Caio lets out a loud sigh, and I look at him. His hair is a mess (which might be a little bit my fault), but he’s more gorgeous than ever. His face opens into a perfect smile, and I’m surprised because I never thought a normal person would react that way after kissing me. I’ve always imagined tears of regret. Or fainting. Or throwing up.
“Wow,” I say.
“Wooow,” he says, stretching the word.
“Wanna come over to my place?” I say, because I’m feeling comical.
“Do I have a choice?” Caio gives my shoulder another one of his weird punches.
So we walk home. It’s already dark by the time we leave the mall, and the sky is full of stars. I look up and thank Becky for the push, Olivia for the advice, L. Frank Baum for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, my grandma for having existed, and the people who invented scenes after movie credits and armrest supports that can be moved.
Without all of you, none of this would have been possible.
This might not be news for anyone, but I’m not good at dealing with things.
All I know about first kisses I learned from books, movies, and TV shows. A first kiss matters because, in comedies, it’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. In movies where the world is ending, it’s that “I can’t die before I kiss you!” moment. In reality TV shows, it’s just a test to see if two people are a good match.
But in my life, my first kiss happened with the most gorgeous guy who has ever set foot on this planet and who, conveniently, is staying over at my place. In my bedroom. By my side. So what happens now?
It wasn’t meant to be this way. Not for us to kiss and then go to sleep in the same room just a few hours later. This doesn’t happen when you’re seventeen and live with your mother. Maybe I’m just lucky.
But lucky or not, I can’t keep calm.
It all runs through my head as we walk home. I try to start a conversation about the movie, but then I realize that I don’t remember anything that happened in it. Caio doesn’t seem to remember, either. The tension between us as we walk is good but still tense enough to be called tension.
There’s no way not to notice the elephant in the room.
When we get home, my mom is waiting on us for dinner.
“Finally! I’m starving, but I didn’t want to eat by myself. I think I’m needy today,” she says as soon as we open the door, with a little wink my way. I want to die.
Even though I ate all that popcorn, I don’t say no to my mom’s dinner. She asks how the movie was, and I shove a forkful of rice and beans in my mouth, because I don’t know how to answer.
“You know, right? Zombies who turn into robots. Can’t expect too much from it,” Caio answers, and smiles at me.
My mom seems satisfied with the answer.
We’re doing our usual routine of dinner and TV, and my mom doesn’t seem happy with anything that’s on. She keeps pressing the remote compulsively, zapping through all the channels, and I swear that between one show and another, I am able to spot about five couples kissing.
My embarrassment gets worse and worse.
I glance over at Caio, and he seems anxious. His legs shake to the speed of the changing channels on the TV, and I’m startled when he gets up suddenly from the couch.
“I’m done. I’m tired. I think I’m gonna go to bed,” he announces hurriedly, and disappears before I can get a word in edgewise.
My mom and I sit there in silence. On the TV there’s an ad about a new collection of hits by Alcione Nazareth, a famous samba singer.
“Tell me everything!” she says in a low voice, elbowing my side as if we were best friends from school.
“We kissed,” I say in an even lower voice, and my mom holds back a scream.
This is one of the weirdest moments of my life. Because I just said I kissed Caio (and that is a TRUE STATEMENT!). Because I’m talking about it with my mom! And, more important, because Alcione’s music is on TV.
“So, what’s it going to be? Are you two together? Can I call him my son-in-law?” she says excitedly, like a child who just won a trip to Disney.
“Sssssshhhhh. No need to scream!” I say, because Caio can definitely hear all of this from the bedroom. “Now I have no idea what to do. I’m not an expert in … kissing.”
My mom goes serious all of a sudden, looking deeply into my eyes. She grabs my two hands and strokes me with the tips of her fingers.
“Son, no matter what happens, I want you to know that there are condoms in the second drawer of my nightstand.”
“Mom!” I shout, letting go of her hands.
I get up from the couch and almost run to my room, because I’d rather deal with a recently kissed Caio than with this conversation.
Caio is in bed scrolling on his phone, but as soon as I walk into the room, he drops it and stares at me.
No pressure.
“What a day, huh?” he says as I turn off the lights and lie in bed.
“Today I discovered my mom once dated my gym teacher,” I say, because despite everything that happened, it’s another piece of information that I still haven’t been able to fully process.
“Was that before or after we kissed, and I acted like a fool because no one has ever kissed me and then taken me home on the very same day?”
“That was before,” I answer, laughing.
“Just to be clear, no one has ever taken me home in general, okay? Under no circumstances. If you know what I mean,” Caio says, a little embarrassed by his confession that he’s a virgin.
Ha. Ha.
I decide to be honest, too. “What about me? Who, until today, had never kissed anyone?”
“No one?” Caio asks, seemingly scared, as if I am good-looking enough to have a line of people trying to kiss me at all times.
“You were my first,” I say, and my forehead starts sweating when I confess the truth. Caio was my first kiss. It’s still too surreal for me. I’m afraid I’ll suddenly wake up to find out I’ve been sent to a parallel dimension by mistake, and that I need to return to my universe where I suck and no one wants to kiss me.
I don’t want to go back.
“I hope I didn’t disappoint you,” Caio says.
“I hope I didn’t, either.”
I don’t know at what point this happened, but I let my hand fall off the side of my bed, and Caio interlaced his fingers with mine. We’re in the dark, holding hands, staring at the ceiling, and saying anything that pops into our heads.
“Counting you, I’ve kissed two mouths in my life,” Caio informs me. “So far, you’re way ahead. The other one was the biter.”
“Denis.” I nearly whisper the name of the first guy Caio kissed. Which, if you stop to think about it, is a pretty creepy thing to do this late at night.
“You remember his name?” Caio laughs.
“I’m good with remembering names,” I answer, even though that’s not true. I think I just have a good memory for resentment.
“No need to be jealous of Denis. I haven’t talked to him since then. And like I said, you were better,” Caio says, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction.
“I’m not a jealous guy,” I say, but deep down, I think I am.