Never Been Kissed (Again)

Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl. They were next-door neighbors and they had played together every single day since kindergarten. When the girl turned thirteen years old, the boy, Jonas, solemnly informed his best friend: “We’re both teenagers now. We’ve got to grow up and get rid of the little kid stuff.”

So Jonas and his best friend threw out all of her Barbie dolls, his Legos, and their favorite toys. After a hard, heartbreaking day’s working hauling their most treasured possessions to the dumpster, they sat down on her front porch, exhausted.

He turned to her, his expression unnaturally grave. She was not used to him being serious, and she almost laughed, but it was too confusing a situation for her to laugh.

He took her hand, and she knew he was nervous because her hand was numb from his tight grip in seconds. But he looked at her and whispered, in a shaky voice, “You know what teenagers do.”

The girl frowned. “No, I don’t.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t either. Not really. But I know they’re supposed to kiss, and—just think, Hensie. What if we never get kissed?”

She had never worried about it before, but now she was aware of the dangerous situation he presented. What if, indeed, she would always be the only teenager who had never gotten kissed? What if her friends flew on ahead and she remained lame, forever a child?

She looked at him in fear, and he nodded, swallowing. “So since you’re my best girlfriend, I thought my first should be you.”

It kind of made sense. She smiled. It was a nice idea.

He saw the smile on her face and in her eyes and leaned over. Hesitantly—so slowly—his lips met hers, and they were locked in a close embrace. She closed her eyes and nearly jumped when she realized that she was relishing the moment. In fact, she didn’t ever want it to stop. There was something special about this, and him, and them. She was sure of it.

Then he pulled away abruptly, breathing heavily. His expression was dark, though his mouth was set in a careful smile. He glanced at her sideways, and in a suddenly cold voice, said the declaration that would ruin her life forever: “Now we’ve both had our first kiss and we can move on.”

He lived happily ever after, and she lived miserably ever after.

The end.

Okay, I know it’s kind of pretentious of me to describe my one kiss as a fairy-tale moment, but I need to have something to treasure, right? I’ve moved past Barbies and toys, and I don’t miss them at all. But I miss the days when it was just me and Jonas, and I miss the day we kissed for the first time. After that day, we ignored the kiss except to tell our friends, separately. We kissed so we could tell, after all.

Now Jonas and I don’t go over each other’s houses every day. More like once a week, if even that. He’s too busy keeping up with his massive hordes of female admirers, and I’m too busy being average.

I am seriously, seriously average. At about 5’4”, I’m not short enough to be considered short and adorable. I’m also not tall enough to be considered tall and elegant. I have brown hair that goes a little past my shoulders. Again, not short and cute or long and elegant. I wish I could say my hair was auburn, but there’s really no word for it besides brown. My eyes are—surprise, surprise—brown. I want to say hazel, but I try not to lie. Even my grades are average—I work hard, but I’m neither the first nor the last in the class. I’m a starter for the girls’ soccer team, but I’ll never be good enough to go pro. I play the clarinet in band, but I always flunk my auditions for honors bands. And—yeah, I’m going to stop; this is depressing.

The only thing that’s not average about me is my name, and I hate it. What was my mom thinking when she named me Hortensia? No offense if you like the name or anything, but I just don’t like having it myself. It’s so long and ridiculous, and all of its potential nicknames are ugly too. Hort sounds stupid, Tense sounds weird, Tensia isn’t any better, and Sia just sounds random. Jonas tried to spare me by giving me the cute nickname of “Hensie” when we were little, but now we’re high school seniors and cute names don’t work for me.

So, even though I hate it, people call me Hortensia. Except Jonas, who still calls me Hensie—that idiot.

I’m convinced that when Jonas blew me off after that kiss, he placed some kind of curse on my life. He grew up to be tall, gorgeous, and attractive, and I grew up to be average. It all started with that one rejection, I swear. That jerk.

I mean, I’ve had boyfriends. Three, actually. But I never kissed any of them, and I’m kind of glad. My first boyfriend was this weirdo named Andy. He seemed nice enough, so I agreed when he asked me out, but I soon discovered that he had a distaste for maintaining personal hygiene that repulsed me. His hair was always greasy, his hands were always dirty, and, worst of all, he always tried to kiss me. He didn’t last long.

