Anonymous, 14

Jen was the girl you bummed cigarettes from. She always knew where the best parties were. And she had her first kiss while I was still in Mathletes and barely picking out my own clothes. She listened to bands like Bauhaus and would be the first one of us to go to raves, do drugs, get in trouble and not care.

But before all that, we were almost the same. Just on the verge of choosing very different lives, we had a sleepover one night – still young enough for sleepovers, but old enough to sneak booze from her parents liquor cabinet. I didn't know she was going to, but she invited a couple of boys from the next town over. She had a crush on one of them. The other one was supposed to be for me, I guess.

We watched TV and passed around a bottle of vodka. I was lucky that it was already half water from the last time we snuck out, because I still couldn’t hold my drinks very well. It didn’t take long before I looked over to see Jen and her guy making out on the couch. My guy looked at them too. And we watched them, and tried not to watch.

He looked at me; this kid whose name I don’t remember, and may not have ever known. He looked like he wanted to kiss me. And I remember thinking about my braces. He surely wouldn’t kiss a girl with braces. But he did.

This entry was posted by theheylady, on Monday, October 02, 2006.