Friendship for Dummies

Chapter Nineteen

Thanks to ameticia for the banner!

--------------------------------------

Have you ever noticed in cliché romance novels the main character always magically knows how to kiss like an expert, even if they’ve never done it before?

            From this I draw two conclusions. One: I need to stop reading so many of those novels. Two: I should stop expecting my life to be anything remotely like a book or a movie, because it’s definitely not. Oh, no. In case you haven’t noticed, Georgie, this is reality.

            And, to put it plainly, reality sucks.

            If you haven’t caught on yet, I’ll spell it out for you: I can’t kiss.

            I’m not even entirely sure it counts. I mean, in the heat of the moment (and by that, I mean the small window of opportunity when Connor happened to be looking in our direction), I just kind of grabbed Nathan and forced our lips together.

            Not the most romantic of moments, but I suppose it got the job done.

            What are you even supposed to do, anyway? They should teach this type of thing in high school, instead of all the math-related and useless crap they junk up our heads with. I swear, knowing how to kiss would be a lot more useful than knowing how to find the square root of y when x is indirectly proportional to another random letter of the alphabet.

            After a few seconds of extremely awkward lip contact, I pull away. I’m kind of afraid to see Nathan’s expression, actually. What if he’s been mentally assessing my lip-locking ability and holding back a laugh at how inexperienced I obviously am? Nathan’s a nice guy, but...

            Well, even I know that attempt was shameful.

            However, much to my relief, Nathan doesn’t look like he’s about to burst out laughing. In fact, he looks a little flustered when I finally bring myself to look at him.

            “Um...” I begin.

            “Whoa,” Nathan breathes, as he runs a hand through his blonde hair. “Did that really just happen?”

            “Oh God, I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I didn’t mean to do that so quickly, but... I don’t know, it just happened. If you want we can just forget about it and–”

            “Georgie,” he says, cutting me off with a laugh, “shh. It’s fine. We don’t have to forget about it.”

            The Ferris wheel suddenly whirs to life, taking us upwards with short juddering movements. We reach about halfway between our original position and the top before it comes to a halt, presumably to let the people in the bottom compartment off. At our elevated height, the whole carnival is visible. Huddles of people by various stalls, in queue for some of the more gut-wrenching rides, merely walking around to sustain body heat. It’s a kaleidoscope in itself, which I would probably pay more attention to if I wasn’t stuck in this very awkward situation right now.

            “We don’t?”

            “No,” he answers. “I’ve... well, I’ve been waiting for that for a long time.”

            “You have?”

            I seem to have lost the ability to do anything but repeat after him.