"Heard anything yet?" i asked, as i strolled back into siri's room from the bathroom.

She was glued to her window, staring anxiously to the road 8 floors below us. "Not yet. I wish he'd hurry the fuck up!"

"Don't worry," i said with a gentle smile, "he'll come."

"Oh he'll come," she said surely as she gave up waiting and sat at the laptop. "I promised him a show, remember?"

"A show?" I asked.

"Yeah. He wants to see us make out, remember?"

"Ahh... then of course he's coming," i said with a giggle. I walked seductively towards her and pressed my mouth against hers, and we'd excused the wet kiss as 'practice,' when we both knew that it was just to remedy an overpowering curiosity.

"What woman can't love our entire gender anyway?" I said as i lay back on the bed. "Women are just so perfect. Compared to men especially. I sometimes feel like if i wasn't scientifically and biologically programmed to like men, i'd be entirely satisfied living around a bunch of women. We're the uber gender - if it weren't for the sex drive, we could live without them. But men could never live without us."

"That's definitely true," siri said with a smirk. "We look so much nicer when we're naked too. You can admire a naked woman - but a naked man, no matter how muscled he is, is always gonna look kinda odd."

I laughed at the validity in that statement. "When are you gonna call up Kris?" i asked.

"Oh, he's online right now," she said.

"Then tell him to get his ass over here," i said, some pain in my chest when i said it. I knew the night would be a memorable one because whether he wanted to or not, we would have to address what had happened.

Siri started typing on the keyboard, and when her phone rang and she saw dani's name on the ID, she jumped with excitement. "Hello? You're downstairs? Okay, we'll be there in a second."

I picked up my stuff and prepared to leave. "What did kris say?" I asked.

"He said: 'what? kfine, i'll be there,' just now. So let's go meet dani."

She couldn't stop smiling in the elevator. When we emerged from the building's entrance, we saw dani waiting in his army uniform. Siri laughed happily and he smiled his lazy smile, and they practically ravaged each other in the street after three weeks spent apart.

I gave him a greeting hug and the three of us walked towards his apartment, talking the entire way about all the new things he'd done in training. We let him in on the situation with Kris, and he smiled knowingly. Apparently, he'd been like that once.

For the next two hours, we practically had a threesome on Dani's bed. He and i never touched though - we focused only on siri.

"I think i'm truly bi now," she said with a laugh. "We're doing all this and we're 100% sober."

"Nah," i scoffed, "i just call it curiously fooling around, like we always do."

Ever since we'd met up with Dani i felt bad for getting in on their much needed alone time, after three weeks spent missing each other. But when i tried to leave the bed and sit on my own to wait for kris, they vehemently refused. So i lay on my back and stared at the ceiling. I knew it was bound to be bad - he'd already giving his answer to Siri.

That day, when i'd left Kris's house, i went straight to pack up for a four-day trip to luxor. By 2 we were headed for the airport and by 4 we were in the sky - and by 5, we were at our destination.  The first thing i'd done once we got there was pull out my faithful purple compositions notebook - now a diary with some of the most life changing fuck-ups and happenings over a 3-month period that i've lived. I wrote down every detail of the night that i could remember, down to the last touch. I didn't want any of it to be forgotten - because i knew it was something that i might not bear witness to again.

I'd spent most of my time online. I asked siri to get the truth out of Kris whenever she could, and when i finally found my most trusted ally, Elmo, online, i told him everything.

Skander came online, insisting on talking to me about 'making things right' even though i'd asked for a week's break from the whole thing. As i argued with him and endured the agression that even followed me to the internet, i gave elmo every detail, speaking in my love struck manner. He listened and he understood and he gave me his opinion on it. While he answered me, i said the words and broke up with skander. I had wanted to do it face to face, but he left me no choice.

I didn't need elmo's counselling to handle a break up though. I needed his counselling to handle Kris.

"Big change, eh?" he had said. "Well it seems like you're pretty happy about it - i always saw something there between you two that you dont have, even with skander. Krissyboy though is a bad guy to have something that strong with - i dont know if he'd ever get serious with a girl. He's so insensitive - and it bothers me, how insensitive he is. You just have to watch your back or you'll wind up getting hurt."

