10. Puck
Age 16
Her lips are soft, and although they aren’t really doing anything, it feels just as amazing as I thought it would.
Not because I’m actually kissing her, but because of how her sweaty palms are now digging into my arms. How I can feel her heart practically beating out of her chest.
I don’t know what ultimately led me here, kissing her in the woods, where we’ve hung out more than a hundred times, but there’s no going back now.
I kissed a girl a few months back, and it was nothing like this.
A boyat our school was throwing a party at his house for his birthday, and myself, King, and Dax were invited. I was hesitant at first, because I knew Bonnie would be home all alone, but she told me I had to go, that I couldn’t miss out on a party just for her.
I disagreed. But what Bonnie wanted, Bonnie got, so I promised I’d poke my head into her room when we were home to say goodnight.
A couple of hours into the party, I’m sat on a bench outside alone, looking at my tattoos and tracing my finger over the two stars. King and Dax were both talking to girls inside, and I’d come out for a breather.
I wasn’t into drinking much, and I knew one of us had to stay relatively sober to make sure we all got back home okay.
A few minutes of quiet time to myself, a girl who goes to our school but is in King and Dax’s year, a year below me, plonks her butt right in the seat next to me.
“Why are you out here all by yourself?” she slurs, and I can’t help but judge whether she’s actually putting it on and acting drunker than she is, like everyone here is doing.
“Just thinking.” About Bonnie, I don’t add.
The truth is, all I can think about is Bonnie at the moment.
I listen to King and Dax talk about girls, watching them kiss them, getting a little too carried away in the corner of a room, and I can’t help but frown and picture me doing that, but with Bonnie.
But my mind berates me for it.
She’s only fourteen. I’m two years older than her. It wouldn’t be right, or fair.
I know Bonnie has a crush on me, but she’s also never met any other guy before, so I’d be exploiting her feelings by acting on them because she doesn’t know any different.
Also, King is my best friend, so could I do that to him? Be with his sister and still keep the friendship we all have. I can’t see why not, but I also don’t want to put anyone in that position either.
“I like your tattoos,” the girl next to me says, and I almost forgot she was there. “I think it’s so cool you have tattoos and you’re not eighteen yet.”
I nod, unsure what to say. Again, my thoughts just flick to Bonnie because all my tattoos so far are about her.
“I like you,” she slurs again, and I look at her, her eyes watching over me dazedly. She’s leaning forwards, and even though a part of me screams not to, I also think why not? Maybe I should kiss someone else. Maybe it will help get these thoughts of Bonnie out of my head.
So with a little trepidation, I lean in and put my lips against hers.
She grabs me around the back of the neck, forcing herself into me a little more and pressing her lips further onto mine.
And whilst I hear hollering in the background from random partygoers and know I should feel grateful that a good-looking girl wants to kiss me, I can’t help but feel wrong. These aren’t the lips I want to kiss.
And pulling back, stumbling off the bench to put distance between us, I mumble a ‘thanks’ and walk back to the house, wiping the moisture off my lips.
I don’t want to kiss or be with anyone else, only Bonnie.
And one day, I’m going to kiss her, and it’s going to feel like more than anything I ever expected.
And it did.The memory of kissing that girl is wiped clean when Bonnie presses her lips into mine. I knew this was what was meant to happen.
This.
Us.
I pull back, after a kiss that probably lasted no longer than ten seconds, but felt like a lifetime, and study her reaction.
Her cheeks are a deep pink, her whole face is basically red, and her hands have suddenly left my arms and are now crawling around her waist to hide herself.
She stumbles back, her mouth opening and closing, and I open my mouth to say something. But what, I don”t know. Maybe how amazing that felt. Or how it feels like a lifetime I’ve waited for that to happen.
But before I can get the words out, she runs away.
She dashes past me, back the way I came, until she’s running across the grass up towards the mansion.
I stare after her until she’s no longer in sight, and then look around my surroundings, dumbfounded.
I’m not upset or offended that she ran. I know that had to mean a great deal for her.
And all she’s ever dreamt about is living the life of a fairy tale. Kissing a boy was never really in the cards for her.
Until me.
I never used to think about Bonnie like that. Not for years.
She has always been almost like a little sister to me. Someone I needed to keep safe, to protect. To make her laugh when she was sad, or listen to her when she needed to rant.
I have always been her constant. And though I know her feelings for me have grown, she was always just my best friend.
But recently, things have changed for me too.
I started to really notice the way she looked at me. I started to listen to her problems as an outsider, not as someone who had grown up with her.
I started to get irked at other girls when they came to talk to me at school, when the drunken girl from the party would look at me and remind me of that kiss.
Bonnie is always in the back of my mind.
Then I would think about how I’d feel if it was the other way around and she was talking to boys. And a wave of jealousy I don’t think I have ever experienced before would swim through my veins.
I’ve always been greatly aware that I’m two years older than her. That, even now, she is only fourteen. But something snapped inside me today when I could faintly hear her and King’s conversation. And somehow, I’d come to the conclusion that this was it. It’s time she finally knows I like her back.
I’ll still be her constant, her protector. But this time, it’s going to be her as my girl, not just my friend.
I know I’ll need to be careful around Carlo, but I’ll find a way for us to be together.
Those few seconds of my lips on hers were better than any fairy tale could give her.
And now I can give her a whole new version of reality.
Bon,
I’m sorry if I scared you, but I couldn’t pretend any longer.
I’ll always protect you, and I’ll always be your best friend. But I also want to be more than that. You don’t have to be a Lost Boy anymore, Bonnie. I’ve got you.
Second star on the right…
Till Neverland,
Puck