Chapter Eight

First Kiss

My first kiss happened when I was nine years old, at Brian Harris’s birthday party, during a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven. When my turn came, the bottle landed in front of Amanda Salazar—the prettiest girl in school. I remember how nervous I was, during those seconds, when I had to stand up and lead the way into the incredibly small closet, where we were supposed to stay for the seven minutes. She looked beautiful, my hands were sweaty, and I kept wanting to do it right, even though I didn’t really know exactly what doing it right meant—or doing it wrong, for that matter. We tried to make conversation for a bit until I awkwardly asked her if I could kiss her, and she said yes.

I swear, I almost died.

I leaned in and clumsily placed one hand on her shoulder while our lips met. To this day, what always impressed me most were two things: how grown up I felt the very second we pulled away from each other, and how much prettier Amanda Salazar looked after that incredibly tender, albeit all-around mess of a kiss. It was a lovely experience that turned into a beautiful memory. But the one thing that didn’t happen during those minutes inside Brian Harris’s basement closet somehow remained with me ever since.

My heart hadn’t raced.

I didn’t know why, but ever since I was a kid, especially after that party, I seemed to have always been in search of just that. That time, that moment in time when my heart would start to race and all but leap from my chest, and I’d be in love. Maybe it was juvenile, too innocent, and possibly irrelevant in the real world, but it was what I figured love would be like—at least, it was how I pictured it in my head growing up.

Time passed, and I had my second and third kisses. Eventually, I met Summer, and we were friends for years before it turned into anything else. By the time we were attending Magnolia together, it was only a matter of time before we started something. So, on a hot summer night, as I walked her home from a party, I leaned in and kissed one of my best friends. We both laughed at how incredibly weird it was, but we also seemed unable to keep ourselves from doing it again. After three weeks of hiding it from everyone, we finally became a couple, and for the two years that followed, we were (mostly) happy.

My heart hadn’t raced though. Not really.