“Angela,” he says like he’s worried for me. “Nothing has changed, you know. I can’t give you any more than this.”
“I don’t want any more than this,” I say.
A lie. And he knows it’s a lie. But I don’t care. I’ll play this game if it means I get to see him.
“Angela,” he says again, and I shiver at the sound of my name on his lips, like a magic word or a prayer. I stop his questions with a kiss, and kick the door closed behind us.
My first kiss occurred at an eighth-grade birthday party. Typical, I know. We were all sitting around on Ava Peters’s living room floor. We’d already been through a bunch of dumb attempts to pass time, like that levitation thing—light as a feather, stiff as a board—one of us pretending to be dead (Ava Peters, in this case, since she was the birthday girl) while the rest of us lifted her only using two fingers. Hardly mind-blowing, but it was mildly entertaining. We’d also been through a few rounds of truth-or-dare, which ended up with us prank-calling random people and challenging one another to eat dog food or try on Ava’s mother’s bra over our clothes, since none of our truths, at that stage, were very interesting. And then somebody piped up, “Hey, let’s play spin the bottle.”
I suppose it was inevitable. Hormones.
I’d been thinking up reasons to excuse myself and go home, because thirteen-year-olds were lame, I thought. Not their fault, really. I was mystified as to why I’d been invited to this party in the first place. Ava Peters, even back then, was one of the most popular girls in school. Why she’d taken a sudden interest in me, why she’d pressed that hot-pink cardstock invitation into my hand after our English class the day before, I could only guess at, but it made my heart beat fast, that she’d asked me. Maybe my remarkableness was finally showing, I thought. Maybe I was finally going to shine.
But then it turned out to be another lame adolescent party.
I got up. The words “I have to go. My mother needs me to close up the theater tonight” (when in doubt, blame the weird mother) were on the tip of my tongue, but when I heard this—“Hey, let’s play spin the bottle”—I sat down again.
Kissing was not lame. Kissing could be interesting.
We shifted into the rough approximation of a circle and Ava fetched a bottle.
“Who wants to go first?” she asked, giggling nervously, and I volunteered. I took the sweating brown Coca-Cola bottle between my fingers, set it on the hardwood floor, and gave it a good, hard spin. We all held our breaths, like the bottle had hypnotized us, silent as we watched it turn around and around.
“If it lands on a girl, spin again,” Ava said. Of course we hadn’t thought beforehand to lay down any sort of ground rules, like where would we kiss? On the mouth or the cheek or what? For how long? In front of everybody or alone?
I gave Ava my best oh yeah? face, which I’d been practicing in the bathroom mirror at home. “What, are you afraid I have bad breath?” I asked, but she didn’t answer, because then the bottle stopped.
It wasn’t pointing at a girl. It was pointing at Christian Prescott.
Christian Prescott.
Christian Prescott was the hottest guy in school, no contest. Green, green eyes, with a shock of wavy dark hair that he was always brushing out of those green, green eyes, killer smile, tall and lean but not lanky or awkward the way so many of the other boys in our class were. Perfection, that’s what he was.
I would never in a million years have guessed that my first kiss was going to be with Christian Prescott. What were the odds?
“Okay.” I cleared my throat and wondered if my face was as red as it felt.
He did not look particularly thrilled by this situation, but he tried to act cool with it. He was nice, in addition to being hot. He jumped up and held out his hand. I took it and he pulled me gently to my feet.
“The porch?” he suggested.
“Okay.” This seemed to be the only word I was capable of forming.
Everybody else sat there frozen, shock-faced, as he led me to the back porch. It was snowing outside, tiny white particles catching the porch light. Christian closed the door firmly behind us, then joined me as I leaned over the porch railing, staring out into the darkness behind Ava’s house.
“We’d better make this quick, or we’ll freeze to death out here,” he joked.
I wanted to say something sassy like, Oh, I think we’ll be warm enough, trust me.
“Okay,” is what I said. Again. I wished that I had brought lip balm. I had a tube that tasted like Dr Pepper. That would have been nice. He could have told everybody at school that I tasted like Dr Pepper. What would he tell them now?
He leaned closer, his green eyes somewhat wary, like I might bite him, but also curious. He smelled like Ivory soap. And Doritos, since we’d been eating them at the party earlier. I probably smelled like Doritos, too, but at least we both did. He wouldn’t be able to say that I tasted any worse than he did.
My brain struggled to process: Christian Prescott. Right here. Right now. About to kiss me.
My first kiss.
I tried to remind myself that I was, in fact, completely worthy of this guy. He was but a mere human, and I was the child of angels. One half-divine being. A shining child. Christian Prescott was lucky to get to kiss me.
“Close your eyes,” he mumbled, like he of course had done this kissing thing before, and this was how it was done properly—you closed your eyes.
“Don’t boss me around,” I said. I put my arms around his neck and pulled his head down until his lips were on mine. I waited for lightning to strike. I waited for fireworks. I waited for sweeping music in the back of my mind.
Nothing.
That’s what happened. Nothing.
His lips were warm and soft on mine, gentle but not passive, and it should have been amazing. It should have made my toes curl or something. But it didn’t. It was like kissing my brother, if I’d had a brother. Which I don’t. It was almost gross, in that way. Completely fraternal.
I stepped back. He stepped back. He smiled like he was relieved. “That was good,” he said, and I could tell that he was being kind. He knew that it was my first kiss.
He really is a stellar guy. I don’t know why Clara doesn’t give him a chance, already.
“Okay,” I said to him, back to okays again. “Let’s go in.”
And that was that.
After the party my mom asked me if I had a nice time.
I shrugged. “Parties are lame.”