My Crush Let Me Kiss Her, But My Middle School Hormones Made Me Do Something Unforgivable

Part 1

Everyone has that one memory that forces their eyes open at two in the morning.

For most people, it involves a bad job interview or tripping on a public stage.

My cursed memory takes me straight back to the sweltering summer before eighth grade.

I was thirteen years old, drowning in untested hormones, and completely clueless about how the real world actually operated.

The entire week leading up to that Friday had been a stressful mess.

Tyler invited a few of us over to hang out in his basement, which was a pretty regular occurrence in our friend group.

His basement was essentially our sanctuary, mostly because his parents stayed upstairs and pretended we didn’t exist.

The air down there always smelled faintly of damp carpet and artificial nacho cheese powder.

Normally, I went just to play video games and eat my body weight in junk food.

I only cared about one thing that particular night.

Brenda was coming.

She was the very first girl I had ever genuinely liked, primarily because she actually laughed at my terrible, nervous jokes during science class.

I spent an agonizing two hours staring at my closet that afternoon, trying to decide which graphic tee made me look the most mature.

I coated myself in an aggressive amount of cheap body spray, hoping it would mask my sheer terror.

When I finally got to Tyler’s house, my stomach was executing a flawless gymnastics routine.

Brenda showed up ten minutes later, wearing a zip-up hoodie and smelling like overwhelming vanilla.

My heart immediately tried to hammer its way right out of my ribcage.

Tyler, acting as the ultimate chaotic instigator, shoved a terrifying movie into the old DVD player.

Then he mumbled some obvious lie about needing to grab more soda from the kitchen.

He vanished up the wooden stairs, leaving us completely alone.

It was just me and Brenda on that hideous, deeply sunken plaid couch.

The television cast a flickering blue light across the cluttered room.

We sat about two feet apart for what felt like three consecutive lifetimes.

I spent at least twenty minutes mentally psyching myself up just to casually stretch my arm across the back of the worn cushions.

My palms sweated so profusely I genuinely worried I was going to leave permanent stains on the upholstery.

Brenda eventually shifted her weight, leaning slightly closer to my side of the couch.

I forgot how to breathe entirely.

The scary movie kept playing in the background, but neither of us was paying attention to the screen.

She turned her head, looking at me quietly in the dim, shifting light.

I swallowed hard, desperately trying to push past the sudden, massive lump in my throat.

I leaned in, moving purely on blind instinct and middle school desperation.

Our lips actually met.

It was my first real kiss, clumsy and rushed and tasting distinctly like cherry lip balm.

She kissed me back, her hand lightly brushing against my frozen shoulder.

I felt a massive surge of pure, unadulterated triumph wash over my entire body.

I had actually done it.

I had kissed the girl of my dreams in the middle of a dingy basement.

But that sweet victory was incredibly short-lived.

Once the initial kiss ended, my teenage brain completely blue-screened.

I pulled back slightly, staring blindly into the dark room, my mind frantically searching the archives for the next logical step.

Television shows and movies had absolutely not prepared me for the immediate aftermath of a successful romantic move.

My hormones were practically vibrating out of my skin, loudly demanding that I keep this newfound momentum going at all costs.

I felt an overwhelming pressure to do something deeply passionate, something that definitively proved I knew exactly what I was doing.

The silence stretched out, growing incredibly thick and heavy between us.

Brenda sat there quietly, waiting for my next brilliant maneuver.

Panic set in rapidly, completely overriding whatever microscopic amount of common sense I still possessed.

I had to keep acting like an experienced older guy who totally understood intimacy.

My eyes darted downward, frantically scanning the immediate area for some kind of romantic inspiration.

She was sitting with her legs casually crossed, one knee resting near my thigh.

In my panic-addled brain, a terrible, wildly irrational plan suddenly began to form.

I leaned back in, fully committed to my disastrous new strategy.

She closed her eyes again, probably expecting another normal kiss on the mouth.

Instead, I bypassed her face entirely.

I lunged downward and did the one thing that still makes me want to fake my own death.