I was wrong. I had assumed this would be his first kiss, that it would be fumbling and a bit messy but still fun. No way. Can’t be. This guy knows exactly what he’s doing. How to cradle the back of my head with his hands. How to move in soft and slow, and then pick up the pace, and then slow down again. How to brush my cheeks with even smaller kisses, how to work his way down my jaw, and to soften the worry spot in the center of my brow. How to pause and look into my eyes, really look, so tenderly I feel it all the way down in my stomach.
He even traces the small zigzag scar on my eyebrow with his fingertips, like it’s something beautiful.
I could kiss him forever.
I’m going to kiss him forever.
I am kissing David Drucker, and yes, I’ve forgotten everything else.
Because his lips are back on mine.
Because this, right here, is the best kiss of my life.
—
We kiss and kiss and kiss and only stop when David pulls away, cups the sides of my face with his huge hands, and says: “There are cops here. We’ve got to go.”
Even that sounds romantic. He has morphed from dorky classmate to partner in crime. We hold hands and run to his car and he opens the passenger-side door for me. Offers his jacket one last time.
“I’m okay,” I say. “You kept me warm.” He smiles at me, and even in the dark I can see that he’s blushing. And now I am too. I’m hot all over.
“At least take my scarf.” He pulls a scarf from his jacket pocket and winds it around my neck. Cashmere, as soft as his sweater. Everything he wears is soft. He takes both edges and then pulls me toward him again, a suave move, and we kiss one last time. My chest tightens, my body tingles, and I allow myself to dissolve into him. It seems wrong that we ever need to leave this moment. I want to stay right here.
“Get a room!” I hear Gabriel shout as he walks by, but I don’t care. Team David, I think again. I’m definitely on Team David.
We don’t talk on the ride home. We don’t have to. I feel warm and giddy and like I have a secret that I want to keep all to myself. David Drucker, who is so many different people all at once: the guy who always sits alone, the guy who talked quantum physics even in my dad’s dental chair, the guy who held my hand in the snow. I kissed David Drucker, the guy I most like to talk to, and it was perfect.
—
Four a.m. Alone in my bedroom. The butterflies I have savored all night suddenly turn to bats. My mouth is sour. Everything spins. David’s scarf feels hot and itchy on my neck. Too tight. I feel the opposite of beautiful.
The regrets start singing their cruel song in my ear. Grating and on automatic repeat.
Then suddenly the accident starts playing on my ceiling. Headlights. Screeching tires. My foot twitches slowly. Always too slow.
I remember everything.
Make it stop.
I crawl to the bathroom with only a second to spare.
I blow chunks until dawn.
I spent ninety-six glorious minutes kissing Kit Lowell. Ninety-six minutes where her mouth was against my mouth, or my mouth was against her neck, or my mouth was against that amazing freckle cluster at her clavicle. I could spend the rest of my living days kissing Kit without getting bored, without stopping except for the physiological imperative of occasional sleep and food and to relieve myself.
Best. Night. Of. My. Life.
After I drive Kit home, I lie awake on my bed. My mind is spinning but, for once, in a good way. No need to talk myself out of or down from this sensation. Kissing Kit wasn’t too tangy or too loud or too rough or too moist, like I had feared it might be. It wasn’t too anything. It was perfect. Kissing Kit was a privilege.
I replay the evening over and over again in my head, especially that very first minute. How Kit pulled my face toward hers, that feeling of her hands clasping my neck, the lack of ambiguity about what she wanted.
Everything was clear.
She picked me.
She kissed me.
Me.
For just tonight, I can pretend that I am something approximating cool. I wore a leather jacket that purposely looks worn in. My jeans were fitted, like a boy-bander’s. I looped my scarf around Kit’s neck and left it there, so she’ll have to see me again, if only to return it. I thought of that move all by myself. I didn’t learn it from YouTube or Miney’s instructions or a teen movie.
And now that I’ve been exposed to this feeling, perfect mouth against perfect mouth, the natural order of things, I wonder why people don’t kiss all day, every day. How does anything ever get done?
I feel reborn. No longer Mapleview’s resident hand-flapping weirdo. There is hope for me in the wider world, hope that I can leave this place one day and start over as someone else. Me version 2.0. Me smoothed out a little.
Love. I test the word in my head a few times. Let it bounce around my brain, the same way I tackle a formula, slowly at first, then accelerating exponentially, until it comes out the other end whole and solved.
Love.
Yes, it is clear what has happened here. What Kit has done to me.
She kissed me.
And then biology took over.
A dopamine rush. And maybe a hit of seratonin and adrenaline too.
A beautiful chemical reaction.
And just like that, I am madly in love with Kit Lowell.
—
Since love is new for me, I start as I would with any other intellectual exercise, and I Google: What do you do when you love someone? From there, I stumble upon the rules of courtship, which is a layman’s way of saying “human mating ritual.” Apparently, the surest indicator of a person’s attractiveness is whether their face is symmetrical, and so I measure mine and am relieved to discover my halves are of roughly equal dimension. Good. Next, in order to prove their reliability to support future potential offspring, men need to spend money on the object of their affection. Though I bring no income to the table at present, I decide the best way to show Kit that I’m a suitable partner is to demonstrate my other genetic attributes. I may not be good at small talk or making friends or abiding by high school social etiquette, but it’s incontrovertible that I’m exceptionally talented at science and math. I need to show off to her, just like a ribbon-tailed astrapia grows its tail feathers. I grab my notebook and write out my two-part plan.
First, I will stay up all night and finish the Accident Project. Show Kit the real-life applications of my skill set and the myriad and unexpected ways it can benefit her.
Second, I will invite Kit to the Academic League meet. It’s a bit obvious to use the event as a courtship display, but as Miney likes to say, if you got it, flaunt it.