I yanked her toward me.
And I kissed her.
He kissed me.
His lips touched mine.
Our mouths became one.
My eyes tightly shut, my heart stopped beating, and all the fight in me was gone. His grip moved from my wrists to my hands. Holding them. It wasn’t one of those movie kisses that we watched on TV, but it was enough to have me paralyzed from the sudden feel of his lips on mine. I had no clue what to do, so I awkwardly froze from the unexpected turn of events in the last few seconds. My mind wasn’t even wandering, it went blank as if my body wanted to live in the moment and be with him. We just stood there, neither one of us moving with our mouths glued to each other. Encased in nothing but bewilderment and something else?
Something I couldn’t put my finger on…
Something that had me weak in the knees and dizzy in the head…
Something I’d never felt before but wanted to hold onto…
We were waiting…
For what?
Who the hell knows.
As if reading my mind he pulled away first, and I quickly followed suit. Our eyes slowly opened at the exact same time and I saw something in his I’d never seen before. They were dilated, and the sapphire blues that I had become so accustomed to and loved throughout the years were gone. They were replaced with two big, black rings that held so much emotion that it was overwhelming, and yet I didn’t know what it meant. But there was also a familiarity that was still present, and it calmed the confusion that was rapidly forming in my mind. That alarmed me more than anything else. It scared me that momentarily I didn’t know the boy standing in front of me.
Still a little part of me, a small part of my heart, it soared for the first time.
I removed one of my hands from his, and lightly touched my lips. I was breathless as I swiped my fingers back and forth on the top and the bottom. They felt so different.
I felt so different.
Why?
He watched my every move with an intense glare that had me gasping for breath while trying to understand what had just happened between us. Unspoken questions ricocheted but stayed unvoiced. His stare so penetrating, so consuming that I couldn’t break it. I couldn’t move my eyes from his. They were glued together just as our lips had just been. With air slowly returning to my lungs, it restored blood flow into my unbelievably fast beating heart that I swear he could hear.
Or maybe it was his that I heard?
I watched him swallow deeply and profusely, and then his lips parted like he tried to catch air that wasn’t circulating fast enough so he needed to open his mouth to breathe. He slowly reached up and touched his own lips, repeating the same gesture he’d seen me do, mimicking me in every way. But right after he removed his fingers he did something completely different, he licked his lips.
I think my heart may have burst. It was now lying on the sand in between us for him to see, secretly hoping it was beside his. Right then and there I knew I wanted that feeling to stay forever. I wanted to bundle up whatever emotion coursed through me, and that stare that was just for me. Bring it home with me, and bottle it up, where I could cherish it and relive it whenever I wanted to. A futile hope, that for just one second I may have had an effect on him and it wasn’t an illusion.
It was real.
For a young girl…
That meant everything.
I was about to be eleven years old in a few days and I had known Lucas all my life, but it was the first time I truly felt something different, something more than just friendship for him, and I knew it was very much mutual. Even though what I felt for him, what we felt for each other, it wouldn’t be defined till a few years later. This is where it all started.
Our first kiss was our beginning and in some ways our end.
This is where our complicated love began.
“Why did you do that?” I whispered, our frenzied gazes still locked.
He shrugged. “Your eyes look funny,” he murmured, confirming my thoughts.
“So do yours,” I breathed out, swallowing the saliva that had pooled in my mouth. “Now what?”
He shrugged again.
Well if he didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know what to do?
Then what?
“Why did you kiss me?” I blurted, needing to know.
“To get you to hush up.”
“Oh.” I lowered my eyes that mirrored his. Maybe I read it all wrong.
I kicked the sand below my feet for a few seconds, neither one of us talking, but his hand grabbed mine with the other one still tightly entwined.
“Alex.”
As soon as I heard my name I raised my eyes to him. He never called me by my name. With our gazes once again connected, his eyes still dark and daunting, but a warm, loving smile now appeared on his face, making my heart skip a beat. He tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear, leaving a deep fluttering feeling in my belly.
