“And that’s how long it takes to put on my makeup,” Yosefin said as she concluded nearly a thirty-minute-long video call of her showing me how she did her makeup for special occasions. This was the day she was going to meet Monov for the convention. She wanted me to help her gauge which look would be more attractive.

“Be straight with me. How do I look? This is the most you’ve seen me in,” she said.

“You look good,” I said, withholding some excitement from how remarkable she looked.

“Perfect! Since this is my first time, I’m thinking more of this style.” She stepped away from her camera to throw some clothes on her bed. “I was thinking of wearing all black or this.” There was more clothing I hadn’t seen before on the far end of her bed when we started video chatting. They were bundled in a pile, plus I could not tell what they were. “Black hoodie or the denim jacket?”

“What type of shorts will they be paired with?”

“Ah! Let me show you.” Out of nowhere, she pulled down her short shorts to put on her black sweats from the pile of clothes I saw before she was on camera. When she glanced at the camera, her eyes popped open, and her jaw dropped. She calmly put on the black hoodie and said, “whoops. Sorry, I’m excited.”

“It’s okay.”

“How’s this?”

“It looks cool; simple, comfy.” She took it off to go for the jacket but didn’t bother pulling down her shirt that was crumpled over her boobs. “Are you going out there like that?”

“Hell no,” she burst out laughing. “I don’t want these dudes to check me out like that.”

“You’re modest.”

“Everything else is between private eyes, but,” she stopped to get closer to the camera, “the rave clothing doesn’t count.”

“I guess anyone who saw you got special access.”

“Lucky them,” she chuckled lightly out her nose while removing the jacket when she sat down. “Hey! Serious question.” It seemed like any question she wanted to ask made my heart stop for a moment. “Do I have a fine-looking body?” Fine-looking body was in air quotes.

“Why the heck are you asking me that?” I hesitated with several stutters.

“I just wanna know your opinion,” she said, stuttering. “Do I?”

“I don’t know...”

“You don’t know? Dude! I’ve seen you look at me several times. There’s got to be something!” Butterflies started filling my stomach when I pictured her outfit when we went to the rave. Despite the weird somewhat parody pornographic look, she did fall under what I considered fine looking.“Come on now. Let me hear you say it.” After several more stutters and a hefty amount of peer pressure, I finally got it out.

“Okay. Okay. You do.” For some stupid reason, my stupid mouth didn’t stop there. I told what stood out to me like the shape of her ass, the shape of her hips, the size of her boobs, and the roundness of her legs. Both of her arms quickly crossed over her lap when I finished. She gasped as if something scared her and mumbled something I couldn’t hear. Her eyes kept bouncing between the screen and directly into the camera. “What’s wrong?” I said.

“You didn’t see that, right?” I looked everywhere to find what I might have missed. There were no obvious clues. The camera turned off when I looked out my window after hearing sirens in the distance.

“Yosefin, your screen is black.”

“One second!” After twenty seconds, the camera came on. She quickly clothed herself within that time. “Um, I’ll wear the jacket and sweats today,” she said, twirling her thumbs in her lap. “So, you ready to see Kat, ja?” Her strange behavior made me curious, but not enough to ask her why she was acting weird.

“Yup. I’m ready to get some studying in.”

“You said she lived in an apartment, correct?”

“That’s correct.” She gave me a high to low pitch hum that felt like a subtle condescending judgment. “Is there something wrong? You sound annoyed.”

“Annoyed? Nein. (No.) I’m suspicious. I’m worried Kat will do something to you.”

“Like what?”

“Y’know...” I shook my head, not understanding what she meant. “Come on, Josh.” She put on a white shirt and the denim jacket, then a white stylized beenie as I tried to figure out what she alluded to. “How much do you know her?”

“Not that much.”

“And you’re going to her apartment to study? I know you’re not bold enough to have sex with her.”

“Excuse me?” I said, cracking my voice.

“Exactly,” she shouted, pointing at me through the phone. “You’re not stupid to make that move.”

“You’re acting way too protective.”

“Ouch, Josh. If I were standing next to you right now, I’d punch you in the stomach,” she said, then laughed. “Moving off-topic, I need a serious answer from you.”

