Two weeks before ~
People think their first kiss is going to be out of this world amazing.
Mine was beyond that. It was literally galaxies out of this world. It was full of small gasps, shaky fingers intertwined in each others hair--the sliding of our lips against lips.
Hands were placed on hips hotly, sweet nothings were whispered in the span of a single breath, and both of us felt that heated moment between us like it was everything and nothing at the same time.
It was breathtaking.
The only problem was that I had no idea who it was.
But that’s not the point. The point is, the day I kissed my Prince Charming, I was having a pretty bad day. Actually, as drama queens would quote, it was the worst day of my life. Though we all know that’s not how it ended.
Because on top of just failing math, I was now doomed to having to find a tutor with only a semester left of school. If that didn’t royally suck already, the tutor list was full, I knew no one smart enough at calculus to help me, and if, no when, the cheerleading coach got wind of the big fat F gleaming on my report card, I would be kicked off the squad faster than you can say pom poms.
So yeah, I was having a bad day.
I sighed and trudged slowly down the hallway, the idea of heading to class too depressing. I would have rather of been killed right then and there then have to live out the rest of the day doing god knows what.
I just couldn’t see how it could have gotten worse.
Of course, I blamed Mr. Vincent one hundred percent. If his voice wasn’t enough to put sheep to sleep, I wouldn’t have had a problem staying awake.
He was the kind of teacher who took his job way too seriously and anyone or anything that got in the way of that wouldn’t last the semester. I was part of the handful of kids who, unfortunately, got in the way.
I didn’t see the point in figuring out problems and solving configurations that would never help in real life situations. If they just took my complaints seriously, and taught us something useful for once, I wouldn’t be having this problem.
I pushed my hair back into a tight ponytail, hoping the small task would drown out the nerves and anger that slowly coursed through me.
I was seriously going to get my revenge on Mr. Vincent one day. He knew first hand how important the grade was to me, and instead of waking me and and forcing me to pay attention, he just let me sleep on through his lesson.
As I was focusing on Mr. Vincent instead of my hair like I hoped, I passed a small, disclosed janitor closet. I stopped, looking up and down the hallways to see if anyone like me was ditching class.
When all I saw was boring lockers and a dirty floor, I turned back to the closet and debated if I should go in.
What else was I going to do? Stand in the hallway and sulk till the bell wrong? And if I did, the chances of me getting caught only doubled. Yeah, getting detention on top of a failing grade didn’t really sound like something I wanted to add to the growing list of suckiness.
I sighed and before I knew what I was doing, I jerked the janitor closet open and hurried inside, slowly shutting the door and closing off the only light left.
Then, as the door finally clicked shut, I was suddenly obscured in complete darkness. I couldn’t even see me hand in front of my face if I tried.
I brought my hand out, trying to feel for a light switch, when my hand passed over something hard and warm. At first I thought it was a mop.
But when my hand passed over something obviously moving,I let out a startled gasp. “What the-” I jerked my hand back, shocked. That was so not a mop bucket or toilet paper.
I took a calming breath and decided I must have been going crazy. Just to make sure it was actually a broom instead of something actually alive, I brought my hand back out and started to feel around the space I just occupied. If it was a snake or spider or something equally scary, I hoped it slithered or crawled away before I touched it again.
Not even five seconds later, something or someone, grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward them, making my breath leave me in a rush of shock. Before I knew what was happening, a sudden scream started to build it’s way in my throat, but before I could let it out, a hushed annoyed voice spoke from the dark.
“If you scream you will give us both away.”
The voice sounded human. In all the ways it should. It was dark, and I couldn’t see, but I could tell it was undeniably male.It just had that low, somber quality sound boys voices tended to get.
Swallowing the scream, I squinted as if that would help me see better.
“Am I imagining this?”
His fingers were still pressed hotly against my wrist, so no, there was no way this was part of my imagination. If it was, then I needed to seek help. My imagination sure was good at feigning emotions and sounds.
