Green-Eyed Distance

The first time I saw her, she was drowning in a cardigan two sizes too big.

I was leaning against the railing at the Cancún airport, sweating through my leather jacket because I refused to pack light. Florida was hot. Mexico was hotter. But I'd rather die than show up looking like I didn't try.

She was supposed to be holding a sign with my name on it. Instead, she held a paperback pressed to her chest like a shield, her round glasses slipping down her nose as she craned her neck to read the arrivals board. She pushed them up. They slipped again. She pushed them up again.

I watched her for a full minute before she noticed me.

"You're Viridiana," I said. Not a question.

She startled like a cat caught stealing cream. The book almost hit the floor. She caught it, hugged it tighter, and looked up at me with eyes so brown they were almost black.

"Sí. I mean, yes. You're Brielle?" Her voice came out small, like she wasn't sure she had the right to use it.

"Bri." I stepped closer. The top of her head barely reached my shoulder. She had to tilt her face up to see me, and the way her neck curved made something tight pull in my chest. "You're shorter than your pictures."

Her cheeks went pink. "You're taller."

"One eighty-four," I said. "You?"

"One fifty-six. On a good day."

I laughed. She didn't. She just stood there, clutching that book like it was the only thing keeping her upright, and I realized she wasn't joking. She was embarrassed.

I wanted to eat that embarrassment alive.

We'd been talking online for six months before I decided to fly down. Six months of late-night calls and texts that stretched into dawn. She'd send me pictures of her library, all dusty shelves and warm light. I'd send her pictures of the beach at sunrise, the water flat and gold. She told me she'd never been kissed. I told her I'd fix that.

She thought I was joking.

I wasn't.

The Uber ride to her apartment was quiet in the way that hurts. She sat pressed against the opposite door, her knees pointed away from me, her fingers picking at a loose thread on her cardigan. I watched the city blur past the window and tried not to stare at her.

"You don't have to be nervous," I said.

"I'm not nervous." She said it too fast.

"Okay."

"I just. I've never done this before."

"Done what?"

She looked at me then, really looked, and I saw something flicker behind those glasses. Fear, maybe. Want. The same thing I felt every time her voice came through my headphones at 2 a.m.

"Met someone," she said. "In person. From online."

"Me neither."

"Really?"

"Really."

She almost smiled. Almost. It died before it reached her mouth, but I saw the ghost of it. That was enough.

Her apartment was small. One bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen that bled into a living room with no real separation. Books stacked on every surface. A cactus on the windowsill. A single bed pushed against the wall with sheets that looked too soft.

She stood in the center of the room like she didn't know what to do with her body.

I dropped my bag by the door.

"Come here," I said.

She took two steps. Then stopped.

"I don't know how to do this," she whispered.

"Do what?"

"This." She gestured between us. "Be. Close. I've never. I mean, I've thought about it, but thinking and doing are different, and I don't want to mess it up, and what if I'm not what you wanted, and what if you get here and realize I'm too quiet or too weird or too something, and."

I crossed the space between us in three steps. Grabbed her wrist. Gentle, but firm enough to stop her talking.

"Breathe," I said.

She breathed.

I pulled her closer. She came without resistance, her body soft against mine, her face pressed into my chest because that's as high as she could reach. I wrapped my arms around her and felt her shake.

"You're exactly what I wanted," I said. "You've always been exactly what I wanted."

She looked up at me. Her glasses were crooked. Her eyes were wet.

"Promise?"

I kissed her forehead. Then her nose. Then the corner of her mouth, where that almost-smile had tried to live.

"Promise."

She kissed me back like she'd been holding her breath for eighteen years and I was the first air she'd ever tasted.

I walked her backward to the bed. Slow. Deliberate. She hit the edge and sat down hard, looking up at me with that same wide-eyed terror and hunger. I knelt in front of her. Took her glasses off. Folded them and set them on the nightstand.

"You don't have to be scared," I said.

"I'm not scared."

"Liar."

She laughed. A real laugh, surprised out of her. I wanted to bottle it.

I pushed her cardigan off her shoulders. She let it fall. Underneath, she wore a thin cotton shirt with a collar that gaped at her collarbone. I traced that bone with my thumb. She shivered.

"You're so tall," she said.

"You're so small."

"Is that bad?"

"No." I leaned in, my mouth close to her ear. "It's perfect."

Her hands found my jacket, pulling at the zipper. I let her work it down, let her push the leather off my shoulders, let her fingers fumble at the buttons of my shirt. She was clumsy. She was eager. She was everything.

I pushed her back onto the mattress and followed her down.

The window was open. The Cancún heat rolled in, thick and wet, carrying the sound of traffic and distant music. A ceiling fan spun above us, useless and slow. I didn't care.

She was so small beneath me.

I wanted to break her open.

I wanted to put her back together.

Her hands found my jaw, pulling me down to her mouth. She kissed me like she was drowning. I kissed her back like I was the one who'd pulled her from the water.

"I've wanted this," she said against my lips. "I've wanted you."

"I know."

"I thought I'd be scared."

"Are you?"

She shook her head. "I thought I'd be scared, but I'm not. I'm not scared at all."

I believed her.

I shouldn't have.