“What?” I said with an attitude.

“Should I mention to Monov that I’m not entirely what he might expect?”

“I don’t think it’s relevant for just hanging out.”

“Are you sure about that? When I told you, we stopped talking for days.” She raised her brow and smeared a smirk on the right side of her cheek.

“That was different. You can if you want, but I don’t see a purpose in it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Her phone buzzed with a notification. “That’s him. I’ll text you later.”

“Have fun.”

“Study hard with Kat,” she said with a firm finger pointing at me. I rolled my eyes in response. She gave me a peace sign added with kissy lips before ending the call.

I entered Kat’s address in my car’s navigation. Her apartment was only ten minutes away from me, close to the campus we went to. The drive was short due to the lucky chance of getting green lights all the way there. She called me on the phone when I got into the parking lot.

“Hiya, Joshua!” Kat said. Her voice came through the phone and behind me the moment I opened my door. She was on the second floor, waving me down. She wore a bright yellow shirt, jean shorts, and puffy black slip-on shoes. “Come on up!” I swung my backpack over my shoulder and headed up two flights of stairs to get to her. “Hi, how’s it going?”

“It’s going—” She bumped into me for a surprise hug. I didn’t get the chance to react or put my arms around her before she let me go. “Good.”

“Awesome. My room is over here.” The hallways smelled like fresh-cut wood. Everything from the ground and light fixtures looked clean. Her apartment was the first one on the right of the hallway.

“This is cozy,” I said, peeking my head in when she opened the door for me.

“The rent is good for a room like this. Two people could live comfortably in here.”

“I can see that,” I said when I saw her bedroom to my left. She walked in there, waving her hand for me to come in. At first, I hesitated. I thought about Yosefin’s warnings, but I had to ensure myself. “Let’s get this started.”

“Yeah.” She slipped off her slip-ons before taking a seat on the bed. I noticed she had her nails done. They were pink, but the big toe was white and had three little silver beads on them. “You like’em?”

“Oh, what?” I looked at her TV to make it seem I didn’t know what she was talking about.

“My toes.”

“Oh,” I said, checking them out again. “They look... good.” She went off into a small tangent about a story that involved her time at the nail salon. While she was blabbering, I set up my laptop to prepare for the day. I got to the school’s website, where my professor had his PowerPoint, and she was still talking.

“So, that’s how I got a discount on the whole process yesterday.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” I said without knowing the full context.

“I know, right? Anyway, I see you’re all ready to go.” She touched my screen to open up the chapter she struggled to remember. “Boston massacre. That was in seventeen seventy-six, correct?”

“No, six years before that.” When I clicked the next button, the bullet point for when it happened came up. “See.”

“Shit!” She rested her cheek on my shoulder with her hand softly gripping my upper arm. “These dates are so confusing.” My phone pinged. It made both of us jump slightly. “That was loud.”

“Sorry. I forgot to turn it down.” I put it on vibrate but took it off when I saw it was Yosefin. She sent me a picture of her and her friend in the shot. It looked like a middle-aged man with a bald head and thick beard. The message said:

“This dude reminds me of a Viking.”

“Is that Yosefin?” Kat asked.

“Yeah,” I said, putting my phone back in my pocket.

“That girl is such a boy.” Something about the way she said that sounded like she felt disgusted. The B in boy was forced. It was followed by a frown with the end of her lips pinched down. “She must’ve hung around boys a lot.”

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

“Maybe.” I restrained myself from smiling.

“Who was that guy? Her brother?”

“Some friend of hers.”

“Oh,” she said, moving off of me for a slight moment. She kept herself pretty close to me. Shoulder-to-shoulder proximity while we looked at my phone.

“I think I know your problem with next week’s test,” I said to take her attention back to studying.

“Really?” She gasped. “You got me all figured out?”

“It’s the dates. If you can remember what happened in those times, I think you’ll be okay.”

I opened a document and wrote down several dates for her. We went over a lot of information for hours. In those times, Yosefin would fill me in on what was happening in her day. She sent me pictures of herself and everything that caught her eye. There were also alarming texts of her friend acting in ways that made her uncomfortable. I had to balance talking with Kat and focusing on what was going on with Yosefin. Her so-called friend got touchy, not in a civil way.

