"The Young and the Jobless" — Afterward

I made out with my roommate.

It was a quick five-second kiss, and I knew it would happen as I lay on the couch and he crouched above me in the dark. In fact, I had turned off the light on purpose, knowing that he’d come if he couldn’t see my form as well outlined on the couch.

It only lasted five seconds because I stopped at five and almost a half. “Wait…what are you doing?”

“Probably something I shouldn’t be,” he said.

Then we didn’t talk for a while. If I could, I would have liked to take his clothes off and have him right there on the couch.

But I thought about his girlfriend, and that killed it. He’s going to Thailand to get married in May.

We stayed there for a while, studying each other in the dark. Then, I said that we should go to bed. He agreed.

“How come you never show what’s in your heart?” I asked, thinking not of romantic moments I’ve seen in movies, but really of times where he’s been pissed and never really quite let it out. Or when his brother died over summer and he never let me know until months later, when he mentioned it by accident in passing.

“I think it’s hard to get in here,” he said, pointing to his heart. He was still smirking.

I nodded. “Goodnight,” I said. I hugged him. “I think you’re a pretty cool person.” He thought I was, too, he said.

And then we stood up and went to bed.