COLTON (AGE 13)
IT WAS MY THIRTEENTH birthday, and Momma was finally letting me have my first boy/girl party. Well, technically Alex had been at every party I’d ever had, but she didn’t count. Alex was...well, Alex. We’d been friends since we were in diapers and our mothers best friends since they were just little girls. We’d lived next door to each other our entire lives and still had sleepovers every weekend. She was like a sister...only not.
Anyway, the boy/girl party was a really big deal. Momma said we could have it in the pool house and promised not to bother us as long as we behaved. Allie and I had spent the entire day prepping, and I thought she was as excited about it as I was, but there I was...chasing her scrawny butt through the yard back to her house. Most of the time, Al was really cool, but she was still a girl, and sometimes she even acted like one.
“Alex,” I called after her, “would you just freaking stop and talk to me?”
“I hate you, Colton Fowler!” she screamed without looking back as she climbed the porch steps and disappeared through the front door, slamming it so hard the whole porch rattled.
Girls!
What I really wanted to do was turn around and go back to my party, but I would have gotten in trouble for making her cry, and maybe it bugged me just a little too.
Once she was inside, I stopped running and slowly made my way to the front door, which of course was locked. I rolled my eyes, grumbling under my breath as I rang the doorbell and waited for Mrs. Mack to let me in.
My hands started to sweat when I heard the heavy footsteps approaching the door.
“Hey, Colton,” Mrs. Mack said, trying and failing to hide a smirk. “What’d you do this time?”
“Hell if I know.” I shrugged then jumped back when her hand flew out and swatted my arm.
“Watch your language, young man.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, rubbing out the sting.
“She’s in her room, Colt. Go on up.” Mrs. Mack stepped back so I could pass. “If her door’s locked, there’s a bobby pin in the vase on the hall table,” she added with a wink.
I nodded then ran across the house and up the stairs to Allie’s room. I didn’t bother checking to see if it was locked. I knew it would be, so I grabbed the pin on the way and popped the door open.
“Colton!” she screamed, covering herself with the T-shirt she was preparing to slip over her head.
I should have turned or left, or done anything but stand there with my mouth hanging open, but that’s precisely what I did. Just. Stood. There...Staring. I hadn’t seen Alex naked in years. Our mothers had put an end to that when we were around five. Alex was tiny and not really developed, but seeing her topless and her boobs...Alex had boobs? Little ones but boobs. That was the moment it truly hit me that Alex was a girl. A real one. A real one with boobs.
“Ugh!” she growled, turning her back to me while she pulled the shirt on. “You are such a jerk.”
Alex turned back around, shooting me a death glare. “Uh, sorry, Al.”
“Have you ever heard of knocking, pervert?”
“I, uh...” I didn’t know what to say. This was weird.
“Just go back to your party with your stupid friends and stupid Marci.” She threw herself face down on her bed, and her body started to shake with sobs.
Shit. My eyes began to water. I hated that she could make me cry with only a few tears. “Don’t cry, Allie.” I sat on the side of her bed and stroked the long brown waves of hair strewn across her back. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s not like you have big ones. I mean, it’s just like when we used to take baths together.” I shrugged, trying to make her feel better even though seeing her naked still had me feeling strange.
Like she’d suddenly become possessed by a demon, she popped up in bed and leveled me with eyes that looked like they could burn holes right through me. “You...Colton Fowler, you are a fucking asshole!”
I’d never heard her say the f-word before. It sounded so foreign coming out of her mouth. I was shocked. I didn’t like it at all. “What’s wrong with you, Alex?” I asked, standing. “You’re acting like...like a girl.”
“Newsflash, I am a girl, or haven’t you noticed? That’s right, you’ve been too busy trying to kiss Marci. Oh, but she has big boobs, right? I’m just Alex. Scrawny, boobless Alex!”
Marci does have a nice rack...I knew better than to say that right now.
“Your boobs are nice too, Allie.” My voice shook with that admission.
Alex blew out a long breath. “Just. Go. Home.”
I grabbed her shoulder and turned her ’til she was facing me again. “I’m not leaving ’til you tell me why you ran out of the pool house crying. Al, all of our friends are still there, probably playing spin the bottle without us now.”
“Good,” she pouted. “I don’t wanna play that stupid game anyway.”
Ahh. “Is that why you left? Because you don’t wanna play?” I pushed her hair behind her ears. “You don’t have to kiss anyone if you aren’t ready, Al.”
Her head shook, and her voice trembled. “You forgot...” The tears began to spill over again. I was really not liking this girly side to Alex.
My heart was pounding because I didn’t know how to fix this. How to get out of this awkward situation with my best friend. “I forgot what, Al?”
“You were gonna k-kiss her, Colt,” she whispered, sniffling.
“So?”
“So...we promised to learn together so neither of us would be bad at it. You were going to kiss her first. Then you would know how and I...I would be left out.”
The conversation we’d had a few years ago suddenly came back. The two of us watching My Girl...We’d promised then that we’d be each other’s first kiss, just like Veda and Thomas. My throat thickened and my pulse sped up. “I’m sorry, Allie. I did forget. Do you still want to?”
She stared at me with her big brown eyes that were glistening with the tears she was fighting as she chewed her bottom lip. “Nah, just go. It’s weird now.”
But now I really wanted to kiss her, and it was obvious that it meant a lot to Alex. So, I didn’t leave. Instead, I sat beside her on the bed, and my stomach roiled as I scooted closer. I lifted a hand to her face and with my thumb swiped a tear from beneath her eye. My entire body trembled as I leaned forward and pressed my lips against my best friend’s.
Her hands were suddenly on my shoulders and then around my neck. After a few soft pecks, I went in for the kill, poking out my tongue and tracing her salty lips. She opened her mouth, and I shared the wettest, sloppiest, most uncoordinated first kiss there probably ever was with my best friend. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to change something between us. After that kiss, there were times I saw her differently. Lying in the same bed no longer felt as innocent as it had in the past, and as we grew older, there were times that I was outright jealous seeing her with other guys. It was stupid. Alex and I were not together, and we’d never kissed again after my thirteenth birthday. But there were many, many times I’d regretted that kiss over the years. Maybe, if it hadn’t happened, things wouldn’t have changed...