My First Kiss

Tricky. Because I'll have to tell you a love story.

So I'm turning 10. I meet this girl. She's a little bit awkward but so do I and one day we start to talk. And we do get along pretty well. Though we don't like exactly the same things, we seem to the world and people through the same perspective. We sort of connected, right there. We played together, invented games and new worlds and crazy stories together. One of the most intense and magic things was that most of the time we didn't even have to talk. Like we were brain-connected, thought-connected.

I'm 13. I'm young. We're colleagues again. We're the best mates. We soon discover that everything we didn't share with each other (reading habits, musical taste, etc) we now did! She sits just right behind me in classes and I'm glad for that. Her hands are soft. Her eyes are pure passion, sky-ish blue.

I'm 14-15. High school is starting and she's there, beside me, all the time. We share everything. We laugh without having to explain things to each other. She's my best friend and deep down, she's my soul mate. High school without her would have been awful.

I'm 16. I've never kissed anybody. I've never been in a relationship - and neither has she, so she tells me. We're both single and virgins and except for my occasional crush we don't care about it that much.

But one day, it strikes. She didn't tell me, and you need to understand, she had her reasons, she wanted me to be her best friend and not to see her as everyone else did from that moment, she wanted to protect me and also to protect herself: but the truth slapped me in the face. First, I wasn't sure, I would tell myself it wasn't true. Even when the depression started to take her down: I would try my best to make her smile, to make her laugh, to be the same around her.

But, you know, it was true. She had been raped. We were 16, she had been raped. And she has this older sister and they're fighting all the time and she also has this uncomprehensive mother who always yells at her for the smallest things, even when I go with her. And she has this father who she loves so, but he's divorced and away and doesn't really care that much for her.

You know, I want to help her. I try to believe her when she says the cuts on her wrists were accidents. I try to make her days better for simple things. I want to grab her and pull her out from depression, but I also know I have no idea how it is to feel what she's been through.

And one day, we're 17. I invite her out to the beach. It's early summer, not too hot, but good enough to swim.

We had the most amazing time together, swimming, laughing, holding hands, holding tight. We go home. At night, I lay by her side. She's asleep because of the depression pills. I look at her. She's like an angel, breathing softly, by the moonlight. I turn my head near her face. I won't admitt it, not even to myself, but I want to kiss her. I want to kiss her so bad and close her wounds and fix her soul and tear up the pain. I want her. Just there. Maybe holding hands. I want to give her a soft kiss on her lips.

But I ask myself: will she allow it? Will she thinks that I'm mocking her? Will she take it so badly after what happened to her? How can I do it? Though I love her so deeply from the bottom of myself, how can I do it?

And I don't.

And then holidays pass by, college begins. In Portugal, we have all kinds of traditions regarding the freshmens, so I didn't have much free time.

I'm almost 18. One week left. And 9 days left to her 18 birthday, also. I planned to write her about how everything was going on and how much I loved her. I'm on a train back home thinking about nothing.

I see some old high school colleagues sitting near me. I wave to them and watch the rain.

Soon, I hear my name. One of the boys comes towards me, kneels beside me and tells me with the most peaceful and kind voice (bad sign, because he's the mocking clown since ever), that my best friend, my soul mate was gone. Killed herself.

And, you know, my world fell apart right then. But this isn't about my depression.

And then there's the funeral. I planned to ignore everyone and kiss her goodbye right on the lips. My last goodbye. My first kiss. My mom told me not to look to her in the coffin, but I planned otherwise all along. It was my only shot. I gather myself. I would have to be brave. Balls, I longed for that kiss! I was almost 18 and had kept myself waiting for the right person, the right kiss. It was a big deal, you know?, far more big than sex.

Well, I get there, but I acknowledge how she had died: she jumped off a building. And in those cases there's no open coffin because... you know.

Next day, I talked with a kinda friend, 8 years older than me, for help, because he also had a friend who killed himself. We talked a lot. And, before I knew what was happening, he kisses me. It lasted long, because I didn't know what to do. I was torn apart, dying inside and astonished. I just waited until it was over. God, it was bad. I kept telling myself that wasn't happening. After that, I couldn't talk. I didn't talk for 20 minutes, the time that took us to get to the train station. I couldn't say a thing.

You know, he didn't knew it was my first kiss. I was a 4-days-till-18 girl. He just wanted to give me some comfort, some caring - and just did the opposite.

There you go. My big love. My first kiss. All tangled.