I didnt want to hear those words because i knew that they were true, and it bothered me, how true they would turn out be. But there was nothing i could do. He let me in on his long distance girlfriend, back in holland, and how they're having their own mix up. He was unsure if they'd last the distance. She wont write back to him. She won't acknowledge him in any way. We both wished the other luck and i went out to visit the ancient egyptian luxor temples in an even more ancient and scorching desert heat.

I was constantly reminded of what had happened - but i had over-remembered it to the extent where it almost didn't feel real. All that assured me it wasn't a dream was the physical soreness and sensitivity that still existed, marking the places where a certain measure of innocence had been taken away.  Every time i passed the bathroom mirror, i had to stop and stare at the marks that would not fade away before my mom or dad would notice. I had to spend the next day in the resort pool with them, and whatever foundation i put on wouldn't stay off in the water.

The next thing i knew, we were at another spectacular temple and i had trouble adjusting my top enough to hide the hickey on my breast. The v-neckline would naturally slip back into place when i took another step forward, so eventually i gave up and let it be.

And my mother began to give me a hard time. Somehow, the subject of skander had been brought up and she blamed the whole thing on siri. "I knew she'd get in the way, i knew that girl would ruin everything." The fact that i had been publicly and privately screamed at and dominated by him several times meant nothing to her - because he shook her hand every time he entered the house, she suddenly believed he was perfect.

"It wasn't siri's fault - she had nothing to do with it. It was his fault for dominating me."

"You're making a huge mistake, and it's all because of that girl! I'm not letting you stay the night at her house anymore, she's a little whore. And so are you. What is that there on your chest? That hickey." She looked upon me with disgust. "I know that's not from skander. What, you're sleeping around even before you break up with him? You're a village bycicle, meant to give everybody a ride, aren't you?" she gave me the same look she'd give a mangy dog that just climbed out of a garbage pit.

I didn't know what to say. All i could hear was my attacker's voice in my ear, saying the same thing. Interesting choice of words my mother had used - village bycicle. Suddenly, the pain in my center turned from romantic to sickening, reminding me of the blood i had spilled. I was burning so strongly with fury that i had to get out of there, so i stormed out of the temple kiosk's cafe and walked along the old water resevoir for the palace, until i was far from the cafe, and i found my place on a large stone that had fallen from the tall wall, in ruins. I turned the volume all the way up - jaded, by aerosmith.

Then people started touching me on the arms, as i couldn't hear them with the earphones in, and asked to have a picture with me. Young tourist men or young locals would put me under their arms, smile brightly and expect me to smile just as brightly for a picture that i would never see. Eventually, it sickened me enough to bring me back to my mother, where all with cameras could lose me in the crowd of people.

That night at dinner, I went back early to go online. Siri sent me the entire conversation she'd had with Kris for me to read, and i got my answer all right. He wasn't interested in a relationship. He didn't have the capacity to be serious. He didnt know if he loved me or not. He's an 'apathetic being, not meant to like things.' I felt a cold chill down my spine, and elmo came online just in time for me to cry to him.

He and his girlfriend were having problems too. She wanted to end the long distance thing because she met somebody who'd actually be there in the same country. So we both cried and whined to each other in our online conversation, basking in our misery. I wasn't really crying - somehow i'd lost my ability to cry, pretty recently. But i was miserable. I didn't know what to do with myself. I felt like a used whore, and my mother hadn't made it any better.

"Hello?" siri said suddenly into the cell phone. "Hey Kris. You're in zamalek?" She attempted to give him directions to Dani's apartment - which should have been easy because it was right in front of the huge marriott hotel - but we'd forgoten how much of a retard he is. "Ok, fine, meet us in front of my apartment building," she said.

"Lynn, lets go," she said. "We can go to drinkies on the way back.

I was pretty nervous, but Dani gave me a kind, encouraging look and asked for a stella beer. "Dont worry, he's not gonna eat you," he said with a grin.

When we met up with him though, i stubbornly refused to make eye contact with him. I'd usually hug him whenever he arrived n we'd say hello, but i was pissed off, and a hell of a lot more nervous than he probably  was.

