When Lauren is eleven, her friends start getting boyfriends now that they are in middle school, and everyone keeps pestering her, asking who she likes. She picks out a couple of the cutest boys in her grade and decides that they can be her crushes, because that's what everyone else does. It's doesn't seem to be a matter of feelings for her, it's simply a choice.
One night Lauren goes to the movies with her first boyfriend, Alec, and he kisses her goodnight. It's just a peck, but it's her first kiss. She doesn't understand what the big deal is because she doesn't think it was all that great in the first place. It didn't feel like fireworks, or butterflies, or anything else her friends have told her it would be like. Later, she starts wondering what it would be like to kiss her best friend Alexa, but she doesn't say anything about it. She figures it just means that they really are best friends. She's sure that everyone must think about their best friend like this deep down.
Lauren doesn't give it a second thought.