Never Been Kissed

- TWENTY-TWO -

                                                         -• TWENTY-TWO •-

“Did he kiss you?”

“Was it dreamy?”

“I hope he didn’t touch your butt or any place that was inappropriate.”

Last night, the girls hadn’t left my house. They’d sat with my mom and waited as they watched old Lifetime movies until I got home. Well, that had been the plan, but they’d fallen asleep after nine.

Now they were in my room, having jolted me from my rest, begging to know details. And by details, I mean everything.

“Well, he was about to kiss me...” I trailed off.

“And?” Jade asked expectantly.

“I chickened out and went inside.” I sighed. Jade and Kelsey groaned and flopped onto the bed.

Selena just smirked. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“That’s the thing, I was all for Talen kissing me... it’s just it didn’t feel right, him being my first kiss and all.” I told her in a small voice.

The girls’ eyes widened in unison.

“You’ve never been kissed?” Jade asked loudly, dumbfoundedly.

I felt a blush on my cheeks that was hotter than the sunrays beating my bedroom window. “Never.”

“Ever?” Kelsey supplied.

“No.”

“Not even one time?” Jade pressed.

I exploded, jumping off my bed and balling up my fists as I glared at the girls that I called my friends. “I’ve never been kissed, okay? Not even one time on the lips in my pitiful existence. By choice and by the fact that I’ve never been remotely desirable, ever in my life. You guys probably think that I’m pathetic; kissing as a teenager is a basic rite of passage.” I found my chest heaving as I cast my eyes down at the carpet.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to find Elena standing beside me, her expression soft and gentle. I was thankful that there was no sympathy there: that would have meant that she pitied me, and I was in no mood to be pitied.

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up over something so trivial,” she said with a soft smile. “Your priorities just don’t meet those who think kissing is important.”

“But she should still experience it!” Kelsey argued. “It’s not like it’s sex or anything. Look at her; you can tell it’s eating her alive.”

“Says the promiscuous one,” Selena murmured. “If she doesn’t want to kiss anyone, she doesn’t have to.”

I scratched behind my ear. “Um... actually? I want to. Like... a lot.”

Selena looked back at me as if I’d grown a second head and a third eye. “You what?”

I didn’t know when I’d begun to actually want this. To complete the Never Been Kissed Plan and prove to myself that an antisocial poet with a chip on her shoulder could do anything she wanted. Anything at all. I might have had to sign a dumb contract drawn up by an equally dumb boy, but it was all worth it. It was an incentive.

“If you want to,” Kelsey continued, sounding like she was treading on thin ice. “Then why the hell did you shut the door on Talen last night? I mean, if I could have had a guy like him for my first kiss, I would’ve done it. You know, instead of Timmy Parker with his cauliflower breath and slimy tongue.” She shuddered.