"Siri, i had to wait four and a half minutes for you to get here, you know," he said with the usual humor. He gave her a hug, and when he turned to me, we both didn't know what to do. I kept my eyes on the ground and allowed him to pull me into a hug, but i never really looked at him, and i didnt give him my usual smile. I noticed how we walked in that line of three again, me in the middle where siri usually would have insisted on walking between us. Kris had trailed closer to me on the way to Drinkes, and stood right by me as we paid for the stuff. It wasn't meaningless- there was a natural attatchment there that, luckily, we could both feel.

"Four beers and four vodkas?" Siri asked me.

I took out my wallet and got ready to handle the notes inside. "More. We're gonna need way, way more."

We wound up with sixteen bottles - a crazy amount, i know. Each of us would have two beers and two vodka pops. It wasn't cheap, but we knew we'd regret it if we bought any less. Kris refrained from making any smart comments on the weight of the bag he had to carry - last time he did that, we both gave him a hard time and called him a useless fag. We did give him the lighter one though - the bag of four instead of the two bags of six that siri and i carried.

It didn't really take long for my anger to come through, either. After we were done drinking, i was both drunk and furious, and hiding it was way beyond my abilities. I was angry with him... because i'd honestly expected more from a friend as close to me as he was. He'd done more with me than i'd ever done with Skander in 9 months, and then told siri i was basically a beneficial friend. What a way to fuck up a great friendship.

Then again, i'd wondered, if it was such a great friendship, this would never have been a problem in the first place. What i'd eventually learn is that between us, there is no real middle ground. Ever since that night, we had been incapable of staying 'just friends' after it. Sometimes it would work. But the chemistry was just too strong... it always got in the way and it always drove us crazy. That chemistry only stopped bothering us when we cut each other off completely.

My jabs had kept coming, subtly, but enough to let him know i wanted to rip his head off.

"You can have one of my vodka pops," Siri said to him, "and keep your beers, Kris, because Dani has  a few shots of whiskey left for me."

"No thanks..." Kris said in a low tone... "cause then i'll get drunk... too drunk... and trip over a squirrel and die."

His tone of voice was so earnest that anybody who heard him would believe he was serious, if they didn't know him as well as Siri and i did.

"Good," i said darkly. "Then you wouldn't have room left in your short  life to screw people over anymore."

The remark was uncommented on, but it didn't go unnoticed. Suddenly, Kris looked a little self conscious. Siri stared nervously into her lap, her cigarette smouldering between her fingers, her hands resting on her knees. Dani simply smiled at me.

"So..." he eventually said, "Who's up for some pantera?"

Siri grinned and i  gave a small smile, but i really couldn't give a damn about the world's best heavy metal band at the moment. Dani picked up his guitar and started playing hard, and eventually siri pressed herself against his back and wrapped her arms around his waist. They leaned backwards onto the foor and started making out. I looked courteously away.

"So..." kris began, as if he was walking on eggshells. "How was Luxor?" he asked, with that 'eww nasty' emphasis on the word that he often uses.

"Full of mosquitoes and pretty miserable. My mom gave me a hard time about your damn hickeys, and i broke up with skander."

"Wow..." he said thoughtfully. "hey, can i like, go up to him at school and say "mua ha, i made out with your girlfriend!' when i see him?"

I sucked in a breath. "yeah... about that..."

"About that," he continued nervously, giving me a please-dont-castrate-me look when i glared at him, "i'm sorry. I didn't.... mean... to...."

I scowled at him. "You didn't mean to? Hahah! What a joke that must have sounded inside your idiotic head, but it's not fucking funny!" i sighed hard. "Then again, what can i expect? You're an 'apathetic being' and you're 'not meant to like things,' right?"

He quailed. "Uh.... i'm serious. I guess it just happened. It just felt right at the time."

"Why did we even do it?" i asked all of a sudden. "It seems so damned pointless now that i look at what it's caused."

"You know exactly why we did it," he said angrily, "We did it because it was the right thing to do at the time, and the right thing to do for the past six months i've known you. Unless you're dumb enough not to notice that something has been out of place all this time."

