It’s dark….
The lights go out with a loud, frightening pop. A distressed gasp rises up from the room and I can hear people scratching in their bags and pockets for their phones as chaos breaks out around me. Someone bumps into me and I stumble backwards slightly. I can’t see who it is it’s so dark and then…
…and then…
That’s when I decide to do it.
Perhaps everyone gets one of these moments in their lives. The kind that demands you to defy logic, reason, sense and just throw caution to the howling gale-force wind. The kind that demands you “just do it.” No thinking. No reasoning, just doing…
And so I run forward, pushing people out the way before it becomes too light. A few phones are already glowing in palms and being waved around in the air. I keep moving until I run slap bang into his chest.
I recognized his smell immediately. It’s intoxicating and I want to drink it in. I reach up, taking his face between my hands and I stand on my tip-toes until we’re face to face. And then, I just kiss him.
WTF? I kiss him. I can barely believe it myself.
To say it was electric would be an understatement. To say it stopped my heart, melted my insides and liquefied my kneecaps would not be sufficient either. Nothing can adequately describe the feelings as he reaches out, wraps his arms around me and pulls me even closer. The kiss intensifies and I hear him let out a tiny breathy moan… it’s just about the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced in all my seventeen years. I put my hand on his chest and splay my fingers, God, I’d wanted to do this for so long. And then I hear a familiar voice behind me and I wiggle out of his grip and disappear into the darkness before he knows it’s me.
* Chapter 1 (Maria)
My heart was racing as I sprinted home. It wasn’t racing because I was running. It was racing because of what I’d just done. Mad, impulsive, insane and totally amazing. Had I completely lost my mind? I certainly wasn’t going to wait around to find out.
So now I was running home as fast as my “manly thighs” could take me. I didn’t bother looking back, not for a spilt second and my timing couldn’t have been better, because the moment my feet hit the road, the lights came back on and the music started blaring again. I heard a collective cheer rise up from the room as I rounded my first corner and picked up even more pace.
Brett, Mike and I all lived in the same gated community, and my house was only a few roads down, but still I must have reached it in record time. I didn’t bother with the front door. I never did and I climbed up the trellis and into the window of my second story bedroom. My blood felt like it was swishing through my veins violently. It felt like my veins weren’t wide enough to contain it. My lips still tingled from the kiss… The Kiss. I ran my tongue over them, I could still taste him. A slight hint of cigarette smoke and my minty-cinnamon gum but…
Crap! Where the hell was my gum?
My brain took a few moments to register the rather serious implications of this. Mike had the gum. In his mouth. It must have maneuvered its way out of mine and into his. I cringed. Sharing a kiss is one thing, but sharing gum, chewed gum I might add, that’s just…
I shuddered again at the thought.
I released a breath that felt like I’d been holding since the kiss and threw myself onto my bed. Despite the misfortunate misplacing of the gum, I couldn’t wipe off the stupid smile that was threatening to split my face in half.
First kisses are often awkward as you bump and navigate your way around. My first kiss was definitely awkward, there was way too much spit and teeth and I kept having to pull away and wipe the flood from my face. But this hadn’t been awkward. It was perfect. It had been electric from the first second our lips had touched until the second I’d pulled away. I could still feel the pressure of his warm hands on my back. If I thought I was in love with Mike before, this just took it to a whole new level. That kiss…
But suddenly a thought hit me... had Mike felt the same way? Can you fall in love after one kiss in the dark?
I’d tried to tell him once... that I was in love. The words were often on the tip of my tongue and sometimes it took all my energy not to just blurt out…
“I love you.” “I love you.” “I luuuuurrrvveve yooooouuu"
Sometimes the words felt like they sat in the back of my throat, chocking me. Almost as if they wouldn’t allow me to talk until I let them out. Sometimes when we talked, I would say them over and over in my head, imagining what would happen if I let them out. I came so close once.
It was a year ago on summer vacation. I’d gone away with him and his family to the coast. It was the best holiday. We’d learnt to surf, we’d snuck out and gone to clubs where we’d danced like idiots, we explored the coast line for hours on end and we’d had an ongoing mini-golf tournament running the whole time. He’d whipped my ass. But on the inside, I was dying. While I was supposed to be having fun, I was suffering from the agony of undying devotion. It
