Dawn

It was dawn.

The others waited outside as we met on the stairs.
In the dark, we talked like friends, awkward, unable to trace the lies on each other's faces when you tried to laugh into my hair and tell me I was like your sister.

Sure I was.

But once we walked out into the morning cold and our solemn friends greeted you, a sense of urgency got tangled up in my chest.
You were already gone before you had even left, and I started to panic.

Adel packed your bags into the waiting cab, the others hugged and shook hands, I twisted and turned my way towards you, not knowing what I wanted until I was right there in front of you, and you pulled me into your arms.

You made me small. And I loved it.

My chin on you chest, your fingers to my waist, you breathed in my scent of last night's dancing, when my favorite song came on in the middle of the street at five in the morning.
In my little skirt and high heels, I danced circles on the cobblestones, Mourad took photos and Lisa asked if I was drunk, but only you came to dance.

Dance,
step,
dance,

we grew dizzy, you with too many cheap beers, and I with the hours that were winding down to now and your departure.
So I kept on spinning and you kept on laughing, and they shook their heads at our childishness, but that's all we ever were.

Yesterday I had run after you in the midday sun of a quiet Polish street, my short skirt flying up, and you begged forgiveness but couldn't stop laughing at the sight of me coming down on you like a mad woman, hitting your arm with my handbag and calling you a bastard, all because you'd forgotten to mention you had a girlfriend.
At the time it seemed harmless, but when I told you of my ex and how gorgeous he was, you got jealous too.

Perhaps it was all a joke.
Perhaps I was like a sister to you.

Like hell I was.

And now in the morning grey, the others grew awkward as you wouldn't let go, and I didn't pull away, enjoying the way your thumb drew circles on my cheek, down my throat, trying to find the place where I was ticklish, enjoying the lack of logic and sensibility, you kissed my shoulder and I pushed you away to hit your chest, but before I could say it, you beat me to it;

"If only I was older," you said.

"If only you were," I agreed.

"Is that really a problem?" you asked, and only later, much later, with my cheeks pressed against the pillows, trying not to breathe to stop the crying, only then did I realize that it didn't really matter, that all the things I didn't want in you were all the things I missed the most.
Your bug eyes and crooked teeth.
Your stumbling speech and silly dance moves.
I said you looked like a serial killer.
You said I had a Snoopy head.
I ran after you.
You kicked me.
I bit your arm.
You yelped.
And then you went around showing off the bruise, telling everyone you'd been bitten by a girl.
Until I told you it made you look like a wuss, so you started saying it was a war wound.
It was fun, and young and everything I hadn't been in a long time.

"This is karma," I told you one day, as we lay on the grass and watched the vanilla sky, "this is payback for all the things we've done wrong in our lives."
You didn't understand, so we tried to laugh.

And now I tried hard to pull myself out of your arms.
But even when you climbed into the car and drove away, even when I hid my face in my hands, hunched up in the empty bathtub, I was still there with you, wrapped inside, feeling small.