"I know what the hell you're talking about," i said, grabbing another bottle of vodka. "What i mean is, why did we have to accept that it exists? we were fine before, weren't we? Pretending nothing was there, never having to think about it. Not letting it get to us seemed all right, didn't it?"

"It was not all right," he told me, "cause i thought i had one sided feelings, and you thought you had one sided feelings, and we had to lie to ourselves and to each other and pretend there was nothing there. You can't say something so difficult was all right."

"Well it's easier than this," i said.

"I know. But what can we do?"

"Ugh... we survived... until we kissed. That was such a bad idea..."

"It was not a bad idea," he said. "Ever consider that it might have just felt right? Like the proper thing to do at the time?"

"That just makes you sound like an asshole."

"Yeah well..." he stared at the floor. "Haven't you always known that about me?"

"Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me!" I hissed. "I know that you love your jokes, okay? But that doesn't mean you'll be... joking... all the time... does it?" i was suddenly losing hope in everything i knew about us.

"Well, maybe it does." he said. "I can't care about people, Lynn. I'm not like that. I'm the kind of guy who fools around all day and gets ok grades and fills his own head with video game bullshit. That's me. Not a romantic at all."

"Damn your parents for sheltering you so fully..." i said under my breath, and he gave me a questioning look.

"Yo," Dani said. "You guys wanna start finishing off your drinks?"

We gave each other a look, Kris and i, as if asking if it was ok to just leave our conversation where it was and drink up. Was it ok? Was it even right?

I looked disdainfully away from him and decided to get playful with Siri. We saw who could down their beer the fastest, and siri being the more daring and confident one, she beat me to it. The night continued at a steady pace and allowed us to relax, but it didnt necessarily allow me the peace of mind i needed..

As my sober mind receded, my verbal blows towards the enemy just became worse. And with every blow i made, i could see him squirm, as if with guilt. So i continued to make it worse. And, i took the vodka that Siri didn't want and downed it all in one go.

"You shouldn't be drinking so much, Lynn," he said. I had already finished my share of the beer and vodka, plus one of siri's and one of Danis, so i couldn't even keep still on the mattress.

"Like you fucking care," i spat, "You're the apathetic being, aren't you? As long as you don't care for something, you have no right to get in on it. So leave me alone."

"Lynn," he began to say when he watched me gulp another one of Siri's beers down. "Stop."

"Fuck you!" I growled, and i continued to down the beer.

"Jesus fuck... okay, fine!" He grabbed the beer bottle and pulled on it, and he began wrestling me for it. Of course, he was the winner on that match.

Finally, he accepted that we really did have a lot of talking to do and he asked Dani if there was somewhere we could go to do the problem-solving. We followed him out to the balcony, where he left us to figure things out.

We almost didn't figure things out. I was astounded by his level of immaturity and stupidity, and by the small capacity of his mind. He turned everything he possibly could into a joke. I became more and more impatient, feeling like we'd never get anywhere.

"What do you think of what happened?" I kept on asking, having to repeat myself because i never got the right answer.

"It was fun," he kept saying, "and i liked it."

"But what does that make me?" I asked irritably. "A whore? a friend with benefits? What?"

"I wish i knew," he said with a sigh.

I have never known somebody so ignorant about himself. He knew nothing about how he feels or how to control his feelings, or how to care or what love is. I remember often pointing out, a direct quotation from his talk with siri, that he was an apathetic being, unable to care, while i was - and this created a problem - not only able to care, but incapable of not caring. An empathetic or sympathetic being.

"It's just the way i am." i said. "I was the only one who wound up in tears on the bathroom floor one morning because of all of siri's suicide threats. I care more for my friends and my lover and whoever else is in my life than they probably care for me."

"But i do care about you," he said.

"No, you dont," i insisted. "And i have ton of evidence to back me up so dont even think about proving me wrong."

Eventually we slid to the ground, leaning our backs against the wall below the window, trying to make sense of everything or siderailing in our drunkenness to jokes that would make us both laugh. He would not, or could not, keep from moving closer to me and wrapping his arm around my shoulders, or holding my hand in both of his. It was painful and upsetting and i felt his touch like a burn.

