burned with golden light in the corner, illuminating the short hairs on his neck.
Closer and closer and closer. At first I felt nothing, then everything, then both, a raging clash of emotions. Sandra would have said that this meant I was loving him on a subatomic level, and I would have said that’s nonsense but I couldn’t have been so sure because closer and closer and closer and then—
He kissed me and my world exploded.
4
The fourth time I kissed a boy, it was muffled behind my cries of protest.
Lights flashed outside the alleyway where I had stumbled out after having too much to drink. Saliva laced with acid built up in my throat. Someone grabbed me as I fell onto the dumpster, my head pounding and the world spinning around me. He wanted me to believe that he was trying to help, but I heard his innermost thoughts as if he had screamed them out loud. One moment was all I had to remember. One kiss. And then he was everywhere he shouldn’t have been and my mind went treacherously blank.