The flames danced in her eyes and he seen a beauty he had never seen in her before. She was just a friend, nothing more but he knew that she had feelings for him, she always had. For the year that he had known her most of it was dominated by innocent flirting and a meaningless kiss, but for a while now-the feelings were reciprocated. She was older; wiser; and she had developed into a petite, but pretty girl.

She was a year older than him, sweet sixteen and of course everyone knows the connotations of being sixteen. The only thing stopping them was the age gap and the fact that she wasn’t an innocent young thing anymore, but he knew, deep down inside, that she still had lustful feelings for him.

He let his mind wander back to just over a year ago, when he had his first kiss. It was with her-at the time an unlikely candidate that he couldn’t ever think of in that way, but really the kiss spurred out of impulse.

It was at the under eighteen’s club one particularly normal Saturday night in September.

He watched as she kissed other boys, not feeling in any way jealous at all but then, when a certain song came on, she took his hand and dragged him onto the dance floor. This was when the spontaneous decision popped into her mind-she was going to kiss him. She waited until an appropriate lyric played-for the added dramatic effect and then she brought her face closer to him and kissed him. He was surprised by this move but found that he was kissing her back. He felt her smile to herself, this is what she had been wanting for a long time, and she was finally getting it.

But then he hit her with those dreaded words… “Don’t tell anyone.” He thought she would keep to her word, but she told her best friends everything, how could she keep this to herself?

He knew deep down inside that she would tell.

And she did.

But within a few weeks, it was all over and everything was back to normal again.

The summer holidays the following year were boring to say the least. She never went out with him and the others anymore, and he knew why because when school went back, she has lost weight, her hair was straighter and she had finally got her skin sorted out and back to normal. The acne phase was over. If anything, he thought she was beautiful.

November was looming which meant fireworks and him finally plucking up the courage to ask her to go to the local fireworks display. To his utter delight, she said yes and an embrace was shared.

He stood next to her, his hand brushing against hers. Her hand felt so cold, so he took it. He thought she would look at him horrified, but in reality she smiled at him and told him she was cold. He wrapped his arms around her petite little body and put his head on her shoulder. As another firework shot through the air and this time it was different.

He was kissing her.