Smiling, my teeth clamping harder on my lip, I took note of Elliot's dishevelled hair, parts of it covering his forehead and eyes and other parts sticking up at the back. He looked adorable, a bit like Ernie from Sesame Street sans the orange skin and big red nose. I giggled, and his eyelids twitched.
"You're awake, aren't you?" I asked quietly.
He didn't answer, but I was positive he was fighting the muscles in his face not to smile and betray him.
"Pity," I sighed. "I can't seem to find my knickers. They were here just a second ago."
His eyes shot open.
"Ha! I knew it, ya faker."
"Do you seriously think I can sleep while you're moaning and rubbing your arse against my cock?"
"What? When? I did not." Shit! Did I gyrate him while dreaming?
"Yeah, you did. You've been doing it all morning. Want to see the proof?"
I shook my head and pursed my lips. "Your factual bullshit won't work on me."
He laughed and kissed the tip of my nose. "Good morning, beautiful."
I smiled. "Morning."
He smiled, too, neither of us talking for what felt like minutes, our eyes gleaming and searching one another's face. I wanted to kiss him, to trace the contours of his jaw with my fingertips. My need and pull toward him was as natural as breathing, and yet … it made me a little sad.
His eyes dulled. "You okay?"
"Yeah. We didn't fuck. That's a good thing."
"Help me understand why."
I shrugged. "I told you. Friends should never fuck."
"So, technically, what you're saying is that you can't be friends before you become lovers."
"No. I'm just saying that you can't be friends after you've been lovers. It never works out. I don't want us to not be friends, Elliot. Ever."
"So you're pre-empting a failed relationship if we were to ever start one?"
"No. Well … yes … well..." I rolled onto my back. "I'm not getting lured into one of your cross-examinations. It's too early in the morning, and I plead the fifth."
He belly-laughed. "You're not in America, and I'm not trying to cross-examine you. I'm just trying to understand your logic."
"My logic stems from experience. Every one of my sexual relationships has progressed from a solid friendship that has been ruined because of sex. Every. Single. One."
"They probably weren't doing it right."
I whacked him in the gut. "They were. And it's every relationship bar one, actually, and that's only because I ended the sex before it got out of control."
"So you're saying that every sexual relationship you've had has ended badly?"
"Yes." I focussed on his ceiling because Elliot's judgmental face wasn't there.
"And you think it's because you introduced sex into the mix?"
"I don't think, I know."
"Danielle, have you ever considered that the dissolution of the friendship could be due to the fact that neither of you fought to keep it post sex?"
I sighed. "It's not that simple."
"But it can be." He rolled me onto my side so that I was facing him again. "If the friendship is strong enough, it can survive anything. It will survive anything. That's us, Danielle; we can and will survive anything."
"But we haven't, have we? You're forgetting that seventeen years is a long time not to talk to one another."
"Trust me, I'm not forgetting."
"So what happened, Lots? Why'd we drift apart so easily?"
He moved a lock of hair behind my ear. "I don't know. One minute you were there, and the next you weren't."
I blinked. "Me? One minute you were there, and the next you were taking Maureen Kropf to the year-nine social dance at your new school."
He blinked, too. Twice. I counted.
"Well, yeah. She was in my class and the only girl who would talk to me. I needed to take someone."
"She wasn't the only girl who talked to you," I mumbled.
"Are you shitting me, Danielle?"
"What?"
"Are you saying that you stopped talking to me solely because I took some random girl to my year-nine social dance?"
"She wasn't just some random girl, Elliot. She was on my netball team and liked to share detailed information about her 'dates'. And … " I wiped the tear from my eye before he noticed it. "And she wasn't me."
"No, I'm fully aware she wasn't you," he said, his tone annoyed.
An awkward silence settled between us. It was strange. Unfamiliar. I didn't like it.