Then there’s Steve, a really cute and smart guy. We started dating around my sophomore year and he lasted until almost the end of junior year. He’s not average-smart like me—he’s a certified genius. He was always polite to me, listened to my problems and was a solid shoulder for me to cry on and all that. He seemed to care, kind of. And I helped him organize all of his many plans for life. We never kissed, and I realize now that it was because our relationship was kind of businesslike.

In the end, he broke up with me—said, and I quote, “I regret to inform you that, though your agreeable personality makes you a valid candidate for my friendship, I need to prepare with more vigor for my chosen career path as a biomedical engineer. This I cannot do while maintaining our current relationship, and thus it is with great heaviness of heart that I liberate my time for the sake of my own personal betterment as well as the eventual betterment of the world we live in.”

Yeah, he said this to me and then e-mailed me a copy so that I would be able to dissect his carefully worded statement. I was hurt, because I’d really thought that we’d been good for each other, but I stopped caring once I realized that Steve had never cared about me as much as I hope I deserve to be cared about.

I was with my last boyfriend for about a week in the summer. Harry was really outgoing, kind of like Jonas, and I liked that. But he was always trying to feel me up or kiss me, and—yeah, okay, I really didn’t want my other kisses to be less significant than my first one. So I tried to avoid him at all costs. He cheated on me with some beautiful blonde girl I couldn’t hope to compare with, and I dutifully ended that one.

So I don’t really have a good track record with guys. And it’s all Jonas’ fault, that stupid idiot.

How can I put my heart into another relationship when the guy who I still call my best friend for who knows what reason already has it?

As I’m stuck in my nostalgic reverie, Jonas comes up to me, sliding an arm around my waist and kissing me on the cheek. I shiver a little. Yeah, I hate him, that arrogant jerk. “Good morning, Hensie.”

“Hi, Joan,” I reply, clipping my words like nobody’s business.

He stretches my cheeks a little harder than necessary before smirking lazily. “Aww, is my best girl friend mad already?”

I frown at him and cross my arms, narrowing my eyes at him. I hate that about him, too. He always calls me his “best girl friend”, but he says it in such a way that I feel like I can hear the space between “girl” and “friend”. I don’t like being teased with garbage like that when I know I can’t have him.

Before we can say anything else, a gorgeous brunette, Marie Renault, puts herself between us and purposefully kisses Jonas.

Well, I say “purposefully kisses”, but what I really mean is “tries to suck the face off of”. She’s his current girlfriend, number 100243 (I made that up, but who knows, it could be true), and I hate to admit it, but she and Jonas make a pretty picture. She with her auburn locks, dreamy hazel eyes, tall, model-like body and curves in all the right places; he with his short blond hair, piercing green eyes, tall, lean frame and perfect physique.

That doesn’t mean I like watching them suck each other’s faces off, though, so I turn around and start walking away. I mean, Jonas tries to hang out with me once in a while and he’s still, nominally speaking, my best friend, but I try to be courteous to him and give him his time with his stupid girlfriends. A lot more often than I’d like.

Surprisingly, I walk into a perfectly sculpted chest. I look up and, strangely enough, it’s Jonas.

“Hey, why’d you walk off so quickly, Hensie? Jealous?” He turns up a corner of his mouth, and it should look retarded but it just looks sexy. It only irritates me more.

“Jealous of what, not having the chance to get my face vacuumed off by you? Yeah, thanks, but no thanks. Marie doesn’t know what she’s missing out on.”

He frowns at me, but lets me go when I stride past him to my next class. Did I mention that I hate him?

After snoozing through most of my morning classes, I see Jonas at my locker just in time for lunch. “So, where do you want to go today?” he asks me.

“Doesn’t really matter to me. Is Marie coming?”

“Why, you don’t want her to?”

“I like my food to be clean, and I don’t want you drooling over her while we eat.”

He cocks his head to the side, staring at me intently. “I don’t drool over her.”

“Please, it’s not like you’ve ever seen yourself kissing her.”

“No—really. She’s okay, but I’ve had better.”

