he kissed me and he kissed me and it sent shivers across my body.
He whispered in my ear, a low voice, smooth as honey yet as uneven as gravel. I tell Sandra that I feigned fatigue, knowing that the perfect moment was not this, a hurried rendezvous while his parents slept upstairs—
Even while wrapping my arms around his waist, I could feel him slipping away.
I owed him something; I owed him not a single thing.
He lingers in my memory now, but only as a reminder of what was, what could’ve been, and what I led myself into.
3
The third time I kissed a boy, it meant everything.
On my back, I gave my beating heart to him, offering it up in a bed of lilies, pure and white and soft as silk. His gentle breath crossed my lips, his fingers tracing my skin as if he were navigating a maze through a blindfold. We were nestled in his bed, stars glinting outside the window, far above the skyline. A lamp burned with golden light in the corner, illuminating the short hairs on his neck.
Closer and closer and closer. At first I