It went like this:
It was my senior year of high school, at a friend’s birthday party, during a game of spin the bottle (or rather spin the digital spinner). I was a few days past seventeen and he was (apparently, as I found out after the fact) fifteen. At least he was older than my baby bro was the single thought that played in my head on repeat when it registered that he was younger than me.
Let’s face it – going younger isn’t my thing. If it’s not yet obvious (and god, I don’t know why it wouldn’t be), I’m into older guys. Wait. Let me rephrase: I’m into men.
Which is probably why I did kiss him. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it’s not. He had a full grown mustache, was taller than I was, and I swore he was anywhere between sixteen and twenty. But then again, my Mr. Perfect Mystery Man looked nineteen when we were in eighth grade (or at least, I thought so) so maybe looks are not the best indicator of age.
For that matter, a friend of mine thought I looked and acted like I was twenty when I was sixteen and now that I’m almost twenty, because I’m short, my family teases that I look twelve.
Bottom line: don’t guess people’s ages. Ever.
But that wasn’t where I was going with this.
I wasn’t actually gonna kiss him intially.
I spun for the sake of spinning, just to see who it would land on.
If it had landed on one of the others, I would’ve simply laughed, said ‘sorry, not giving away my first kiss like that’, and my parents would’ve stepped out of the house on their way to a Diwali party at a friend’s house just then so I’d have to run.
But it landed on the hot one. The one I’d had my eye on all night. And for a whole second, the idea of preserving my first kiss for Prince Charming seemed ridiculous. Because shouldn’t every kiss be special. Not just the first kiss? And what means “special”? Subjective. For some reason, sitting on the grass in front of a guy I’d known less than two hours, knowing my parents were about to step out of the house any second, that rush of adrenaline because it’s real – that felt special. And out of the eight or so people there, why is it that it landed on the one person I had my eye on? Maybe overthinking has something to do with it. Or maybe I had actually stopped overthinking for just a moment.
All I know is I found myself taking his face into my hands and quickly pressing my lips to his.
It lasted less than a second and then I had gone off, grabbing one of my best friends as I did and whispering excitedly that that was my first kiss.
The most memorable moments are sometimes the ones that are impulsive, that we didn’t predict.
Doesn’t mean we should be reckless and irresponsible.
But we can have a little fun.
