PAST
Senior Year, high school
Three
My hair didn’t care that today was the first day of school—my light curls were a mess. Not in the sexy way most celebrities wore them either. The only thing I had working for me was my eyes. I loved wearing kohl liner because it gave them more of a shape, and they didn’t seem upturned but more exotic. If you asked my friends, a lot of them said I had cat eyes. I thought they were my best feature. My skin was pale, and my lips weren’t pink like Gigi’s but a rosy shade, broader and fuller. A lot of the time, it looked like I had an RBF (resting bitch face). My nose wasn’t too perky either. Where Gigi was soft, I was a little harder. I blamed my cheekbones. Gigi had a cute angel face, graceful. Mine was not exactly square, but not dainty either.
“Scarlett Davis, girl, you were gone the whole summer.” Dylan (yes, Gigi’s first kiss) put an arm around me while he hugged me from the back. He also used the opportunity to look at himself in the mirror.
One summer without seeing him, but he looked the same. Shaggy brown hair, still rocking skinny jeans and band T-shirts.
“Hey, girlfriend, what’s shaking?” Gigi came running down the hallway and jumped in between Dylan and me so she could hug me.
I felt a little guilty for not answering her last night; instead, I let it go to voicemail, then texted her. She didn’t push it after what’d happened last year. I knew she wouldn’t. I almost dropped out of school so I could help Nick, but he didn’t let me. He wouldn’t hear about it. I tried to make it easier for my brother and told him I would go live with our grandparents. They didn’t live too far away, but it was another school district, meaning I wouldn’t see my friends, and Nick, being the cool brother that he was, knew how big of a deal that was to a teenager, mainly since it was senior year.
I wasn’t a typical teenager, and last year I found out how some things were more important than high school drama. If I could, I would have changed it in an instant just so that I could have my mom and dad back. I would gladly give up everything important to me so they could be here.
“Am I interrupting something?” Gigi cooed, but Dylan and I just ignored her.
We were used to this behavior from her; I think she wanted us to work. Sometimes, I felt like she needed it to work. It sucked for her that Dylan was gay, and so far, other than his family, the only person he trusted with this secret was me. He knew I was trustworthy. Knew I was like a freaking tomb when it came to secrets. Unlike Gigi, I could keep my mouth shut.
If you’re wondering what happened to me after Gigi’s party, the answer is complicated. Kim ended up canceling her party, so Gigi’s chance to kiss Gavin was pushed back again. When school started, she was excited because he was in our class. For her, it was heaven, but for me, it was hell. He sat across from me; he would smile at me, and sometimes he would defend me when other guys picked on me. Then one day at a party, before we even played spin the bottle, he came and sat next to me and asked if I was going to play.
I asked why, and he said, “I don’t want to see you kiss someone else.”
His eyes looked more green than blue and had such intensity. Those stupid butterflies that had lain dormant since we kissed woke up and liked the fact that he didn’t want anyone else kissing me.
“Are you going to play?” The words had left my lips before I could filter them.
He smiled and tilted my chin, his cold fingers making my skin zing, and in three seconds, he gave me a non-answer. In three seconds, he made me hate him. All those feelings I felt the first time were back, but I knew it couldn’t happen. I knew I couldn’t do this to Gigi.
“I only want to kiss you.”
He was about to hold my hand; I saw it happening in slow motion, but removed it so fast he flinched. For three seconds, we stared at each other before I did what I had to do to make it all go away.
“I don’t like you like that.”
The words were hard to get out, almost like I had to make sure they got out of my mouth when they were trying to claw their way down to my voice box. Gavin nodded, and then he walked away.
That day, I watched Gigi get her turn with him, and I thought it would be okay, but for her, it wasn’t three seconds. It was five. When she went to pull away, he pulled her back in. My stomach was in knots. Those butterflies died, and I felt each and every one of them drop, losing their wings and making me cringe. Still, I held it together, smiling at Gigi when she turned and beamed at me. I had almost hoped she would tell me that it was okay, that she didn’t like him anymore, that kissing him didn’t live up to the fantasy she’d built it up to be.
Kissing him was everything to her.
I had to find out if it was everything to me.
I played along. I kissed more lips, and sure, every time someone went for the kill, I felt a thrill, the anticipation, the wonder if this was going to be the kiss that would give me oblivion.
It took Gavin three seconds to change everything I thought I knew, but I never found that again. I think Gigi was right. The first kiss was special; I just wished I would have known, because I would have given those three seconds to someone else.
Gavin’s parents divorced at the end of sixth grade, and he moved away before he and Gigi could ever get together. Secretly, I was glad because I wouldn’t have to wonder about him and his lips or the way that kiss had felt.
Then, in our sophomore year, he was back; he moved in with his father.
I was the first one to see him. I was on my morning jog when I passed by his dad’s house. I didn’t think much of it because it was just a place he used to live in, but it was a habit I had, and I glanced over.
The guy mowing the lawn couldn’t be Gavin, could he? I remembered a cute, lanky boy, but what greeted me was no longer a sixth-grader. He was tall, his shoulders broad, his chest firm and neat. I could see where he was getting abs. They weren’t defined yet, but it was enough to make my stomach drop.
My iPod fell out of the holder because I kept forgetting to buy another arm thingy to put it in, and he turned. I didn’t know how he heard over the loudness of the mower, but our eyes locked.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three, and he walked over to me.
“Scarlett?” he asked, looking from the top of my curly mess of hair all the way down to my Nike shoes.
Once again, my body hummed with electricity, my toes curled, and those pesky little butterfly wings that had dropped started to flutter again. It was almost like they were saying, I’m alive; I can still fly.
“Gavin. Wow, you look so different.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I bit my lip before I could say something stupid like oh, you look fantastic shirtless.
He smirked at me. “Football and weights.”
“Huh?”
“Football and weights make me look awesome with my shirt off,” he repeated smugly.
I wanted to die; I was waiting for the earth to part and let me fall into its core. How embarrassing.
“Are you visiting your dad?”
He looked back at the house and then at me.
“Sorry, stupid question. Why else would you be here, mowing the lawn?” I rambled.
There shouldn’t have been a reason for me to be this nervous. Maybe it was because I was tired from running, and it made me deprived of oxygen.