2.00 AM - (dunhills are for remembering)

Monday, 25 April 2016
1.06 AM
I can almost pinpoint the moment I realized his breathing had quickened, when his movements had become faster, hungrier. It was two AM, and we were desperately trying to keep quiet. There were seven people in the room. They were all asleep. All, of course, except us.

It was dark, and both of us were hesitant to start, I suppose. I know I was. We'd talked about it before, planned to steal a few seconds--just a peck--in the school practice rooms--but we couldn't find a moment alone. So we both went to spend Saturday night at basecamp, as always. Only this time, waiting nigh wordlessly for the last of those owls to fall asleep.

It was quiet, so quiet, at midnight when five of us were on the balcony, smoking silently. His head was in my lap then, and my hand was in his hair. He was smoking a Dunhill. Mine, I think, but I couldn't be sure. Almost all of us had brought Dunhills that night.
He put his hand up to my lips, expectantly. I tore my eyes from the darkened paddy fields and the glimmering house lights beyond, and took a drag off his cigarette.
It was 1 AM when one of them gave up and staggered inside. He looked at me then. Maybe even smiled. I couldn't tell.
One by one they stood and went inside, having had enough of the cold midnight breeze and the quiet, only broken by occasional coughs, the sound of frogs, and motorbikes passing in the distance, racing to God knows where.
Half past one. He glanced at me. Stood. Ruffled my hair as he went inside. His cigarette was still alight, the tip glowing red in the ashtray. I took a drag and snuffed it out. I stood on shaky legs--one was numb and tingling below where his head had rested. Hesitantly I followed him into the dark.

People are different at hours like this, I learned. It was the first time I had seen him hesitate. In the bright, raucous company of eleven PM he had never seemed so sure of himself. There in the dark, at a quarter to two, all he could seem to do was look at me and ask, "what do we do now?"
We were both on our backs, side by side, on the carpet because the bed didn't have room for two more. I was playing some stupid game on my phone to take my mind off the thundering in my chest. I passed him a glance.
"That's up to you."
I was losing. Badly. I wasn't even thinking about the game.
He rolled over to face me, taking my phone. Putting it next to me, he asked,
"Every time I ask you, it's up to me. Well, it's up to you now. So what do you want?"
It was two AM.  I rolled over, mirroring him.
Under cover of darkness, I leaned forward.
His lips were still nicotine-sweet.
His breath tasted like Dunhills.

We didn't sleep for a long time.