Full disclosure: This was my first kiss. (Thanks a ton, bro.) So I literally had no context in which to evaluate what was going on here. To his credit, Holden’s lips were surprisingly soft, and his breath even smelled vaguely minty. After the initial impact of our lips, however, he started moving his mouth an awful lot, like he was trying to eat something that wasn’t dispensing properly out of my mouth.

He pulled away when he realized I wasn’t kissing back. I must have looked a little bit terrified, because he reared back like he had made a fatal miscalculation, and even let go of my hand.

“Are you okay?” he said. “Did you not want…”

He couldn’t even finish the sentence, he was so mortified.

“No, it was great,” I lied. Then, to fill in the awkward silence, I said, “Thank you.”

“Oh,” he said. “You’re welcome.”

I was about to turn back to the movie, but he leaned in to kiss me again. He didn’t hold anything back this time. I quietly submitted to my fate and attempted to kiss him back. His hand touched my cheek, and it actually felt pretty good. And then his hand massaged into my hair, and wow, that felt even better!

Then his free hand grabbed my very bare—very exposed—leg, and I felt a twinge of panic.

His hand drifted onto my inner thigh, and glided up—very, very up.

Holy fuck.

I bolted up from my seat.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to… I have to use the…”

I was searching for the word “bathroom,” but it wasn’t coming to me. So I squeezed through the aisle as fast as I could, and power-walked frantically for the exit.

It was only as I was passing the last row of seats that I saw them—Imogen and Ezra. Except Ezra was sucking on Imogen’s neck, and Imogen’s head was rolled back, and her mouth was open, and her eyes were wild with euphoria.

And then her eyes dropped, and she saw me.

I ran out of the theater.

I veered into the alcove that led into the restrooms, and there I stared Robert Frost–esquely at two paths, one leading to the men’s restroom, and one leading to the women’s, and that’s when I started crying.

I barreled into the women’s restroom, passed a woman who shot me a concerned glance, locked myself in the far-back-corner stall, and collapsed on the toilet seat.