My First Kiss

That certain summer…

I was 14 and so was he. He was tall and gangly with long, dark blonde hair. He had a smile that made me weak in the knees. His teeth were pure white,  his skin brown from the sun and his nose was slightly peeling. He ran free and wild in cut-off shorts and no shirt.  He was a boy from Wisconsin who lived in the country. I was a visitor in a foreign land. That summer with my cousins felt like I had walked into a teen novel; one that I couldn’t put down. We were three inseparable girls; two sisters and a cousin from California.

We listened to Abba.
We never wore shoes.
We swam in the creek.
We picked berries.
We ate tomatoes off the vine.
We twirled in the rain.
We checked each other for ticks.
We counted mosquito bites.
We road horses.
We chased cows.
We drank Old Milwaukee beer.
We smoked cigarettes.
We stayed up late.
We slept until noon.

And then there was the boy who lived just down the road; the boy who led me to a dimly lit room off the kitchen, sat me down on a couch and kissed me. It was long and sweet and innocent. It was just a kiss. A page-turning kiss from a teen novel. A kiss that this 14-year old girl thought was perfect.