Pages crackle as the flames of the fireplace gobble them up. Crisp and swollen, curling in on themselves, they frazzle under the burning of the fire and the scrutiny of my eyes.
Tonight, I burn the pages of my diary.
With one swift motion, I tear my thirteen year old self from the book and from the world, save for memories. The handwriting is no longer my own, and the heart that cried into the leaves of paper has long since grown up.
Now I am seventeen, and I am determined to forget.
I come to the end of the book and run my hands over the tattered cover. Once it was made of fine strands of cotton, an interwoven pattern, but now the ends are frayed.
Should I burn this too?
No, not yet.
A memory yawns inside my head and I flash back to a sleepover with my best friend Kate. We were thirteen and, typically, saw ourselves as mature adults with an extensive knowledge of everything. I picture her face.
****
“Come on, Chloe! It’ll be a laugh!” she said that night.
“I don’t think so…”
“I don’t care what you think. We’re doing this now, no questions, okay?”
“Okay,” I relented, as always.
“Right, so we’re going to make you a kiss list! Basically, you write down all the types of kiss that you want to experience in your teenage years. Trust me, all the popular lot are doing it- you know, Kelly and all that. You write them all down and as you do each one, you tick it off.” She flourished her hand exaggeratedly.
Meanwhile, I lifted an eyebrow. I never cared much about what ‘Kelly and that lot’ were doing.
“Don’t look at me like that, Chloe,” Kate continued, “you’ll kiss hundreds of boys in the next few years and don’t you dare say otherwise! You should have seen how Josh Gibbons was staring at your bum at the dance last night. Trust me, you’ll finish the list in, like, a week!”
My thirteen year old self hardly ever got a word in edgeways.
I wrote her stupid list.
****
I snap back to the present and turn inquisitively to the back cover of the diary. A flap of material hangs loose, jaggedly cut with the kitchen scissors. I feel a surge of affection for my younger self and her abstract creativity and I smile as I lift the makeshift flap. Sure enough, the list is still there. Kate made me write it in Sharpie. Cringing, I can’t help but read over what we wrote:
1. A kiss on the hand (you know, like in the movies with knights and shit)
2. A kiss from someone I do not love
3. A French kiss (complete with tongues!!)
4. A kiss in the rain
5. A kiss that lasts so long we have to break away for breath
6. A kiss in the dark
7. A kiss underwater
8. A kiss when drunk
9. A passionate, sexy kiss (the one where the boy presses the girl up against a wall and bites her lip)
10. Kisses on the private parts
11. A kiss that leaves a mark
12. A kiss on a date
13. A kiss from someone that I am in love with
YOU ARE READING
Her List of Kisses
JugendliteraturWhen she was thirteen, Chloe Golding wrote a list. On this list was every type of kiss she hoped to experience in her teenage years. They ranged from an innocent peck on the back of the hand, to passionate make-out sessions and kisses on the private...