“Do you usually come crawling into janitor closets feeling up guys?”
He inquires, his voice full of amusement. When I don’t say anything, he slowly removes his fingers from my wrist and I wished in that space of a moment that he would put them back.
“No,” I whispered. “Do you usually hide in the dark?”
“Only when I’m trying to get away.”
I shook my head, having no idea what he meant by that. But, maybe I did. Wasn’t I trying to hide from something also? My life was currently getting sucked down this huge drain and I could do nothing about it but watch. I step forward, and instead of meeting floor, I run into a bucket of some sort.
So there was the mop bucket I was so desperately looking for earlier.
“Shit,” I muttered helplessly under my breath and a light chuckle broke through the silence.
“You do nothing quietly do you?” He questioned. If he could have seen my glare, he wouldn’t have found my embarrassment so funny. It was the glare I used so many time before.
“How do I know you're not some weird rapist killer person? Or, god, some creepy janitor chilling in a janitor closet?”
“You’re the one who felt me up and you’re asking if I’m the rapist?”
He kind of did have a point. I sighed and wished that there was light. Maybe then I could see who I was talking too. Maybe then I could a face to the voice I so desperately wanted to see.
“Do you have a name?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not an answer...
“Isn’t it?”
Whoever he as, he was cocky. I could handle cocky. It was my second name. I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it, and leaned against the door.
Thankfully I got it right. Imagine the embarrassment that would have followed if I underestimated the distance and instead leaned too my humiliating death.
“Well, if you are hiding away, I want to hide away too. It seems only right that we share the space.”
“Ah,” The voice whispered from my left. “You girls always seem to want to share things.”
I scooted down against the door until my butt was on the floor and my back against the door. I brought my knees up and wrapped my arms around them.
“If you won't tell me your name, then how about you tell me what you look like?”
“What if I’m hideous?” He asked, his voice the same calming tone. Whoever this boy was, he sure knew what to say and when to say it.
Thankfully, I didn’t let his attitude derail me. He seriously had no idea who he was dealing with.
“What if I am hideous?” I questioned back. For some reason, even if I couldn’t see him, I knew he was smiling.
“Then it seems we both have a problem.”
“So it seems.”
Silence descended upon us and I wondered why it was so easy to talk to someone you didn’t know. Someone you weren’t face to face with. Maybe it was the fact that they wouldn’t have to look into your eyes and try to understand what to say when you spilled your heart out.
Maybe it was the fact that, if you said something wrong, you wouldn’t have to see the disappointment on their face after the words were spoken.
Either way, this mystery boy in the dark was equal parts intriguing and equal parts frustrating
“How about,” He said, breaking the silence. “We describe to the other our best feature.” I thought about what my best feature was, but when I came up blank, I gestured toward the area I assumed he was still occupying.
“You first.”
“Okay,” He responded breezily. “My eyes.”
“Your eyes?”
“Yep.” His voice held no room for questioning. I rolled my eyes and laid my head against the door. This boy was probably one of those confident bad boys that liked to roam the halls at EastHill High. I despised those kinds of boys.
“Okay then explain them.” For if he was claiming his eyes were as charming as can be, I wanted to hear him to explain just that.
While I expected him to go into detail about them looking like the sea or something equally poetic like the ‘the color before a storm’ but he said quite seriously,
“Brown.”
“Brown?” I asked, insidiously. “ And that is your best feature. Seriously?”
“Seriously,” He drawled out into the darkness, his voice filled with kept in humor. “Your turn mystery girl.”
“Well,” I started and bit my lip. I could state a million things about myself that was my best feature. These things going pointed out to me every day.
It wasn’t as if I was conceited, or big headed, but when you looked as good as people said you did, people tended to notice.
The hardest part was figuring out who was there because of your ‘beauty and status’ and who stuck around because of genuine feelings. People acted like being the most wanted girl in school was a privileged - a spot that shout be wanted by all.
