seven minutes to myself

Seven Minutes To Myself

         “Come on Jude.” They urged, or worse “What are you, scared?” And now here I was, in a 2x2 closet sitting next to a vacuum cleaner that looked like it hadn’t been used in a decade and Eric.
         I leaned my head back against the wall and stretched my legs out as far as they would go, a whole two feet, before they hit the other wall. I could here his breathing next to me like a constant reminder of my pushy friends and inability to do anything for seven minutes except talk or be excessively nervous, these few minutes happened to be the latter.
“Eric?” I whispered as if we were in a church full of mourners or worse, nuns.
“Mmm?” He replied and I heard him turn in the dark and move his hand to rest on the floor in front of the thin strand of light radiating from underneath the door.
“Shouldn’t we do something?” I continued.
“Like what?” He replied, waiting for me to give the perfect response that would show I was hitting on him and wasn’t just shoved in here against my own accord. I tried my best.
“Well first…” I reached for his hand which happened to be the opposite side of him than what I was on.
“You could move this so I can get a little light.” I pulled his hand up onto his leg and as I did he rolled slightly away from me causing me to end up lying face down on top of him, still holding his hand and breathing my forcibly-freshened-by-friends breathe down on him.
“Jude…” He whispered and tucked a loose strand of my dark loose ponytail behind my ear with the hand I wasn’t most likely cutting off the circulation for. Then moving his hand around to the back of my head he pulled me down towards himself giving me the first and best kiss I had ever had. That being said, after about ten seconds I rolled off him, now on the other side so I could keep his hand close. And so we sat, in the dark.
After awhile I said, “Eric?” Quietly, like I do when I’m thinking.
“Mmm?”
“I like you.”
“I noticed” he said and kissed me again.

***

         It was about 11:25 p.m. and we were still at Tanya’s house. Her parents had decided they’d had enough and put themselves up at the Marriott for a night, leaving the nine of us left alone with nothing but the house of a rich family and each others company. I guess it was good that it was us nine left. There was the birthday girl, Tanya and her boyfriend-of-six-months David. Then there was me, Jude, the best friend and Eric was there to because I told Tanya I liked him, and now regretted it because this was the first time I let it go far enough to tell anyone and it was all going downhill. There was also Stacey who you’d pair with her girlfriend Donna which seemed strange because lesbian couples are very uncommon among popular couples and yet here they were, very public. Then there was Ry- the single yet handsome guy who was friends with all, Charlotte, my older sister by twenty months who was also friends with Tanya, and Kyle, Tanya’s cousin.
         We were all sitting around Tanya’s living room attempting to watch one of her favourites, You’ve Got Mail starring Tom Hanks. I was on the floor leaning on the couch with Tanya on my left with David and Eric on my right with his arm around me.
“So, what exactly happened in that closet?” Tanya grinned at me whispering so he couldn’t here. I leaned over as if I was gonna tell her everything which I never planned to do at all.
“Nothing.” I whispered and quickly turned back to the movie which I’d seen a hundred times but Eric had never seen