"We can't keep doing this," i said, allowing him to play with my left hand in both of his. "Maybe you were just horny that night."

"There was nothing..." he said. "It just felt like it was right."

"No," i said. "My reasons were different than yours if that's the case."

"Hey," he said all of a sudden, "What were your reasons?"

"I can't say," i insisted, and i followed with such statements - "it'll mess everything up." "It's too risky." "I can't yet. I wont."

"No!' He said playfully. "How about you start telling the truth?"

"No! Look... just tell me where you see all of this going."

"i see... I mean... i dunno... i dont want a relationship. Those are difficult and boring and complicated. I mean.. if i get a girl i'll probably just have a bunch of kids, and give them weird names like megatron or Rrr, and then abandon them all."

After spending about 10 minutes laughing hard over the names he would give his kids and the way he'd just abandon them, we started arguing over his insensitive ways and the fact that he just doesnt know himself that well.

"What if there was a girl... not necessarily me... who you really liked and really had feelings for? Then what would you do?"

"First," he began, thinking hard with that mischievous smile on his face, "i would do whatever i possibly could not to like her."

"And what if that didn't work?" I asked.

"Then... I'd... move."

"Oh, fuck off! Tell me the truth."

We were siderailing again to his string of jokes and stupidity, and the question was forgotten.

"Shit, i gotta piss," he said, laughing, " do you know where the bathroom is in this place?"

I led him down the halll and left him in the bathroom, and when i returned to the reception room dani was waiting for me.

"Hey," he said. "What up? Where's Kris?"

"He's pissing," i said miserably, and i started a string of curse words to let out my frustration. He grew pretty concerned.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, girl, what's going on? It's not going too well?"

"I dont get it. I just dont get how somebody can be that ignorant and that stupid, and i dont get why i would ever fall so hard for such an idiot!"

"Hey," he said gently, placing a hand on my shoulder,  "it's ok. I feel for you, you know that? Now lets go into the sitting room cause my ma is gonna get pissed. We'll sit down in there."

I let him lead me back to the balcony and we sat together on one of the sofas. "So what's going on?" he asked.

"He has no idea how to love. Or how to care. Basically i'm meant to be his fuck buddy," i said miserably.

"Aah... I see." He began speaking, asking me with a friendly smile if i smoke, and when i nodded, he gave me a cigarette and lit it up. Back then i wasn't much of a heavy smoker, but i liked the way the nicotine seemed to cool my head. I wasn't even much of a smoker anyway - i just felt like doing it.

Most of what he said to me, i can't remember now, and couldn't remember the next day either, but i know i felt better in less than a minute of conversation. I remember saying "I don't know why i can have such strong feelings for an asshole, but i do."

And Kris walked in then, sitting on an armchair next to us. He refused a cigarette from Dani and we sat like that for a while, listening to Dani as he explained that we have to keep quiet or his mom will go insane. And then he left us to it.

Kris and i talked as i enjoyed the cigarette, and i dont remember much of the words spoken, but i remember getting up, feeling confused and irritated, circling the seating area and sitting down in the armchair next to his, before moving to the window again.

And i pointed out that he just doesnt care about anything or anyone - his friends included.

"I do care! I so do! He stood and joined me at the window, leaning out to watch the view below.

I sighed and placed my chin on the railing.

"I care if you bite the railing or not," he told me, sliding a hand beneath my chin and lifting it onto his arm instead. "That's some care right there."

"Bite the railing? wtf?"

"You looked like you were gonna bite the railing," he said, and then he eyed my cigarette. "Why do you smoke?" he asked me in that obnoxious, childish tone of voice. "well, i just keep imagining you getting totally pissed and burning me with it. So how bout you toss it?"

"Don't be ridiculous, i'm not gonna burn you."

"Ah dont beliiiieve yah! A seen peopulz with cigarette burns, kay woman?"

"Oh really?" i said somewhat poisonously. "Well you wanna know something? I have cigarette burns. Two of them." I slipped my hand beneath the halter top and searched on the right side for the smaller dent in my skin, ignoring the one on the left because it's a little too gruesome.