But to me all it was was a curse.
“I guess my hair.”
He scoffed and the sound made me wish I could gauge his reaction. “That’s a total cop out. Everyone finds their hair to be their best feature.”
My hair was my best feature. It took me two hours every damn morning to perfect, so it had to be my best feature.
I could have said something someone like me would have been expected to say, like my legs or body, but when it came to rules I tended to stray away from the norm.
“You don’t even know what my hair looks like?” I said, raising my chin up in contempt. If his best feature was his brown eyes, why couldn’t mine be my hair? He laughed softly and the sound made goosebumps pop up along my arms.
“Okay then. Explain.”
I smiled.
“It’s brown.”
He groaned and I couldn’t help but burst out in a fit of uncontrollable giggles. While I was so not a giggling kind of person, it felt amazing to laugh until my ribs hurt.
I felt glorious experiencing the whole ‘trying to catch your breath’ thing. I hadn’t laughed in so long.
“I think,” He said quietly, when my outburst calmed down a little. “That your laugh might just be your best feature.”
The rest of my laugh became stuck in my throat and I felt like the air around me was closing in, making our already tight space more so. All in a good way though.
No one has ever said that before. True, he couldn’t see me, but no one had ever complimented on something about me that wasn’t physically seen.
My heart picked up, the idea that someone I don’t even know, someone I will probably never see again, gave me the best thing in the world. He gave me the absolute certainly that one day I would be able to make a boy fall in love with my laugh.
Not my body.
I swallowed, the tension plausible. It was weird in a way. We were complete strangers in the absolute sense. We didn’t even know eachothers names if we were being honest.
But it was like in that exact moment, it did not matter.
Because before him and before me was someone who didn’t know anything about the other. I didn’t know his faults. He didn’t know my desires. He wasn’t any smarter about my inner secrets. I couldn’t even guess what his favorite thing to do in the world was even if I tried.
It’s amazing how you could be faced with such an uncertainty, yet it feel so certain. He was hiding from something and so was I. We were two people, thrown in a janitors closet, each one running away from two separate problems.
He coughed then and broke the suffocating silence. “Okay,” his voice sounded different this time. More open, more weary. It betrayed five different emotions at once.
“How about our deepest secret?” Reality hit me hard then and I shook my head. Still, it frustrated me that he couldn't see it.
“No. No way. How do I know you won’t tell someone?”
“That’s the beauty of it,” He said sadly. “No one will know the better.”
The moment he said it, I understood. If I told him my deepest secret, who would he tell? What would he say? That some girl in a janitors closet one afternoon during a horrible day spilled her most kept untold truth? Not even I would have believed him.
My heart skipped a hurried beat, the idea of my secret finally coming out liberating me in a way nothing else could. Here, in this dark closet, with my mystery boy, I could finally spill the one thing that has been my biggest insecurity.
“I can go first,” he proclaimed, lighting the mood. “If it will make you feel better,”
I let out a huge breath I didn’t even know I was holding. “Please.”
“Sure. But can I..,” His voice trailed off with uncertainty and before I know what was happening a loud bang sounded in front of me. I froze, my heart in my throat. He cursed softly under his breath before I felt something touch the side of my arm.
When his fingers ran over my forearm lightly, working their way to my elbow. I couldn’t hide the silver of shiver that overtook me then. Never had a boy ever touched me this way and never have I ever wanted a boy to keep doing it.
It was insane.
“The reason I am hiding out here mystery girl,” His fingers skated across my elbow down to my wrist. His fingers left a trail of tingles and lightheadedness in their wake.
“Is because a girl broke my heart. See,” He lightly grabbed a hold of my hand and brought it out. When I felt my palm press firmly against his chest, my breath caught in my throat.
“The secret is even though it keeps beating, I want it to stop.” My eyes went up, to where his face had to be, and I wished in that moment more than anything that I knew what his eyes were saying that his words couldn’t. With my palm still against his chest, I said quietly under my breath,
“I’ve never been kissed.”
