I have a weakness for pretty girls named Isabel.

Not Isabelle, with two l’s slashing through words like paper cuts, nor Isabella, who’s softer sound makes me think of meek and doe-eyed children. Isadora is acceptable, but not preferable. Isabel is the perfect blend of all of these, a gentle tongue-caressing name that swirls around my mouth like pink candy, leaving the taste of sweet sugar on my lips and the scent of childhood in my nose. You can nickname Isabel, if you so desire, make the “Bel” ring, or the Isa stand out, shorten it to “Izzy,” which has the advantage of a harsher z, when you want to show familiarity, “Is” with a long “ee” sound, when you need to get the message across… but always Isabel in the heat of passion, when you moan her name, when it’s the only thing on your lips.

Her blonde hair darts behind her, a slender waist its endpoint, a fitted white tshirt hugging her curves and her face turned up towards mine, perfect, beautiful, godlike. I lean my head down to kiss her, but she laughs and turns away, slaps my chest with her hand, and mistakenly grazes my abs. My breath comes quicker, but she doesn’t seem to notice, it is just an accident, a slip of the hand, but oh how much I long for it to be real.

That one night when I showed her the depth of my affection, helped along by alcohol, of course, but nonetheless God has granted me the gift of memory. I woke up with a splitting hangover, but I could remember every detail. And I got to wake up next to her, trail my hand across her supple skin, smell her scent in the morning before she shuddered awake, blue eyes wide and confused at the state of undress. I didn’t explain anything, not even when she asked. How were there words for it?

She loves him, too. I know she does. She loves me but not in that way. Maybe she did. That night when we stumbled into the bedroom and locked the door… when the taste of her consumed my senses so that I couldn’t smell anything but oranges and roses… when she bit me so hard it drew blood but felt so right… when she screamed my name…

But here, in the light of day, she doesn’t love me. Not the way I want her to. I can feel my soul tumbling inside of me, propped up only by the dream that she could one day feel the way I feel.

That morning, the morning after, where she walked out of the room with my future pinned onto her lapel.

“Thanks,” she says.

I don’t reply.

“For… everything. You know. Being… well, a great fri–”

“Don’t say it,” I say tiredly. “Just don’t.”

She shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. Although I long for it to be, even then I know it is no more than a one-night stand. For her, I know she regrets this immediately. She’s always told me that alcohol makes her like this, and he wasn’t here, and I was, and any sane person could put two and two together. But she feels guilty now. And sick inside. And it almost mirrors the same way I feel.

In that moment, I hated and loved her with a passion stronger than anything I have ever felt before.

“I have to go,” she says quietly.

“Look,” I say. I will give her this one, but only because I love her. “We… we made a mistake. But that – you don’t – I won’t tell him.”
“You won’t?” she says and there’s a shard of relief in her voice and that’s the shard that pierces my heart right to its core. I can feel the blood starting to drip out of the chambers of my haven and flood through my personality.

“No, Isa. I promise I won’t. He never has to know,” I tell her. “Give me five minutes and let’s go grab coffee. We have a French final tomorrow.”

And we’re suddenly back to normal, but a little tenser. I’m hyper aware of any contact we make and so is she. The sexual tension in the air is stifling. I just want to grab her and hold her and feel her move against me again in that way that makes a guy’s breath catch just at the memory of it.

No more sweatpants around her, I think ruefully.