Today we have best-selling author Jessica Brody joining us to talk about her high school memory. You have to check this out. Her story is awesome. 
A Second Look at a First Kiss
If you want to get technical about it, my first kiss was in fifth grade, under a table in the library while six eager faces of friends sat atop it, ducking their heads underneath every two seconds to catch a peek. We were dared to kiss for thirty whole seconds! Of course we knew nothing about real kissing. French kissing was about as foreign a concept as French politics. So there we were, with both of our mouths tightly shut to avoid any sort of saliva swap, pressing our lips against each other and holding them there, puckered and frozen while the spectators counted those long thirty seconds.
Although at the time, it was a momentous occasion in my life—no one else sitting on top of that table had done it—I obviously don’t count that as my first “real” kiss. That wouldn’t happen for another four years, when I was fourteen. We started dating after he passed me a note in Science class and asked if I wanted to go to the movies. Of course I did! I’d only been pining after him for like a month! Something I’m sure he knew thanks to the subtle hints dropped by my faithful best friend. It was this same friend who assured me that he would kiss me in the movie theatre.
“He’ll want to sit in the back row and make-out,” she informed me. And I listened…with eagerness. Why wouldn’t I? She’d already dated two guys and French kissed both of them and my biggest accomplishment with a member of the opposite sex thus far, took place in the library of all places!
And so it was to be believed that he would kiss me in the back row of the movie theatre, after the lights went out and the credits started rolling. And I was TERRIFIED. What do I do? How do I act? Where do I put my tongue? Ahh!
It was a well-known fact around school that this particular guy had kissed at least three other girl. Surely he’d be able to spot me for the kissing amateur that I was. I begged my best friend for pointers! I read every teen magazine I could get my hands on. I did what my type-A personality always does in the face of the unknown…I researched.
But when the night of the big movie date finally arrived, I felt no better prepared than I started.
So with butterflies in my stomach and my heart beat dialed up to max, I watched the house lights dim and the movie begin. And like clockwork, within minutes, his lips were on mine. I’d love to give in to my tendencies as a fiction writer, to drift off into a fantastical telling of how amazing the kiss was. How warm and soft his lips were, how we both clicked so perfectly and how this very lip lock lead to eventual marriage, children and blissful happily ever after. But this is supposed to be a true account. So I will stick to the truth. It was messy. And weird. And slimy And awkward. I was absolutely certain I must have been doing it wrong….and even more certain that he knew.
It wouldn’t be until years later…at my 10-year high school reunion that I would bump into this same boy again, all full grown and mature and working as an investment banker in New York City that I would learn the other half of this story. Not the other half that I was positive I already knew.
As we sat and reminisced about our short-lived relationship of three-months oh way back when, I admitted to him how nervous I was that night. How terrified I was about kissing someone for the first time. And he laughed and said, “That’s exactly how I felt!”
I looked at him with skeptical eyes. “You?” I asked in disbelief. “How could you have been nervous? You had already kissed like three girls before! I knew that. Everyone knew that.”
But he just smiled and shook his head. “There were never any girls before that,” he admitted, somewhat embarrassed. “I made that up so you wouldn’t think I was inexperienced.”
OH MY GOD! For over a decade I had been living with an incomplete memory! My first kiss had been tainted by a lie! It wasn’t me who was awkward and messy and completely unskilled, it was both of us. And at that moment, when I looked into his older, wiser, more mature eyes, I wanted to berate him. Scold his fourteen-year old self for being so deceitful. But I couldn’t. All I could do was laugh. Sometimes it’s the imperfections that make moments memorable. Worth writing about and posting in a blog. If I could go back and tell my fourteen year old self the truth, would I do it? Not in a million years.
Awww, how awesome is that? Thank you so much for sharing, Jessica! For those of you who want to know more about Jessica, you can check out her website here. Also, don’t forget to read more about her book ‘The Karma Club!’ It comes out Tomorrow! What’s even more awesome is that you can check out the trailer for the book below. Enjoy and until next week!
