instead of wasting time looking for him after school, I’d go spend some quality time at the downtown library to get what I needed for a report that was due the next week. Once there, I searched the non-fiction isles and found a certain title that would help me get started that didn’t weigh ten pounds.
Flipping through the book and stopping to read every few pages, I noticed someone walking toward me. At first, I figured it was the librarian, coming to tell me to stop leaning on the books, so I straightened up. As the person came up right next to me and slowed, I looked up. It was Kyle. What in the world is he doing in a library?
“Hey, what are you doing here?” I asked, but Kyle only answered me by suddenly grabbing my face with both hands and kissing me. I was caught by surprise, but my body knew what to do.
The kiss was no longer than ten seconds, but it seemed to last forever. Kyle’s lips were soft and warm against my own. I could feel the temperature on my skin rise a few degrees as his tongue danced lightly along my lips, eventually intertwining with my own. When it was over, he turned and walked away, leaving me there feeling dazed for some time. What had just happened?
I knew I had to tell someone before the euphoria that I felt wore off, so I called both Aria and Krissa from the nearest pay phone—neither answered. I couldn’t believe they weren’t available when I had such news to share! I grunted and roughly hung up the pay phone’s receiver outside of the library. I decided it was time to go home. I tried Krissa and Aria again that evening, but no dice. I would just have to wait until the morning to tell one or both of them.
That whole night I tossed and turned, trying to make sense of Kyle’s kiss. Around two o’clock, after finally drifting off, I dreamed about Kyle and being in his arms. His touch was as soft as his kiss, and he traced his fingers along my neck, murmuring his feelings for me. The dream could not have lasted long enough.
The next morning I woke up feeling pleasant, but exhausted. The clock read six-thirty and I rolled out of bed and hopped into the shower. At least I had a few moments to myself under the hot water to think about where my dream possibly may have led to next.
I didn’t see Aria before math, so afterwards I waited for her just outside of science class. I was a bit annoyed when she showed up just before the last bell, but that didn’t keep me from telling her that my crush of all time had kissed me.
“Details, I need details!” she screamed.
“Well, if you had come just a bit earlier, I’d have time to share,” I teased, pulling her along with me into the classroom.
As luck would have it, we had a substitute for science class, and to top it off we were to watch a movie. Aria and I whispered back and forth in the back of the room as I gave her all the details that I could recall. It seemed so surreal and I was sure I had them right, but I also felt like my mind went a little wild and imagined part of it. Aria was as excited as I was.
Between classes, I made it a point to walk near the areas I thought Kyle would be. I wanted to see if he’d show some kind of reaction when he saw me. At least that would give a better idea of where we stood. I didn’t have any luck, that is, until lunch time when I spotted him walking across the overpass towards the school. My heart raced and I grabbed Aria by the sleeve of her jacket. She ran out the door and raced ahead of me to Kyle. I held back just a bit because I didn’t how he would act toward me.
Aria and Kyle exchanged a few words before she abruptly turned away and rushed back to where I was slowly walking. The look on her face was unintelligible as she pulled me back inside and said, “It didn’t mean what you think it did.” Before I could probe her on what exactly he said to her, Kyle suddenly appeared next to me.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Not much. You?” I wanted to hide. Oh, why couldn’t Aria tell me everything before I had to face Kyle? Luckily, though, he left as quickly as he had appeared, giving me time to quiz Aria before my next class.
“It doesn’t matter what he said exactly,” Aria insisted as she rummaged through our locker. “Just that it didn’t mean the same thing for him as it did for you.” She slammed the locker shut. “I think he was just messing with you.”
For some reason Aria didn’t want to say more than that, so I dropped it. I also dropped any idea of getting together with Kyle. My pride was too hurt to have much to do with him from that point on.
3. Jensen
With a renewed focus on school instead of Kyle, October and November passed quickly and I was glad the holidays were coming. On the last day of school before Thanksgiving there was quite a feeling of excitement going around the school, not only because it meant we had a four day weekend coming up, but because we’d be out of school two weeks for Christmas vacation. I couldn’t wait.
As I sat in the commons area chewing the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had brought from home, Aria glided over to where I was sitting after her kissing session with Jack; her boyfriend of nearly three months.
“We’re going to the dance tonight, right? Last one before Thanksgiving break,” she said.
I hated the thought of being dragged along to another dance. The last two weren’t very fun as I spent most of the time trying not to pay attention to Aria and Jack kissing in the corner. They both probably walked out of there with three or more hickies. I didn’t see the draw of sucking on someone’s neck, but I did, however, see the draw of kissing another person, which made it twice as hard to stomach.
“Yeah, I guess I’ll go,” I told her. “Do you want me to come to your house after school so we can get ready?” I took a sip of my Diet Coke.
“Of course,” she confirmed, sticking her hand out for a drink of my Coke, “and you’re staying after the dance, right?”
I said that I would stay as long as Jack wasn’t coming over. There was no way I could handle watching them constantly kiss at her house and the dance. Aria only gave a sly look and changed the subject, saying that she had a feeling someone would ask me to dance.
I immediately thought she meant Kyle, but was surprised when she blurted, “The guy’s name is Jensen Meyers. He’s a year ahead of us, but the same age we are. I think he skipped a grade or something. Definitely your type; a nerd,” she said, throwing a wadded-up piece of paper at me, which came from my straw.
I shrugged. It would be nice to have someone take my mind off of how single and alone I was. “Well, okay,” I conceded, “introduce me at the dance and I’ll dance with him if he asks. How do you know him?”
“I met him last summer when I was dating Cole. Cole had a few classes with him and they hung out.” Cole and Aria were short-lived, but heated. She told me that he was a sophomore who eventually realized that dating an eighth-grader was strange, so he broke up with her in July and moved away in August. Aria was glad that she didn’t have to see him at school, which would have been awkward.
A few hours later after Aria and I arrived at the school, Jensen did ask me to dance and he was everything I had hoped for. He was about six-one with somewhat short, medium-brown hair that seemed to wisp around itself in a sexy, unkempt way. Jensen was also soft-spoken in a seemingly shy sort of way.
As
