Best Mistakes.

Preface.

Throwback to my first kiss!

A loud round of applause fills the otherwise silent school hallway as we open the classroom door to leave. I blush in total embarrassment as I look at Jack and then at the faces in the crowd of our school friends who are cheering our appearance. Jack is swiftly grabbed by his friends and pulled away in one direction, I'm swiftly ushered into the ladies' toilets by mine. I use the word friends loosely given their behavior just a few moments earlier which led to this moment, allow me to elaborate.

Jack and I are the high school's newest first year couple and our friends decided it was time we kissed, so they locked us in an empty classroom at breaktime and wouldn't let us out until we did. That was my first proper kiss with my first real boyfriend and we were forced to do it whilst most of our friends watched it happen through a glass panel in the classroom door, how romantic!

"What was it like?" My best friend Gemma asks leaning against the sinks with her blue eyes full of curiosity.

"It was good and it's true what they say you do kind of just know what to do!" I tell her with relief having been previously terrified that I had no idea how to kiss a boy.

"Did he use tongue?" She presses for details.

"Yes!" I reply blushing shyly.

The bell rings loudly indicating the end of break and the need for us to get to class so we leave the toilets and walk together to French.

 "Everyone is staring at you!" She whispers to me as we walk upstairs to the second floor. "You're the talk of the school!" She laughs.

"I really hope not!" I reply looking around almost stopping in my tracks when dawns on me what that would mean.

"What?" She asks with concern.

"Paul!" I say burying my face in my hands as I acknowledge that if it's the talk of the school my older brother will find out.

"Do you think he will beat him up?" She asks with a cringe of worry for my new boyfriend who would stand no chance against my significantly bigger brother.

"No, he will probably just threaten to tell my parents and use it to bribe me with." I sigh heavily as we take our seats in class, I hate him having anything on me because he's so manipulative.

We spend the class whispering and not listening as usual as it finally starts to sink in that I've got a boyfriend and had my first kiss, I suddenly feel grown up but I'm not even a teenager yet.

Gemma and I make sure we get on a different school bus home than my brother just in case, it doesn't go to our village, but it goes to one nearby and we we've got plenty to talk about whilst we walk the rest of the journey. We only live a few streets apart and have been friends since preschool, so we spend all our time together, even out of school we go to each other's houses and our families are friends through us.

We separate at the corner shop near our houses where we should have gotten off the school bus about forty minutes ago thanks to the detour. I walk the couple of streets from here to my house alone, only for my stomach to sink when from the top of the street I can see my brother sat on the wall outside our house with some of the lads he is friends with who live opposite. They go to another school in the area and are the same age as him. We all used to all play out together when we were kids but these days the age gap seems to matter and I'm not welcome anymore, they just enjoy annoying me instead.

"Detention?" My brother shouts to me as I approach looking at his watch.

"I've never had a detention because unlike you I don't get into trouble at school." I shake my head dismissively at the suggestion.

"You just spend your breaktime kissing boys, instead don't you?" He replies with a raised eyebrow and a smug smirk.

"Shut up!" I reply turning bright red with embarrassment and scurrying to our gate and up the driveway into the house before anything more can be said.

I hate that we go to the same school, I can't fart without him finding out.

I'm in a massive panic. This could not be worse because not only does Paul know but he's just told Luke, who I'm literally in love with. I know that sounds bad because I have a boyfriend but it's complicated. I've been in love with Luke for as long as I can remember but he just sees me as his friend's little sister and when Jack asked me out I said yes because he's the first decent looking boy to show an interest in me. Besides I really needed to get my first kiss out of the way before I got any older and got labelled a loser, the pressure to have kissed a boy now that we are at high school is immense. I do kind of like Jack I suppose but he's no Luke. Luke's cool, he dresses in the best clothes and is always the first to have the latest must have gadgets, he rides off road motorcycles and is a year ten and he's good looking with blue eyes and fair hair. I guess you could label him a pretty boy, but he isn't big headed.

I sit on my bed and call Gemma needing help with the crisis that has just unfolded. This is a disaster and she's the only person who will understand. She tells me to go around to her house for crisis talks so I quickly change out of my school uniform and redo my hair, put some mascara and lip gloss on and spray myself with some of my favourite body spray. I put on my jewellery that is banned at school before going back out, only to be faced with the lads still sat on the wall. I walk past them quickly, looking at my phone to avoid eye contact as I pass.

"Are you going meeting your boyfriend Hannah?" Craig teases.

"I'm going to Gemma's, I don't see Jack out of school." I elaborate more for Luke's benefit than anyone else's, trying to limit the damage.

"She really has a boyfriend then? I thought you were joking!" Luke asks Paul cringing, I'm unsure what to make of this cringey reaction and whether it's a good cringe or a bad one. Is he cringing because it's bad I have a boyfriend because he likes me or is he cringing because he thinks I shouldn't have a boyfriend because I'm too young? People need to learn to cringe more constructively!

"Apparently so, I thought it was just rumors and I was teasing her, but she's just admitted it now!" My brother replies eyeballing me, he's furious.

Great, I've somehow managed to make a bad situation even worse. I thought Paul knew for a fact it had happened, if I'd known he didn't believe it I would have denied it.

What follows in the coming weeks can only be described as a living nightmare, at school my brother and his friends stalk and spy on us. They make it impossible for us to kiss or hold hands. Jack is sick of feeling intimidated by older boys  and I'm sick of the constant teasing both at school and at home, so we break up and I vow to never bother with boys again because it's not worth the hassle. I'll stick to Luke, it's easier when the boy doesn't like you back!