On the Outside

by Siera Maley

she kissed me on the cheek again. She’d never really done that growing up, and I wondered if being affectionate with Evan had just brought that side out of her. I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. The feeling I got when she did it wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t comfortable, either. Later, I’d refer to this day – the day I spent several hours just lying on my bed, napping with Riley at my side – as Epiphany Day. As I lay there in silence with Riley pressed into me, her eyes closed and her breathing tickling my neck and her arm around me and her fingers tangled gently with mine, my heart squeezed itself tighter in my chest. I glanced down to where Riley’s head rested, and she tilted her face downward slightly, which made her lips brush against my collarbone. I noticed her eyes had closed. When I was eight, I’d bent over and ripped my tights in front of an entire crowd of family and friends who’d come to see a few of us in my gymnastics class perform. When I was eleven, I’d taken a small tumble off of a water ride, and they’d had to shut it down while they carried me out on a stretcher in front of nearly a hundred disappointed people who’d been waiting to go on the ride. Both of those moments were less uncomfortable than this one.