Yesterday evening I witnessed an almost-kiss. It occurred as I was sitting on a bench just outside the bar. A young couple was in the process of ambling outside, a sauntering gait pointing to intoxication or infatuation, assuming there is even a noteworthy distinction between the two.
I was quite drunk myself, and you may therefore rest assured that I have truly and clearly witnessed everything I’m about to tell you. Were I to be sober at the time, my mind would’ve added to the tale a thousand details all by itself. Fortunately, not a single one of my senses could fathom such complexity at the time, and so their testimony is unquestionably reliable.
I said that they were a couple, but one ought to separate them to visualize them clearly. A man and woman, of similar age — I believe, in their 20s. He brown-skinned, dark of eye and hair. The white shirt he wore accentuated broad shoulders he must have inherited. The smile on his face revealed more than the rest of him combined: about his feelings at the time, about the evening’s progression so far, about his affection for the woman at his side.
She was exceedingly fair, blond, blue-eyed. Her lips were wide and full, leaving that same impression of unbelievable softness created by a fluffy down-filled pillow. Her blue eyes glinted mischievously, attesting that she had not yet lost much of the child she once was.
They were laughing at the end of a sentence I did not hear, bumped into one another accidentally, giggled again and stumbled toward the wall. He placed his hand against it, momentarily, to stabilize himself, and his broad chest blocked his companion’s path, pressing her back against the building. She raised her eyes at him, questioningly.
The shared surprise in their eyes was telling. Not a couple, but a pair. Not lovers — close friends. From where I sat I travelled to their past between one heartbeat and the next. From the softness his eyes wore, as if he’d been waiting to don it for a while, I learned that he’d loved for years. A hushed, quiet love, in whispers. In smiles he toiled to extricate from her, in frequent phone calls and daily text messages.
A slight tremor in his bicep piped up in warning — move away, move away. Nonetheless, his attention remained with the face raised at him. A small, slightly protruding chin; thin, light eyebrows; the face of a girl-turned-woman. Her soft, pouting lips were slightly parted. They glistened in the street’s dim light. Maybe as a result of some earlier application of lip gloss, or maybe she moistened them just now, in momentary excitement.
Her right hand climbed into the moment, resting on its own accord on his left pectoral. I saw an uncertainty in her eyes as she lingered in wait. Electric blue, centered by a wide pupil attempting to snare any available bit of information. She was not trembling at all. She knows, I realized. She’d always known. In her mind she considered it thousands of times, weighed it from every direction, wondered how the moment would feel should it ever come to pass. Thus far she had easily slipped from its grasp, negating it with words, with friendly, affectionate smiles.
Once a week, at least, she thinks she might want him. Maybe he’d just smiled at her, or said exactly the right thing, and she almost approaches him to meet his gaze. But then the moment is gone, and she hardens again, refuses to listen. They are incompatible, she reflects. It could spoil what they have, she could lose him. And she is so, so very afraid of losing. But not nearly as much as she’s afraid of gaining.
They’ve been moving like this for a long while, too long for anything to change, they believe. And why would the think differently? They are young. They are oblivious of the thing which occurs when jealousy sneaks up on you, when one party progresses and the other remains behind, when hope becomes a burden beyond bearing. They do not understand that they live in what will become the future subject of nostalgic sighs.
Each of them fantasized about this moment, in their own way. The delicate kiss, loving in its simplicity, slowly building into a wild passion. In their mind’s eye they saw hungry hands taking hold, body crashing against body in primordial release, years in the making. Lust flowing into a peak, then ebbing back down into soft, loving tenderness.
At this point, perhaps, their imaginations take them on separate paths. He thinks of the words he’ll tell her, guarded inside of him for so long. He thinks of touching softly, of her eyes returning a sentiment he’d never known from her before. To him this, not the preceding moment, is the climax.
Not for her. She doesn’t know what awaits her now. Doesn’t know how she’d look at him, or return to his side. She knows he is in love, yet doesn’t think she could return it. Her fantasy has both a beginning and an end.
Less than a fraction of a second has passed. She leans her head with a calculated chuckle and the moment is shattered. He draws a deep breath and chuckles as well. He turns from the wall, and momentarily I see the pain of hope inside him. But by the time he’s facing her, the spasm passes. They continue on their original path, their conversation easily snapping back to the moment it was interrupted.
On the wall behind them I’m still watching the almost-kiss. It is frozen in time, unactualized potential. In my mind it continues into faraway places, true love, a relationship lasting for years, a story they tell their children, how it came to be, how they ended up together. Then it fades, its outline dissipating into nothing.
And I, the only witness, was sitting on the bench, when none of this happened.