’t me is it!!” my face as red as my dress with tears and frustration.

“what are you talking about?” in a panicking mannar, he pulled up the ripped back of the dress to my shoulder to hide my bra and preserve the last of my dignity.

“I don’t know……..” I couldn’t look him in the eye, “you are my best friend. I have dreamed about being with you since I was 16. I love you, and I lived for you. You have been all I’ve thought about for so long, how can you not notice? You don’t care.”

I looked up to meet his gaze but failed to. He was looking away.

“ahhh…” he stared down at the floor thinking, hand still on my back, and face so close. He put his other hand on his stomach, tapping his fingers on it, a gesture I never quite figured out but associated with him thinking deeply or making a descision. He had a worried, almost disgusted look on his face, Was that disgust at me or himself?

I felt guilt flushing through my face. I felt like I had done something horrible to him, like I had burdened him and suddenly thrown our friendship away. His face told me so.

“I don’t know………just quit crying……please stop.” he looked frustrated, I knew this was it. I was ready to leave with nothing else to say. “……I’m not good enough for you, I never have been. I always felt like I had to grow up more before I could love you the way you deserve. You were always years ahead of me”

There, our blue eyes finally met. It felt like the first time in ages, like we had finally recognized eachother after years of separation, but instead of separation it was years of denial.

“it doesn’t matter if you are ‘good enough’, you are the only person I ever wanted. I saved myself for you, peter.”

We stared at each other, in the kitchen. And he leaned in.

I had kissed before. High school boyfriends that is, but they were meaningless compared to this.
It was the first kiss that I naturally fell into by instinct. much like drinking from a glass of water, it was a natural motion, however I could not have fathomed something as amazing before that moment. Years of sexual tension had been released at that moment, like a crashing wave after building up at the edge of a sandy beach. It all came down at once. He dropped the tear in the back of my red dress, and like the wave, it fell.