"Holy shit," he said, tracing it with his fingers. "How?"

"When i was thirteen." i said. "There was a dude." I didn't really need to elaborate more than that.

"Now that is a real asshole. I don't know why you're calling me one of em. But hey, maybe that dude was my mentor!"

"What. The. Fuck." My anger burned and bubbled like a poison.

"Okay, okay," he said nervously, and he gave me the please-dont-castrate-me look for the 50th time that night. "I'm sorry, that was stupid."

"Fuck you!" i growled. "Never joke about that in front of my face. Not until i'm dead or i haven't seen you in five years, maybe, but not now."

"Okay.. really, i'm sorry. Come here." He twined his arm around me and pulled me to his chest, and i leaned over the railing, feeling the pain of his embrace in the feelings that it invoked - the same feelings i knew would never be satisified. But i loved it enough to submit to it anyway.

We discussed everything like that, going back and forth from detail to detail in this one big issue that was Us. I accused him of being a dickhead, asked if he was sure he was a virgin (yes) asked if it then wasn't serious for two best friends and virgins to almost go all the way in one night (okay, maybe it is), accused myself of being a slut just like my mom said i was (hell no, you're not). And within all this, we established that he doesnt know what his feelings are yet, and that my reasons for hooking up with him were different than his. And, apparently, that he really does care about me, and i'm awesome to talk to, and that we both enjoyed what we'd done on wednesday night.

I felt like maybe we were getting somewhere.

"I got a question that may define your feelings," i said. "If it was just cause you're horny, why me and not siri?" I asked.

"Because.. i dunno.... siri was sleeping and you were kind of.. in my lap in your bra and underwear."

"So if siri was in the same place would you have taken it as far as that?"

He thought on it for a moment. "No. Hell no."

"And... did you enjoy it cause of what we were doing or because you were doing it with me?"

"Well... i know if it was with any other chick it would be less than half of what it was to do it with you."

"Then... maybe that answers the big question."

"Maybe... probably... I just have some thinking to do. But hey, what were your reasons?" he asked me. "Just tell me. I'll get you." And he gave me a small squeeze.

"No, you wont get me," i said surely. "Everything will just get more complicated."

"No, come on," he insisted.

"Hey guys," dani said, coming into the room. "You gotta get back to my bedroom ok, my ma's going crazy."

We landed on the bed as soon as we passed the curtain that Dani uses as a bedroom door. We continued talking, Kris and i, as siri and dani minded their own business. Eventually i started to admit what had been stuck inside me for more than just the past two weeks.

"I did the amount of things with you in one night that took me nine months to do with skander - and it was never as passionate and heated as we were. And you know me, damnit. You know i'm usually more careful than that. But.. i did it because... i only do things like that with somebody i'm with. Somebody i have strong feelings for. I did it with skander because i have feelings for him. And my reasons for you aren't any different." Damn, i did a lot of beating around the bush. But i couldn't help it. It was the only way i could.

He as still caressing my hand, and we were still skin against skin.

"So, what you're saying is,... you sort of like me... and that's why you did it.. and that's why right now you feel screwed over." He looked extremely happy about it.

For some reason, i wasn't nervous or self conscious at all. It's not like going up to the one you love and admitting it, just like that. We had already kissed, and touched, and seen each other next to naked. So the obstacle of touch and sexuality had already been breached.

"Before or after it happened?" he asked.

"Before," i said. "I think way before... and i only realized it or accepted it on that friday night, when we first got drunk together."

"I know what you mean,,," he began to say. "Something has definitely been there for a while."

I dont remember much of what we talked about after. I remember being tangled up in him, infatuated and held close, the body contact so natural and so warm and so loving i felt like i was floating on a cloud. I asked him what he thinks of the whole thing.

"I definitely have feelings for you... but it's weird. I've never felt like this before. And i dont think i can handle it. I love your cheek on my face. I love playing with your hand. I love being close to you. I love being around you and i look forward to seeing you at lunch time and i prefer talking to you than talking to anybody else i know. But i dont know what that means."