Me: What is he doing?

Yosefin: Putting his arm around me. Staying close. It’s fucking weirding me out.

Me: Call him out on it.

Yosefin: I’m about to. Believe me.

“Joshua,” Kat said, poking my waist several times. “I want to see if I got this down.” We went through several years of America’s history up to the Declaration of Independence but stopped on the year the war ended. When we were taking a break, I saw her take three glances at my phone while I was talking with Yosefin. Each look was quick but got longer than the previous one.

“Is there something up with my phone?”

“Nah,” she chuckled. “I was just thinking about you and Yosefin. You guys seem pretty close.”

“Well, yeah,” I said, confused as to why she said that. “She’s my friend.”

“I’m shocked y’all are not dating judging by everything I see.” That was the second time something believed us to be more than friends.

“What do you see?” I asked, curious to know her viewpoint.

“You know,” she blushed, looking away for a moment to put her hair behind her ear. “For starters, you’re a cute-looking guy.” I froze when she said that. My ears couldn’t believe what they heard. “I would have gone on a date with you just by your looks alone.”

“Seriously?”

“Hell, yes. Like, right now, my heart is pounding just by looking at you.” My heart began pounding as well. I found her attractive since the day we met. It was strange we didn’t talk that often until this point. By her logic, we could have been dating if we had talked more.

“So, you’re saying we could be dating... right now?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered as she inched closer to me. “I don’t know if you find me interesting.” The only thing I found mesmerizing at the time was how she looked at me. She was fat in all the right places and beautiful. The idea of her being my girlfriend excited me. It has been four years since I had another girlfriend. If she asked me to be her boyfriend, I would have said yes.

“I think you are interesting,” I said, giving in to my curiosity.

“Yay!” She shouted and squeezed me for a hug. “Quick question! Have y’all kissed at least?”

“Ew, gross!”

“Gross?” She gasped, smiling. “Why’s that?” I had to think of a better reason other than saying Yosefin isn’t a girl. That detail, in my eyes, was one of those secrets no one should know.

“Not my... type,” I chose. She hummed with fingers clasped together over her mouth as if she was thinking about something. Her cheeks were pulled out enough that I knew there was some sort of smile or grin behind them.

“Would you if you had a chance?” She mumbled.

“With Yosefin?” My heart stopped for a second and sunk into my stomach. For some reason, I couldn’t outright tell her no. Intimacy wasn’t in my mind when it came to Yosefin. When I thought about her friendly side, there were situations I pictured being kissed on the cheek. But on the lips, it sounded too far. “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t.”

“Hey,” she said in a soft voice. Her quiet voice gave me wonderful chills on the right side of my body. I covered my crouch with my hand so she wouldn’t see my growing boner. “Would you kiss me if I asked?”

“Um,” I said, looking at my computer. The year seventeen eighty-three was on my computer screen. My nervousness wanted to find a way to escape the predicament I got myself into. “Hey, what happened on this year?”

“I think it was,” she said with her jaw resting on my shoulder and right arm over my lap. “When the war ended, yeah?”

“That’s right!”

“Cool!” She closed my laptop and set it on the table next to the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting it out of the way. I don’t want it to accidentally break.” My head spun with possible scenarios of what was about to happen. I kept thinking about Yosefin’s worries in each scenario before I left. “You didn’t answer my question.” She gave me a menacing smirk like she knew I remembered what she asked me.

“What was it?” I stupidly asked while stuttering.

“Come here.” A knot grew in the bottom of my throat. I froze like a deer in the headlights of a moving car. “Fine. I’ll come to you.” She kissed me on the cheek. The mint inside her mouth flowed into my nostrils. I didn’t recall her chewing on anything from the moment I stepped into her apartment.

“Hold on. That wasn’t your question.”

“Oh, now you remember?” She giggled. Her warm, soft lips enticed the living hell out of me to turn into them. By the grace of God, Yosefin called me before I could flex them into Kat’s warm lips. I did not hesitate to answer it.

“Yes?” I said, standing.

