The first boy I didn’t kiss was a nice boy with a kind voice who didn’t deserve what he thought I said. His name was Felix. Or something like that. At least I’m pretty sure it started with an F.
Just hear him out, my friends insisted. At least give him a chance. He said he likes you. They gave me a little push, waving me to where the boy waited.
He sat on the far end of the bleachers in the schoolyard, legs pulled up with both arms wrapped around his knobby knees. He had frizzy black hair that was big enough to poof around his head and fine enough to let light leak through like a halo. The only things about him that weren’t thin were his clunky black shoes with thick soles and his round black laces. One shoe was untied. I had an urge to tie it for him. I refrained. Maybe he’d trip.
I sat beside him, but not too close. I kept my back straight and my legs crossed, hands primly resting on my knees. The concrete was too hot, despite the shadow cast by the big tree behind us where our fifth-grade classmates watched expectantly.
He didn’t say anything at first. Then he started talking, head bent, his mumbled words tumbling into the hollow between his hugged knees and his chest. I could barely hear him, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy staring at the soft flickering shadow of the overhead leaves as I untangled the words locked in my throat.
How could he like me? He’d never even spoken to me before. How could he want to kiss me if he’d never looked me in the eye, asked me my dreams or listened to my thoughts? Why did we have to do this here: center-stage, performing this charade in front of half the school?
Do I even know you? The words sliced past the knot in my throat and shot out like a knife.
He looked at me for a minute, then his face paled. We’ve been in the same class for two months!
That’s not what I had meant, but before I could gather my scattered words and try to explain, he unfolded coltish limbs and stepped down onto the field. He turned back towards me, cheeks red, voice cracking.
You didn’t have to be cruel, you know? You could just have said no.
I hadn’t known how.
He paused, then, and stood watching me as if waiting for my reaction. Words dammed in my throat and my eyes burned with the effort to hold back tears. He glanced up at where my friends still stood, hands held up in surrender as if to say, don’t blame us, we tried, she’s just hopeless.
When his gaze returned to mine, his face had softened, just a little. He stood a little straighter. A little taller. And although his eyes still looked sad, they seemed older. Wiser somehow. He looked like someone I might want to know. Someone I could care for.
He nodded at me, then he turned and walked away.
*****
Amy Marques has penned three children’s books. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in numerous journals including Star82 Review, Jellyfish Review, Flying South, and Across the Margin. Her work has also been shortlisted for the Fractured Lit micro competition. You can read more of her words at https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.