“Oh no, please don’t tell me you want me to deal with another psycho ex already.” Jonas is always dumping girls. He does the straightforward bit and just says he doesn’t want to see them anymore, and he leaves me to deal with their crying jags or crazy schemes to get him back. Sorry if this makes me a bad friend, but that’s really not my idea of a good time.

“I’m not sure if I’m going to break up with her yet. It depends on how a few things go.” He keeps staring at me oddly, and I really wish he would blink. Before I can ask him what the heck he’s talking about, he says, “Yeah. Sure. No Marie. Let’s just go to lunch. Pizza, on me?”

I shrug. It’ll be nice not to have to cover my eyes—you’d be amazed at how much that can slow down your eating—and I like it when Jonas treats me. Feels like old times, almost.

He correctly interprets that as a yes, and drives us to the local pizza parlor.

As I’m gulping down my pizza (mushroom all the way), I notice that Jonas seems deep in thought. It’s rather unusual for him, and I’m glad to see that he’s finally using that head of his. He might actually get somewhere.

It comes out of nowhere. “I think I’m going to skip basketball practice tonight so I can spend some time with Marie.”

I nearly spit out my pizza, but manage to delicately put it down on my plate before I explode at him. “What?! Are you kidding me? You just tell me Marie means nothing to you and then you want to go around and ruin your season for her?”

He puts his head down on the table gloomily, and he seems tired. “Marie’s kind of high maintenance—she wants me to pay her a lot of attention or else she’s going to break up with me. I mean, even though this is my final basketball season and everything, missing one practice won’t really hurt.”

“You just gave me reasons why you shouldn’t really care if she breaks up with you. And are you being serious right now? You’re going to have college scouts watching your next five games. I know you’re a good player and everything, but now is really not the time to be slacking off.”

He sighs and shakes his head. “Marie’s a draining person to take care of, but I like having her around.”

“Does she really mean more to you than getting a basketball scholarship? Do you want to marry her or something?”

He frowns and shakes his head again. “I don’t know, dude. It’s all so complicated.”

I want to slap him silly, but I know there’s no point. Instead I say, “I mean, it’s your life. If you really want to throw college away for a girl you don’t even care about that much, go for it.”

Maybe my advice is a little harsh, because it is only one practice. But the scout for his dream college is coming to his next game, and if he’s too busy thinking about what he could be doing with Marie—goodness. Whatever.

He drives us back to school in silence, and I do not mind. I’m not particularly inclined to break it.

Marie is on him like—oh, I don’t know, remora on a whale—when we step into the school. “Where were you?” she asks, and even when she’s angry her voice sounds low and seductive.

“Had lunch with Hensie.”

She barely suppresses a malicious giggle at my name, which makes me feel a little livid inside. What did I do to deserve such scorn from girls like her? She looks me up and down, as if wondering whether or not she should be worried, but then quickly gives a saccharine smile to Jonas. Obviously, I do not make her feel threatened. Who would?

Jonas frowns at this exchange, and before I know what’s going on, he says sharply, “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

Marie gasps, her mouth opening into a perfect O. “But Jonas,” she murmurs, “we have such—chemistry together.” She wraps her arms around his neck, as if trying to keep him from escaping, and smashes her lips against his—again.

Do I really have to watch this display again? No, of course not. I can’t stomach this stuff, and I honestly don’t know why Jonas puts up with such rabid treatment. But of course, Marie will be some fantastically skilled kisser and he’ll recognize all the chemistry they have together and then he’ll forget all about defending his best friend—wait, who was she again?

Yeah, whatever, I can deal, but I want space. I walk away briskly, and I’m nearly outside again before I realize that someone else’s footsteps are disconcertingly close.

I whirl around, not wanting to be caught by surprise, but I’m caught by surprise anyway. It’s Jonas—following me after another kiss from Marie. That’s weird, to say the least.

His face is flushed with heat, and his hair is disheveled. He should have known that I don’t need visual or verbal proof to know that he changed his mind about breaking up with Marie—it’s pretty easy to believe, and I’m his best friend. I’m not stupid, after all.

His breathing is uneven, and he starts to speak. “I just wanted y—”

I hold up one hand, effectively cutting him off. “Don’t worry about it; I know what you want to say. And I won’t hold it against you.”