"God..." i sighed. "Most people will know immediately when they want to be with somebody. You need a shitload of self discovery first."

He laughed.

And i know it's stupid and pointless and confusing, and it only complicated things more, but we did it anyway. We kissed. And this time, it was because we wanted to do it. We were thinking clearly and we knew we were in the middle of confusion. But still, he tilted my head upwards and pressed his mouth against mine.

And we liked it. It was messy and arousing, and i planted a hickey on his neck while he dug his fingers into my sides to maintain some level of self control, and when siri and dani joined us on the bed, Kris pulled me on top of him.

My hair was everywhere and he grabbed handfuls of it while we kissed. "Did you like, eat salt or something?" he asked.

Siri laughed and looked at us, from her place on top of dani. "We all ate salt Kris."

"Yeah. It's called sweat. Today was a freaking hot day anyways."

Eventually siri pulled me in for a kiss that both the boys watched with wonder, side by side on their backs, and when it was over i lay on my back and watched Kris sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Come here," i said, opening my legs up and inviting him on top of me.

"Fine, salty woman," he said with a wide grin.

We became heated again. My fingers weaved into his mass of long, messy brown hair and he pushed his hips into mine.

"Do you wanna... go back into that room?" he asked, and i knew exactly what he meant.

"We cant," i said. "His mom will see us."

"You guys gotta stay in here," Dani added.

Kris never gave up though. He got up and tried to pull me up with him. "Come on," he said, "Let's go."

"Not unless you tell me why," i said whinily.

"I dunno, just for the hell of it."

I never did go with him. He spread out beside me on the bed, constantly trying to convince me that it was fine and nothing disastrous would happen if i came with him to the other room. What followed was a long debate over why i wouldn't sleep with him. He insisted that he has feelings for me and doesn't know how to handle them, but he can change in time for me.

"I'm not even worth it, so there's no reason i should believe it."

"You're fucking worth it woman," he said, "More than you know. More than even i know. You're totally amazing. I mean.. you talk to people in a way that makes them trust you. And whenever we talk at lunch - whenever i'm not spitting out random bullshit, that is, you actually understand everything. You understand me better than anybody i've ever met. You understand everything. It's cool to have a friend like that."

"That still doesnt mean i'm gonna fuck you."

"What are you doing?" he asked alarmingly.

"Looking for the scar."

He immediately covered my scar. "Hell no! You don't need it!"

"Yes i do, to remind myself of who i am and why i shouldn't do it, you idiot!"

"It's under my hand anyway, there's no way you can get to it," he said with a smirk.

I then moved to the scar i'd ignored before - the uglier, more brutal one. "Got it," i said triumphantly, feeling it under my fingers.

"What is it, this thing right here?" he asked, brushing over the raised mark on my skin.

All i did was watch him as he stared at it, with a mix of expressions on his face that i couldn't really understand, until siri appeared telling us it was time to leave.

The minutes that followed consisted of him trying to convince me, and me reluctantly refusing. An angry phone call came and went with my dad. Siri checked to see if we were all sobered up.

"I dont think he is," i said, looking evilly towards Kris, "Just look at him."

Dani did a sight test on him, getting him to count the fingers he held up.

"Four! I mean - one! i mean... dude you're switching!"

"Fuck it, siri said, and she took over, holding her fingers up for him

"Two." he said

"Right."

"Four."

"Right."

Siri held up her middle finger.

"A fuck me sign."

"It's fuck you," Siri said, "and i know you'd love to fuck her," she grinned at me.

"No i wouldn't!" he obnoxiously refused.

My jaw dropped. "You ass!" I growled. "What have you spent the last hour trying to convince me to do?"

"Oh, yeah, that," he fawned.

SIri and Dani laughed hard at him and resumed their dressing up and getting ready to go.

As they did so, i sat on the bed and glowered up at Kris. Once again, i recieved that please-dont-castrate-me look and he mouthed an apology, cheeks red.

"Yeah, yeah," i droned, eyes rolling. "Fucktard."

