All The Times When I Wished You Would’ve Kissed Me 

I wanted you to kiss me whenever we locked eyes for a second too long, whenever we hugged for a second too long, whenever we let a moment pass between us for a second too long.

I feel like that happened with most of our interactions. They always lasted a second too long for friends. Not long enough for anyone else to notice, but long enough for us to notice, long enough for it to mean something, even if neither of us ever acknowledged it.

I wanted you to kiss me whenever we were bantering back and forth, whenever we were flirting behind the veil of sarcastic comments, whenever we were commenting on how much we liked each other without actually saying the words. I wanted you to kiss me every time I teased you about something you said and every time you teased me right back. I wanted you to kiss me in the middle of a sentence, cut me right off, because what we were saying was meaningless anyway. What we were saying, really, was I want you so bad.

I wanted you to kiss me whenever we touched, no matter how soft, no matter how short. I wanted you to kiss me whenever you placed your hand on my back. Whenever you wrapped your hand around mine. Whenever you tapped my shoulder. Whenever you fucking high-fived me. Every touch was bliss. Every touch was torture. Every touch begged for more.

I wanted you to kiss me whenever you locked eyes with me. You didn’t have to smile. You didn’t have to say a word. Looking at me was the only thing you needed to do to get my heart racing, my blood pumping, my skin tingling. It didn’t take much. All it took was the sight of you, the scent of you, the presence of you. All it took was you.

I wanted you to kiss me whenever the room went silent, whenever we stopped talking but something unsaid was lingering in the air, hanging over both of our heads. We never actually ran out of things to talk about. We chose the silence because we wanted it to turn into something else. And it did. It turned into staring at your lips, into nervous laughter, into another casual, let’s-never-mention-this-aloud conversation. It never turned into what I wanted the most.

I wanted you to kiss me — but I never said the words aloud. I never admitted that’s what I wanted from you. I never verbalized the feelings I thought were abundantly obvious to anyone within a mile of our conversations.

I never said those things because I didn’t think they were necessary. I thought they would be overkill. I always assumed you could sense them in my voice, in my eyes, in my aura. But maybe you were clueless. Maybe you were giving off as many signs as me. Maybe neither of us realized what was happening in those silences. Or maybe neither of us were brave enough to close the gap.