“Would it be okay with you if you could come to pick me up? I’m not comfortable letting him drive me back,” Yosefin said quietly.

“Send me your location, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Thanks. You’re the best.” She sent me where she was seconds later. It was about thirty minutes away from Kat’s apartment.

“Who was that?” Kat said.

“I gotta go.” I swiped my laptop into my backpack, then calmly walked out of the room.

“Is everything okay, Joshua?”

“Everything is fine,” I said with my thumb up. “Remember those dates, and you’ll be okay for the test.” I jogged out of there feeling aroused, frightened, yet excited I could be on the road to something interesting. I haven’t felt those emotions since my first girlfriend in middle school.

The drive lasted shorter than I expected. Yosefin was outside with Monov. She had her head on her phone while he talked to her. It looked like she didn’t care about anything he was saying. When he raised his hand to touch her, she took a step away from him and put her phone to her ear. My phone rang moments later.

“I’m here. Look straight ahead,” I said as soon as I answered her call. She immediately saw me and took off walking without paying attention to Monov asking her where she was going. The second she got in my car, Yosefin told me to take off. I zoomed down the street without checking to see if there were cars around me or making sure she was buckled up. “Are you okay?”

“I am livid. When I get home, I need to do some blocking,” Yosefin said with a bit of anger in her voice. “That guy...” She stopped to let out a visible whole-body cringe. Her body folded and contorqued in different directions. “That dude is a low-key freak.”

“What’s up with him?”

“That fucking weirdo was into me, like hook up kind. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t get enough attention from his wife, so he thinks he can hit on someone younger.”

“What the fuck?!”

“Dude, I know!” She leaned her seat back and crossed her arms with her eyes closed. “Thanks. I hope I didn’t interrupt your study time with Kat.”

“Your call came at the perfect timing.” I chuckled but I tried to hide it.

“Why’s that?”

“Well,” I continued chuckling as I prepared myself to answer. “She kissed me.”

“Excuse me?!” The way she yelled made me flinch. Her voice jumped two pitches. I drove into a parking lot to explain my position without the need to focus on the road.

“She wanted to. She thought I looked cute and wanted to—”

“I knew that Schlampe (slut) was bad news for you. You need to stop seeing and texting her.”

“Hold on! Why?”

“If I heard correctly, she was probably going to make out with you because of how good you look. That makes no fucking sense, Josh. You can’t make a friendship out of looks.” It took me a moment to comprehend her position. I questioned myself if I should take her seriously. According to her, she never had friends in person until I came along. Nor been in a relationship.

“Why should I listen to you?”

“Uh, because I’m right.”

“Have you ever kissed someone? Have you ever been in a relationship?” My questions made her look away, smiling with her tongue pressing against her lower lip. She had nothing to say other than one stupid reason.

“No, but I’m telling you common sense.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Josh,” she said with her hand squeezing my thigh. She had my jeans pulled between her fingers. “Please, listen to me.” Her grip turned into a light touch. “She won’t be good for you in the long run. Think about it. Do you even know her on a personal level?”

“No. We haven’t talked that much yet.”

“So you were going to kiss a woman you don’t even know?”

“Yeah... no... maybe.” Her hands let go to rest her arms on the center console. “I’ve kissed a girl before I barely knew back in middle school.”

“You’re better off kissing someone you genuinely know and are attracted to.”

“Well then. I should get to know her. That’s the safest move, right?”

“I can’t believe you,” she sighed, looking out her window with her forehead in her hand.

We didn’t talk for the whole ride. After I dropped off Yosefin back home, I texted Kat and apologized for not giving her a reason why I left. I left her sick with worry, but we destroyed that once we began talking on the phone later that day.

Next week came. The test wasn’t hard. Yosefin and I were the first few to finish. As she returned from putting her test paper on the professor’s desk, she gave Kat a deep, long stare. It looked angry as if she saw something mildly offensive. She kept watching her even when she sat down.

“Yosefin?” I whispered low enough the professor wouldn’t hear.

“You ready to go?” Yosefin asked, keeping her eyes on Kat. Our professor didn’t care if we stayed for the remainder of the class or left after we finished. I nodded yes for us to go. She handed me my backpack as we got up, and quietly closed the door behind us. “Awesome. We have a lot of time left before our next class. What do you wanna do to kill some time?”