But something was changing. The entire way from Dani's apartment to Siri's, his head hung sadly and there was no more of an effort to stick close to me. As we pulled off all our clothes to get ready for bed, his mouth stayed in a tight, straight line. No more ubiquituous smile - that was strange enough on its own.

"Lynn," he said eventually, "Do you wanna... go out to the living room and talk?"

I was already under the covers and wearing next to nothing, so i pulled his shirt over my head and we left the room. We leaned against the hallway door, both looking pretty down, and the tensity in the air was suffocating.

"The thing is, lynn, i think you deserve -" (oh god, i thought, here it comes, -"somebody better than i am. Somebody who will give you what you give them."

I exhaled shakily. "Really?"

"Yeah." he stared sadly at the floor. "Maybe i am just an asshole."

I turned and looked at him. "So that's it?"

"Pretty much."

A few seconds passed. "You sure?"

"Yeah... i'm sure."

"Well..." i returned my gaze to the floor. "What do we do about the past few days? Whatever was there is gonna continue to be there."

"I really don't know."

"We could pretend it never happened..." i said, "but... no, that's impossible."

"That's completely impossible. It'll be in our faces all the time and we'll just be forcing it down."

For a moment we just stared at the floor, silent. "Okay," he said eventually. "Let's go sit in the living room."

I couldn't help but smile. We had good memories of that place. We would stay the night at siri's house when her parents traveled and spy on people with her dad's binoculars, looking into hotel bedrooms or felluccas.

"Are you mad?" he asked after a while.

"Yeah but... only because you were ready to fuck me before you made this decision."

"I'm sorry..." he said. "Really, i am. You dont deserve all this shit from me."

"God, i'm so stupid!" i sighed. It was stupid enough to do it once and find out he was just an asshole, but to do it again when i knew everything that was going on inside his head... and now he's detatching himself completely...

"I'm stupid too," he said. "I'm stupid as a... dead pig."

"Yeah, yeah," i said miserably. "Rub it in."

"Well look, you're totally awesome, ok? You're too awesome to stick  yourself to a fucktard like me."

We talked on and on, getting almost nowhere because he was joking around so much. A few minutes passed where he turned everything i said into a stupid song. Siri came out to join us, and we all sat around at the table, looking out at the view of the nile and the towering lights of the buildings around it and talking the night away. By one in the morning we were all ready to sleep.

But Kris and i spent most of the night on the laptop, messing with people on skype and plotting out random conversation starters and pick up lines, and then we watched brokeback mountain together. It didn't really help the tension. But we didn't kiss. We didn't try anything, which is funny considering we had the room to ourselves and the room was full of condoms. We were up until almost 4 am, and i flirted with Nicholas and drank coke.

We woke up to chanting kids screaming from the school below, at around 10 am. We were all scantily clad, siri in her underwear and bra, kris in his boxers, and me in nothing but kris's shirt, with the usual beneath it. She walked around her room packing up for a trip to baharia, and Kris walked around the room trying to find his clothes. I pulled off his shirt and handed it to him, and he froze for a second, his eyes trailing up and down what he found beneath the shirt, until i poked him and he took it back.

"Are you pissed at me?" he asked, watching me pick up my clothes. "I was sort of  a dickhead last night."

"No, I'm not," i said simply, and i pulled on my jeans.

When i went to the bathroom, i discovered a rash, and yet another hickey. Damn. Even more reminders. At the breakfast table, we were all silent, until siri left and Kris opened up his mouth again.

"Are you sure you're not mad?" he asked me. "I feel like i really screwed with you last night."

I gave him a scrutinizing look. Was he re-thinking everything he'd decided? Or was he just feeling bad about what he tried to do at Dani's house?

"Well, i'm kinda mad," i said, "i was just too tired to be pissed off earlier."

Nothing more was spoken. We had erased it from the words we spoke, but we were not able to erase it from our minds or the air between us. Every time our eyes met, we knew that for sure.

Siri walked us both out to get cabs. I got mine first and i turned back to wave - and i observed their faces. Siri looked sleepy, but Kris looked sad. It was the first time i'd seen him like that, and it surprised me. We both knew we would never be able to repair what had been done.. but we would do our best.

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