I was in love, fourteen, and nerdy as hell. I was pretty much the girl next door just with freckles, pimples, long scraggly hair thrown together in two Pippy Longstocking braids, and a mouth full of braces. Now picture that girl, me, vibrating and bumping along on the band bus with the rest of the marching band, clutching my French horn case beneath my feet, dressed to a T in my ever-so-stylish band jacket, and yes you guessed it, a kilt. This awkward freshman couldn’t get any sexier. If I wasn’t jittery enough about the FBA competition where we just had won straight superiors, my first real high school crush, Collin, was sitting right next to me on this long ride home. He had just broken up with his girlfriend of 2 weeks, Taylor and was rumored to be on the rebound. We were always good friends, since I was pretty much the only chick in band with an ounce of cool factor.
He was a fourteen-year-old girls’ dream. He had the total skater look with his long brown hair and braces. If that wasn’t enough he had a good taste in music and could play three Death Cab For Cutie songs on his guitar. That Saturday night he chose to sit on the back of the bus, with me, the luckiest girl at Riverview High School. As the bus thumped along on the road ahead we were bumping right along with it, accidently hitting each other’s bodies and coyly apologizing. “oops.. ah, uh, sorry”. The bus ride felt like it could go on forever. It was dark and there was a lot of commotion going on around us, from kids playing ‘Never Have I Ever’ to singing sing-alongs, but we barely noticed anything because we were totally consumed by whatever stupid preteen conversation we were having. “ow, haha sorry”. We hit body parts for the millionth time, but this time we made direct eye contact and before I could look away he lunged his face at mine, lips first. It was INTENSE. There was a lot of tongue in my mouth and I had absolutely no earthly idea what to do with it. His hand immediately grabbed the back of head and he started jostling my hair around. This kid was obviously a pro. I was overwhelmed with whatever was going on in and around my face that I didn’t feel his hand leave my head and slyly move onto my wool jacket. This kid had balls. Here we are on the bus with a million people we know and his hand is fondling my boob. Who did he think he was?! I guess I can’t complain, because I didn’t stop it. It was just a little traumatizing for my first ever kiss. I skipped hopped and jumped from a lip virgin to full on make out and boob grab queen in a matter of seconds.
It was like out of a movie, a movie only I could star in and direct and write and enjoy actually watching, but it was mine nonetheless. We made it back to school after our hot and heavy make out sesh was fully complete. We shuffled off the that darn bus and parted ways until we saw each other and the rest of the high school population who knew our dirty little secret bright and early Monday morning.
*Names changed to protect said kisser’s identity*
solo tandem ride 