the problem

Day 1

One day, after school, I saw Leilani standing at the old pay phone on the side of the St. Mary’s building. It was a hot spring day and she had the long sleeves of her uniform button-down rolled up. She was engrossed in the conversation she was having on the phone and didn’t seem to notice that anyone else was near.

“…They could come out though. My point is they could come out. I could be like doing something on the floor and they could come out and be like…”

She paused, presumably for whoever was on the other end to speak. I inched closer.

“But where is the bed though, Vincent? Is the bed against the wall?”

She paused again. I was quite close now. She was shorter than me and so I could see straight down her shirt. It was hard not to imagine unbuttoning the rest of it and feeling her curves in my hands. When I managed to tear my eyes away from her chest, I noticed her right forearm. Tattooed in pink was a hibiscus flower. I recognized it from my vacation the previous summer in Hawaii. Under the flower, in neat but fluid cursive, was the name Vincent, which I read upside down.

“Oh, so your father can’t see the bed? Is the bed high?”

She brushed a hand over the black hair before flipping it. She wrinkled her round nose in good humor at whatever “Vincent” had said. I hated this Vincent.

Before I knew it had happened, her conversation was over and she was looking at me. She did not seem surprised. She smiled before running her tongue over her lips and then slowly over her teeth. She bit her bottom lip all the while staring into me with her sharp, almond eyes and I thought “this is it”. This is right, me and her, and she thinks so too and…

And then she laughed at me. She shook her head, picked her bag up and before I could beat her to it, Leilani walked away, hips swinging, black hair soaring behind her.