basically just smut

Early November, late enough for the cold to creep past glass doors and sneak down high school hallways. I am sixteen years old, and a girl has me pushed up against a corner at the bottom of a stairwell. I think she is probably my best friend. Somewhere above our heads, footsteps go thump-thump, thump-thump.

Stop looking so scared, she says. I pretend to be exasperated. Her fingers move down my neck and draw a pattern across my shirt. Who's scared, I say. I choke on this last bit as she brushes past something sensitive.

She smirks a little. You are, she says.

She traces the outline of my hips with her hands. She hooks her fingers together at the small of my back and pulls me away from the wall. But you love me, she demands.

Do I? I wonder, but I say nothing, breathe a little quicker, stiffen against her. She is tugging at my belt, pulling the end through a loop.

Thump-thump, thump-thump is the sound of my heartbeat, and thump-thump, thump-thump is the sound of Mr. Brannan's footsteps as he catches sight first of our moving shadows and then of us, her eyes startled wide open and my jeans caught still just barely above my hips in a final moment of panic.