The boy I kissed didn’t matter. Boredom owned that summer night, and his lips were put to better use kissing than talking. He had nothing to say, yet said a lot of it. When he kissed me goodbye, I told him not to call. When he called anyway, I hung up on him. He was just a kiss. Not even that. Entertainment, distraction, a display of indifference.
The boy I missed did matter, meant more than curfew and its phony limitations. I wanted his restrictions, the rules that come with commitment: Kiss only me, and, I will say what I mean, and, Don’t hang up on me.
Brilliance possessed that sun-warmed afternoon, and when our words stuck in our throats – too big for the kids we were – he said them anyway, stumbling, refusing to fall, holding on tight. Faces close, hearts closer, souls quaking with awe, and we couldn’t. Because it would mean something bigger than we two who loved, but knew not yet how to accomplish it.
I remember the insignificant because the kisses were merely a game of pitch-and-catch with a conveniently present stranger possessing the same empty inclination to pass the time.
Yet, I gave nothing in that quiet exchange with the boy who would have kept the reverence, treasured the sacred; the boy who became the man who became the world; who, standing by the lake after curfew ended, I thought of as the sun rose ending the meaningless summer night. I grew to realize the kiss I didn’t have was timeless. Unforgettable.
Alayne Fenasci lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Originally from New Orleans, she finds words to be much like her city: raw and beautiful. Alayne writes only when breathing.