“Are you still mad at me?”
I shook my head no, unable to find the words to express what I felt.
“Good,” was all he replied.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I said, changing the subject but not dismissing the emotions that now lay between us.
“I’m sorry that shark hit my board.”
“It’s not your fault.”
He nodded. “You know I would never let anything happen to you.”
I smiled. “I know.”
“You did a really good job, though.”
“Not really,” I chuckled.
“I think you singing Brown Eyed Girl attracted that shark to come see you.”
I slanted my head to the side, my curiosity eating me up. “How do you know that?”
“You’re my brown eyed girl.” He grinned. “Come on, Half-Pint, I’ll walk you back to your house. It’s getting late.”
“Okay.”
He grabbed his board and we walked beside each other, barely talking the entire hike back to my house. He normally waited until I was on my front porch to leave. My house was three stories high and had a wooden deck leading to the front door. I slowly opened the door, but before I stepped into the foyer, I found myself doing something I never had before.
I turned around.
He was still there, watching me.
I shyly smiled and he waved goodbye. I ran up to my room, closing the door behind me, leaning against it. I caressed my lips one last time and then…
I licked them.
The same fluttering feeling I felt that entire afternoon stayed with me for the rest of the night.
A few days went by and then it was my 11th birthday. My parents threw an intimate birthday party for me at their restaurant, inviting close family and friends. I wasn’t one for big extravagant things. I learned later in life that I really was just a small town girl. All the boys spoiled me with gifts. I had more boy clothes than I knew what to do with, much to my mama’s dismay.
“Did you have a good birthday party, Half-Pint?” Dylan asked, putting his arm around my shoulder.
“I did.”
“My gift was the best, wasn’t it?” Jacob chimed in, tugging me away from Dylan.
I giggled. “I loved all of them.”
“It’s okay to be honest, Half-Pint, you can tell them that my gift was your favorite,” Austin added, smiling and throwing the football up in the air, Lucas intercepting it.
We threw the football for the next hour and soon it was time for everyone to go home. It was Sunday night and we all had school the following morning.
Lucas’ family was the last to leave, like always.
"Come on," he directed with a nod to follow him.
“You’re leaving.”
“My dad just opened up another beer, you know what that means.”
I trailed behind him to the same spot we were at the other day with the nervousness bubbling up from my belly to my throat.
Is he going to kiss me again?
He turned. “Here,” he said, handing me another wrapped present.
“I already opened your gift.”
“Nah, my mom got that. This one is from me. I bought it with the money I made from mowing lawns this past summer.”
“Oh.” I slowly unwrapped the long rectangle box and slid the lid off. “Bo,” I whispered out loud, surprised and looking back up at him.
He reached for the shark tooth necklace from the box and moved behind me. “I found it in Old Pa’s antique store. To be honest, I don’t even know why I went in there. I hate that store. Old Pa says it’s legit. It’s from a baby shark that got lost in the inlet a few years back. He saved the shark, but it left behind this tooth. He found it a few weeks ago in his nightstand, he completely forgot about it and decided to turn it into a necklace.” He paused. “Maybe it was the same shark that bumped my board so I had to get it for you.”
“Was it expensive?”
I could feel him smiling as he clasped the silver chain into place. It hung right in between my breastbone.
“Only you would ask that.” He spun me, placing his fingers on the tooth. It appeared smaller in his grasp. “The chain is white gold.” His knuckles brushed against my skin, making me feel warm all over.
What is happening to me?
It was my favorite gift. “I love it, thank you, Bo, I’ll never take it off.”
And I didn’t.
Until one day…
I did.
I spent all my money on that necklace and didn’t think twice about it. I wanted her to have it. I wish I could tell you why. All I knew was the moment I saw it, I had to make it hers. I chucked it up to the fact that it could have been the same shark that hit my board, not realizing that maybe it was because that same day we shared our first kiss and I wanted her to remember it, always.