The 5 Lies They Tell You About High School

Every Girl's Wish

#4: You’ll make good memories to always cherish.

Jason was a great boyfriend. He was one of those romantic types, so he knew exactly how to make a girl melt. It was football season, so cheerleading tryouts were being held on the track. In order to boost my popularity, my goal was to make the squad.

I had never done gymnastics, tumbled, or did any kind of physical activity in my life, so I didn’t know what to expect. I laced up my white sneakers on the bleachers, waiting for the cheerleading coach. Girls were squirming and squealing as they talked boys on the football team and the uniforms for this year. I didn’t know any of the girls well enough to talk to them, so I sat at the bottom of the bleachers watching the football players trot onto the field.

When I saw Jason for the first time, I was immediately attracted to him. He had that kind of charm that drew you in. His smile was like diamonds, his eyes like the ocean on a sunny day. One of the freshman girls had shouted his name, and when he whipped around, all the girls ducked their heads. He started laughing along with some other guys who had turned also to the sound of a girl calling for Jason.

After tryouts, I was sweating so much as if my pores were having their own rainstorms. Just out of coincidence, I was taking a swig from my water bottle next to the girls who had shouted Jason’s name earlier. When football practice was over, and the football players scurried away from the field, Jason’s friends dared him to approach the girls that were eyeing him.

I panicked when I saw him making his way towards me. I looked gross. I felt gross. This was the first time I was going to encounter interaction with Jason, and I didn’t want to leave a gross impression of myself on him.

I had the ingenious idea to splash the rest of the water in my bottle on my face. I thought I needed to cool down in order to stop sweating. I thought it would wash away the smell my deodorant failed to cover. Instead, the water just made me look even sweatier as it soaked my hair and shirt. And instead of ridding me of my stench, it only grabbed Jason’s attention off the girls next to me. Which would have been alright if I looked presentable.

“Alright there, are ya?” He laughed, smirking.

“Yeah, of course.” I used the back of my hand to wipe the water from around my lips.

“You worked out pretty hard, huh?”

I stared at Jason in disbelief. He was actually carrying a conversation with my troll looking self. I started to relax. That one conversation grew into a liking because he’d acknowledge me in the hallway the next day. Even though I didn’t make the cheer squad, we ended up making an agreement to work out together in the mornings before school.

Our friendship grew into a relationship. The best kind. I was aware that not everyone got to experience a nice relationship in high school, or one at all, so I didn’t take Jason for granted at first. He was the best thing that had happened to me.

So on a full moon, sitting in the bed of his truck, we had spent the whole night talking about places we wanted to go and the kind of people we wanted to be. A sweet silence fell between us because Jason had stopped responding. He was looking at me. I could barely make out his face because of the dark night, but the moon illuminated his eyes and that was all I needed to see. There was a sparkle I had never seen before; it had gotten brighter the closer it got to me. Jason had crawled across the bed of his truck towards me. When our noses were barely grazing each other, he slowly leaned in and gave me my first kiss.

Fireworks didn’t go off. We didn’t get married the next day. A war zone didn’t continue around us. The movies were wrong about first kisses. Because my first kiss gave me a warmth in my heart and sent a shiver down my back. My first kiss was short and sweet. My first kiss was with someone I was in love with, and that feeling is better than any cinematic fashion because it was real.