He looked relieved at the first part of my statement, but now he just looks puzzled—and a little scared, if Jonas is ever scared.

“Won’t—hold it against me,” he grits out.

“Yeah, no prob.” I adopt a low voice, and, pretending to be him, say, “Marie is so hot. She kisses like an animal and we have so much chemistry together. I love the way she rumples my hair and makes me feel warm all over. I know I told you I was going to break up with her and you like men of their word, but I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help myself.” I dropped the act and said, normally, “Don’t worry, I understand.”

I expect him to cry out in relief—for some reason he still cares about my opinion sometimes—or thank me solemnly, or something. The only thing I don’t expect is what he actually does: burst out laughing and hold the wall for support.

I look down at him coldly. “I’m doing you a favor and being understanding. I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t laugh at my clemency.”

He just laughs more, but he looks at the window and brightens. I look and I see what he sees: it’s snowing outside.

“Come on,” he says, and he takes my hand and we exit the building again.

I turn my face toward the heavens and close my eyes, opening my mouth and sticking my tongue out for a snowflake to fall on. I know that’s not perfectly sanitary, but—it’s snow. I love snow so much.

When I face him again, I see that Jonas is looking at me, and his beautiful green eyes are so clear and bright. I blink and look away from him, unsure of whether or not I have the right to pierce into those windows to his soul.

He squeezes my hand, which he still has not let go of, and urges me to look at him. I do, only to be confused by the emotion in his eyes that I can’t read.

“Hensie—won’t you give me the time of day, someday? Maybe today?” he asks cryptically.

“Gee, thanks for being clear and everything.”

He squeezes my hand again, and he squeezes it so hard that it reminds me of the only other time in my life when he made my hand numb. That fairy tale moment that he’s long since forgotten, and I still try to let go of, albeit unsuccessfully.

“Hensie,” he says quietly. “You really are the best girlfriend I’ve ever had.”

There’s no huge pause between the two words, so, at the risk of sounding like a fool, I respond as if he said girlfriend and not girl friend. “We never dated.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He shakes his head in—regret? “We never did.”

I look at him strangely, because I know where I hope this will go but it seems like it’s not going to go there. But then, it finally does when he says, “Do you think we could give it a go now?”

I blink in response. I don’t know what to say. I mean—he’s my childhood best friend, the one who knows all of my secrets and still cares about me, the one who sees how ordinary I am but is still willing to be associated with me. He’s this great basketball player whose games I love to watch because he comes alive when he plays. He’s, despite everything, a kind person who doesn’t like throwing away girls like trash. I know this, even if most people don’t, and so I care about him in a way most people don’t. I say I hate him because I always thought I cared about him more than he ever cared about me, and that thought really hurt. Because when it comes down to it, I do care about him a lot. He’s my only kiss and my only long-term friend, after all.

But—I know him. I know that I’m too ordinary to hold his interest for long, and when he blows me off again, it’ll sting more than it should. He gets tired of girls easily, and he’s already had so many and could get so many others that they all blend together in his memory. I remember his exes better than he does. And if that happens to me, if I fade into the background because we started dating—that’d be worse than anything.

He stares at me apprehensively, as if afraid. When I look at him, he tenses. Maybe he could read the decision in my eyes.

“Jonas, maybe this is just another game to you. I mean, you’ve had everyone else, so might as well test-drive your best friend. But I can’t deal with games and I think I need someone more—stable than that.”

He grasps my hand tightly as he says, “No, Hensie. This isn’t another game to me. I know it was wrong for me to treat other girls the way I did, and I’m very sorry for it, but I was just being stupid and hurt and I was hoping you’d be jealous and realize that you wanted to be with me. But you never did, and I just—I don’t know. I can’t stand this anymore, Hensie, this stupid cycle. I only wanted you, I still only want you, and I don’t think I could ever want anyone else. Please.”

The last word was spoken so brokenly that, frankly, I was shocked. As far as I had known, Jonas was into hook-ups and flings, not a serous relationship. And especially with me. I had always thought that he had stayed friends with me out of pity.

“Jonas, I care about you.” I say it simply because I know there’s no point in denying it. “But how can I be sure you’ll care about me? Why would you like me?”