“Is everything alright with you and Kat? You kept staring at her.”

“Everything is fine.” She smiled at me, but when Kat came out the door and said my name excitedly, Yosefin’s smile faded.

“That test wasn’t that bad. I think I passed it,” Kat said, then hugged me. “Thanks for tutoring me.” Yosefin squinted her eyes as she watched our hug. When Kat let go of me to turn around to ask Yosefin a question, Yosefin stopped squinting. “What did you two think?”

“It was easy. I didn’t have any trouble,” I said.

“That’s good!” She looked over to Yosefin. “What about you? Was it hard?”

“It wasn’t,” Yosefin answered with a big smile, then returned to a neutral face all in a second. She stood next to my shoulder, then locked her arm around my arm. “Let’s go, Josh. We wouldn’t want to be late.”

“Late for—” I was forced to walk away before I could ask her what the hell she was talking about. She took me down to a part of the university where other school offices had their own rooms. We turned left into a stairwell, where she let me go. “Yosefin, what the hell are you doing?”

“Shush for a moment,” she said while looking through the window out into the hallway. “She’s going the opposite way,” she whispered.

“Huh? Kat?”

“Mhmm. That Frau (woman) is bad for you. I can feel it in my gut.” When she said gut, she slowly rubbed her stomach.

“Are you still bothered by us kissing?”

“Of course I am!”

“Why?” Before my answer could be said, a few students passed us to reach different floors. Yosefin and I didn’t keep our eyes on each other as they walked by. Once everything got quiet, I cut her off when I said, “You’re acting weird, Yosefin.”

“Excuse me?” She said with a scoff.

“I saw how you stared at her when you walked back to your seat. You looked like...”

“Like what?”

“You look like you hated her.”

“What?” She said with a chuckle like she was taken back for a moment. “I do not hate her.”

“Then why do I have to stay away from her? Can I at least be her friend?”

“No. I... Just no.” I was shocked. I was so frustrated that I wanted to punch the scuffed white painted wall. Ever since that conversation when I told her what happened, all I heard was to stay away. I felt so annoyed that I couldn’t look her in the face. “Josh,” she said in a delicate tone. “What she did was a red flag. You deserve someone who won’t mess with you like that.”

“Okay, who?” I blurted out. My voice echoed in every direction.

“Well... uh...” She crossed her arms, looked at the wall, then said something I couldn’t hear.

“What did you say?” I asked, getting closer. Her eyes looked down at my chest. The right corner of her lip pinched in.

“Nothing,” she whispered while still biting down on the corner of her lip. “Just saying, I wouldn’t play with your emotions as she would inevitably do.” She finally looked me in the eyes. I noticed her pupils were fully flushed open. “I wouldn’t do it because of how hot you look to me.”

“You would kiss me but not because of my looks?”

“Mhmm.” Even though her face blushed severely, she kept her eyes on me. “I would do it right now,” she nearly stuttered. When she told me that, I didn’t have the same reaction when Kat asked me if I would kiss Yosefin. I didn’t have any reaction. Her statement didn’t make me flinch, gag, or laugh.

“What would be your reason then?” Seconds passed without an answer. “Yosefin?”

“God, you’re so stupid,” she said, shaking her head while she walked past me down the stairs. I held her arm to make her stop when I potentially realized what was happening. Sudden jealousy, I couldn’t be friends with Kat; her overprotective personality and nasty look said it all.

“Yosefin, do you have feelings for me?”

“What? Let’s head to our next class.” Her arm came out of my grasp without any resistance from me. When I turned to head down the next flight, she quickly glanced at me with her eyes, then darted out the door.

After class, I didn’t speak more about Kat or ask Yosefin if she liked me. It was like it never happened, but the thought of it lingered in the foreground of my mind. Yosefin’s worry towards Kat didn’t ease since I told her she didn’t have the right to tell me no in potentially making another friend. I tried to let Yosefin see how stupid she was acting. Unfortunately, my choice to have a friendship made Yosefin bitter toward us.