The moment it came out I felt mortified in my own awareness. I, Grace Carter, probably the most wanted girl in school had never been kissed. It was something I told no one besides Jessie, my best friend.
He leaned forward, his breath caressing my lips. “Never?”
“Never.”
The moment the word came out, I took notice that my hand was still on his chest. I blushed and I thanked god that it was too dark for him to see anything. He leaned closer and I didn’t dare move an inch.
“If I were to kiss you right now mystery girl, what would you do?”
I didn’t even have to think about it.
“I would kiss you back.”
Before I knew what was happening he took the hand on his chest and slowly moved it over his shoulder, circling it around his neck in an intimate embrace.
I sat up, bracing myself on my knees. My heart was beating like a hummingbird in my chest and I couldn’t keep in the fast, small exhales of breath escaping my mouth every so often. I was entirely disoriented by the feeling of being so close to someone, to the kind of someone I didn’t even know but wanted to be close too.
He slowly moved his hands from my arm around his neck, his palm running over my shoulder and then slowly down the side of my body.
As if he was exploring every bump, blemish, and outline in the dark. His own breath was coming out fast and hard and I leaned forward, feeling his long and lean body against mine.
He was skinny, but I could also feel the outline of hard muscle under his shirt. I brought my hands up, and when my hands met silky hair, I slowly wound the pieces into my hands and though my fingers. His palms were still exploring my body, his hands running suggestively over my waist, my hips, and finally back up to my collar bone.
His finger found it’s way under my chin, tilting my face up. And before I knew what was happening, we were kissing. I heard the small hitching gasp come from my own throat as his mouth pressed firmly into mine.
His lips were soft and had a sort of controlled urgency about them. They parted mine expertly, exploring my mouth like his life depended on it.
Never have I found such glorifying readiness to have someone kiss me like this. I wound my hands tighter into his hair and his hands dropped to my waist, pulling me against his body harshly.
Soon it became an controllable outburst of lips, teeth, tongue, and everything in between. My right hand found it’s way back to his chest, and I laid it firmly over where his heart was, the only thing that was between us besides our hearts beating erratically together. He jerked in surprise,
as if he didn’t expect me to touch him like that, before relaxing into the kiss again.
If I thought kissing was like this I would have done it before. It was like standing on a cliff, looking down at the water below, and letting your self plunge head first. And the moment you broke the surface, taking that first breath of fresh air, that’s what kissing is.
It’s like taking that first breath of air.
His mouth suddenly lifted off mine and his lips hungrily went to my neck, kissing paths of sweet nothings along my jaw, chin, and finally the corner of my mouth. I arched my neck, each kiss like a trail of fire, igniting something deep within the both of us.
I gasped again and he made a sound in the back of his throat before finding my cheek in the dark with his hand and angling my mouth toward his.
This time the kiss was less fast, more sweet. He continued to hold my cheek, as if I was a delicate piece of glass in his hands that would break. I breathed him in, memorizing this moment so I would never forget it.
Then when he slowly disconnected his lips from mine, my hand on his chest and his hand on my cheek, it didn’t matter if I couldn’t see him or not. That moment would go down as the best first kiss in the history of first kisses.
Our breathes mixed between us, him and I gasping for air. It was the most intimate and intense moment I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing and I never wanted it to end.
I removed my hand from his chest and whispered breathlessly,”Tell me your name. Please.”
I didn’t even get a chance to wonder if he would have told me it. For the moment I said it, the bell’s shrill sound pierced our darken embrace. I felt him grimace against me before slowly disconnecting his body from mine. He stood up, his breaths still coming out raged.
“Let’s keep it exciting mystery girl,” And then before I could get my bearings, a blinding light made me wince and was followed by a click of a door. And as I sat in the cold, dark room of the janitors closet, I knew I would never know who the boy was that gave me my first kiss.
My own Prince Charming.