He smiles softly, not his usual smirks and debonair half-smiles but just—an artless smile. “Ever since that first kiss, when we were thirteen— It’s not a question of whether or not I’ll care about you in the future, I care about you right now. I always have.”

My eyes probably bug out at that point as I say, incredulously, “You expect me to believe you started to like me because of a kiss from when we were thirteen?”

“I mean—it wasn’t only that, but that’s a part of it, yeah.”

“Jonas, we were young and awkward.”

“And in love—or maybe not you, but I knew I was.”

“We were just being ridiculously hormonal teenagers.”

“We were being,” he says, lowering his voice so I have to lean in to hear what he’s saying, “you and me.”

I’m startled, to say the least. “Yeah, but we can’t base an entire relationship on how we felt when we kissed five years ago.”

“You mean so much to me.” It’s as if the floodgates of speech broke open, because suddenly his words shoot out rapid-fire. “Hensie, I can’t think of anyone in the world besides you—or maybe my family—who I can rely on to tell me the truth, all of it, all the time. The girls I dated, they’re always trying to compliment me or say what I want to hear so I’ll hold onto them or notice them or something, but they don’t care about what actually happens to me. Some of them have all the experience in the world and they still haven’t matched up to my first kiss. You’re—you’re amazing. You’re kind of sarcastic and temperamental sometimes, but you always care when it comes down to it. I mean, you’ve helped my crazy exes, and if that’s not the sign of a caring person, I don’t know what is. You always tell it how it is, and—you get it. Anything I talk to you about, anything I say, you always know what’s right and I need you.”

He pauses for breath, and I can’t blame him. As for me, I’m just reeling in shock. He runs his hands through his hair in frustration. “But I don’t just want you because I think you’re a great asset to me or something. I—I really want you. I know I don’t deserve you, but you’re so beautiful and true and you mean so much to me. Please give us a chance.”

Unable to trust my voice, I clear my throat before I say, “Why did you practically hit the ground running after that first kiss?”

For a moment, he looks thrown, but then he rushes to explain, “I was so scared, Hensie. I mean—I was thirteen years old and it was my first kiss, and it was supposed to be awkward and weird and gross, but instead I liked it for some weird reason and I couldn’t figure it out but it scared me because I knew we had to stay friends.”

I guess I could come up with excuses till the Apocalypse, but why bother, right? “Okay.”

His whole face lights up and he squeezes my hand again. “What?” he asks, just to make sure.

“Yes, we can be together.”

His smile then—I think it’s the most brilliant smile I’ve ever seen. It illuminates all his features and his green eyes are brighter than ever. He just looks so alive. He looks more intense than he does when he plays basketball, and I’m amazed because he looks like that right now because of me. I know that sounds kind of arrogant but—it’s true, right? I sure hope so; I’d love to be able to conjure this smile at will.

He squeezes my hand again, and his other arm comes to rest on my back to keep me balanced. He leans toward me, and suddenly his lips are brought down to mine, and then—we kiss.

It’s nothing like I remember, and everything like I dreamed. There’s none of the weirdness and confusion—all there is is passion and a feeling of contentment. Of their own volition, my hands start running through his soft hair and I find myself wanting more.

When we’re both out of breath, we let go, but our hands are still linked together. He’s breathing hard, and so am I. His cheeks are flushed, but mine probably are too.

I smile at him, a small, scared smile, wondering if this is the part where he’ll run away and forget all about it.

Not a chance in the world. He looks at me as if I’m more precious than Legos to a thirteen-year-old, and he dips me as we kiss again.

I thought my first kiss was good, but now? I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get enough of this.

Author's Note: This idea also kind of came out of nowhere--I realize it is one of those clichés--but I wanted to write it, and I need to work on writing one-shots anyway, so here it is. I hope you enjoyed it! I had fun writing it, for sure, though I know it could use some work.

If Tonight will be updated sometime this week, probably around the weekend.

If you read this, please review! Feedback of all kinds is appreciated, whether it's short or long, complimentary or critical. :)

Have a great day! On a random note, I do have a male best friend but I could never picture being in a romantic relationship with him, so I don't know why I keep writing these kinds of stories. Hopefully I'll go for more variety soon, haha.