He hadn’t laughed. He might have turned into a milk sprinkler, but he hadn’t laughed. I at least had that.
“Does that mean you’ve never kissed anyone?” he finally asked.
“Not technically, no. Is that so hard to believe?”
I could seriously almost hear the record-scratch sound as we descended into awkward silence.
“It’s unusual. Which is why you heard disbelief in my voice. But that doesn’t mean it’s, like, a bad thing you should be ashamed of,” he said, putting his bowl down on the floor. “Does that mean you’re a virgin?”
Heat rushed to my cheeks, bringing out my inner snark. “Of course not, because in between all the being terrified of kissing I was hooking up constantly.”
“No, right. That makes sense. Sorry. I just need a second to wrap my head around this.”
Now I was annoyed. “People can be virgins.”
He held up both of his hands for a second, like he was trying to ward off my anger. “I know! That’s not what I . . . Sorry, I’d never considered that this might be your deep, dark secret. Being scared of kissing. And what do you mean, you’ve never technically kissed someone?”
Might as well give him the full story. I took one of his throw pillows and put it in front of me, like a shield. “When I was fourteen, I was the only one out of our friend group who hadn’t been kissed, and it was really embarrassing. Everybody except Shelby used to tease me. So at Anna-Marie’s birthday party, they all decided that it was time for me to get kissed. And they announced that we were going to play Seven Minutes in Heaven.”
His eyebrows furrowed.
“Haven’t you heard of that game?” I asked.
“I didn’t have a normal childhood, remember? I’m assuming it’s a kissing game.”
“It is.”
“Why is it seven minutes? That seems like an arbitrary amount of time.”
What did that matter? “Because it rhymes with heaven? I don’t know. That’s not really important.”
“Right,” he agreed. “I’m just trying to make sure I’m understanding everything.”
“In that case you should know that it’s basically a couple being put into a closet or a room, and they’re supposed to kiss for seven minutes. The people outside keep track of the time and then they throw the door open when it’s over. They had me go in Anna-Marie’s bedroom.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to strengthen myself. This was the worst part. And it was the part I could not give him every detail of. “So I was waiting for Chris Quintana. He was the cutest boy in school—everyone had a crush on him.”
Noah’s eyes narrowed. “I already don’t like him.”
“It gets worse. So I’m in there waiting, feeling completely anxious and nervous because this was going to be my first-ever kiss, and Anna-Marie had this pillow. And the pillow had a picture of my celebrity crush on it.”
That celebrity had been Noah as Felix Morrison. Which I was never, ever going to tell him.
It was also part of the reason why I could never kiss him. I was worried it might be like reliving that moment again.
“And since I’d never been kissed, I thought I’d practice.” My whole face felt like it was on fire.
“And this Chris kid caught you?”
“Well, yes, but there was a problem. The face was like one of those puffy decal types and . . . my braces got caught on it. I was stuck. So he found me, my face pressed against a pillow, and he had to help me get free.”
“I mean, that’s embarrassing, but was that enough to put you off kissing forever?”
“That’s not all of it. Don’t get me wrong—that in and of itself was completely humiliating. I begged him not to tell anyone, and he was actually a pretty decent guy. He said he wouldn’t. And then . . .”
“And then?”
“Then he suggested that I should try kissing an actual boy, because it was a lot better. And I don’t know if it was just a mixture of embarrassment and adrenaline or what happened, as my brain wasn’t actually functioning in that moment, but I pretty much leaped on him with my teeth bared and smashed our faces together while attempting to ‘kiss’ him. I knocked him over and landed right on his face.”
His eyes widened in horror.
“I completely cut his mouth up. There was blood everywhere. He ran out of the room. As far as I know, he didn’t tell anyone the details, but it was pretty obvious what I had done. Everybody called me BB, for Bloody Braces, the rest of high school. The online bullying was relentless. Which meant that I wasn’t going to date any guy I knew, because everybody teased me constantly.”
“Understandable.” He paused. “To be honest, I thought you were going to tell me that someone hurt you. And that was why you steered clear of men.”
“No. Nobody hurt me. I was the one committing face felonies with my teeth blades.”
He smiled slightly at that, and it emboldened me to go on. “Then I went to college. And it was really awkward to be so far behind everyone else. I’d hated that feeling in high school, like there was this race everybody else was running, but I was still stuck at the starting line wondering when it was going to be my turn. Everybody else was having sex, and I’d never even kissed someone. So freshman year I decided to find a guy to make out with. I was friends with this girl from one of my math classes, and she said her boyfriend’s best friend was into noncommittal make outs and hooked up with different girls constantly. And I wasn’t going to sleep with him, but I thought kissing someone who knew what he was doing would be a good option.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t go well?”
I hugged the pillow tighter. “This friend brought along her boyfriend and the four of us were hanging out and watching a movie, and then she came up with an excuse to leave. So here I was, alone with this guy in his living room, not knowing what to do and feeling fully freaked out. Waiting for him to make a move.”
“And what happened when he did?”
“He didn’t. The guy who was known on campus for cycling through every available woman wasn’t interested in me. Which was this total blow to my self-esteem and put me off the idea of dating for a long time. And then when I tried to get back into dating again, there was this boy in my statistics class who seemed decent and interested in me, and we went to a movie and ice cream and I was like, This is it. I’m going to kiss this guy. I thought I was too old to keep waiting.” I stopped for a second, worried that if I brought it up again, I’d be back in that moment, feeling the way I felt. I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly and then kept going.
“So we were at my front door, saying good night. And he was moving in, getting closer and closer to me, and then it was like I’d been hit by a truck. I seriously thought I was having a heart attack because my heart was beating so hard. I was shaking, I couldn’t catch my breath, my chest hurt, I wanted to vomit. I couldn’t feel my hands or my feet. I thought I was going crazy. Somehow I said good night and went inside and I was about to call an ambulance, but after a couple of minutes on the floor, I was able to calm down.”
“That sounds awful.”