On an Edge of Glass

you.”
                  “And you lost at Scrabble,” he adds.
                  “Hey hotshot!  I think I beat you at cards and that you actually surrendered the Scrabble game to me, so I don’t think you can tally it as a win on your side.”
                  Ben blinks and stiffens his shoulders.
                  My cheeks flush with heat when I register what I’ve said.  Ben did surrender that Scrabble game to me, but only because I seduced him.  I can tell by the way that his breathing changes and the hard movement of his throat that he’s thinking exactly what I’m thinking. 
                  “So I did,” he says unsteadily.  He turns the steering wheel onto the curving street that leads to his house.  I notice that his knuckles are squeezed white. 
                  He parks the car and turns to me.
                  “This weekend...” He clears his throat and starts again.  “This weekend has been really great.”
                  My breathing is too shallow and it’s causing my head to spin.  This weekend has been great.  It’s Sunday night and we’re leaving to go back to school in the morning and I don’t want to.  I’m afraid that this shift between Ben and me will shift again, and I’m not looking forward to going back to the way things were.
                  Yesterday we spent the entire day with his mom and younger brothers.  We seemed to find a million innocent ways to touch each other.  There were countless seconds of lingering gazes and widening smiles and speeding heartbeats.  Today, Ben took me to his favorite music stores in Asheville.  We had dinner with his two best friends from growing up.  It’s been, in a word, amazing .
    “Yeah,” I say cautiously , feeling my eyelashes flutter against my cheeks.  “It has been a good weekend.  Really good.  I’ve barely thought about the letter from Columbia at all.”
                  Ben squeezes his eyes shut.  “Good,” he says rigidly, swinging his legs to get out of the car.  “That was the idea.” 
                  For a few seconds I don’t move.  My thoughts are unraveling like a spool of yarn that’s been dropped.  I know that I did something wrong.  I fling open my door and the cold outside air knocks into me.  I trip as I step around to the front of the car where Ben is.  My fingers wrap around the fabric of his jacket and I pull him to a stop beside me.   
                  “What?” I ask, sounding more desperate than I intend.
                  Ben turns his head back so that I can see his face.  Eyes, wide and shiny, blink solemnly down at me.  His firm mouth is set in a straight line.   
                  “Nothing,” he says.
                  “Why—what did I say wrong?” 
                  I lift my cold fingers to his cheek.  He flinches and I jerk my hand back. 
                  “It’s nothing,” he says again.  Then he smiles a sad kind of smile and goes inside the house. 
                  I am left standing outside, my feet and hands tingling with cold, wondering what just happened. 
     
     
    I don’t bother to put on my pajamas.  I tug my shirt over my head and slip my jeans off my legs and push myself under the covers in just my bra and underwear.
                  I could stare at the dark ceiling of Ben’s childhood bedroom for hours and still have no answers.  I’ve replayed the conversation in the car a hundred times already.  Did I freak him out?  Was it because I brought up Columbia?
                  I’m all confusion and wrong directions and missed turns.  I roll over and pull one of the bed pillows down over my head. 
    I almost miss the soft sound.
    Tap, tap, tap
                  I sit up, holding the covers up to block my state of undress, and listen carefully.
                  There it is again.  More distinct this time.  A single finger against the door.
                  “Yeah?”  I whisper, my breath funneling out of my lungs.
                  The door cracks and a sliver of light from the hall slips in.  The face hovering in the doorway is caught in shadow, but I know that it’s Ben.
                  He comes into the room and closes the door behind