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It isn’t his first kiss—I know that—but it’s his first real one.
CHAPTER NINE
On the walk back down the mountain, I don’t even know what to do with my hands, let alone the gnarled tangle of my emotions. What just happened back there is tattooed onto every synapse I have; I’m sure I’ll remember the sensation of every touch, even four decades from now.
Mom always tells me to take an accounting of my feelings. So, other than dizzy with lust, I’m feeling
Nervous.
Hesitant.
Desperate for that to happen again, and soon.
But the more queasy emotions are paled by the elation.
I
Kissed
Sebastian.
I felt his mouth on mine, and his tongue, and his laugh reverberating in the space between us. We kissed over and over. All kinds of kisses too. Fast and messy, and the slower deep ones that make me think of sex and long afternoons safely hidden in someone’s bedroom. He bit my lip, and I did it back, and then he let loose a sound that I’ll hear echoing around the frenzy of my thoughts for the rest of the weekend. It felt . . . so fucking right. Like, whatever I did before, with someone else, wasn’t really kissing. Maybe it sounds dumb, but it was like every cell in my body was engaged. It makes everything else I’ve ever done feel sort of whitewashed and hard to remember. We kissed until the chill started crawling beneath our clothes.
Actually, now that I think about it, we kissed until Sebastian pulled away when my hand was flirting with the hem of his shirt.
He said he’s never done anything with a guy, but it’s clear the mechanics of this weren’t new to him, and I’m betting he’s had girlfriends. Still, we were both literally shaking with the same manic hunger, so maybe for him this was as different as it was for me.
Has he . . . had sex before? I’m guessing he hasn’t—I’m sure Autumn would laugh and say that some of the LDS kids are the dirtiest kids at school, but something about Sebastian tells me he’s different in that way, like, other than what we did today, he honors those sorts of rules.
But would he? With me?
The question triggers anxiety and heat in my blood.
Clearly I am getting way ahead of myself, but I’m worked up and high and don’t know how this proceeds. Are we . . . dating, or something? Even if only on the down low?
Will he see me again?
In my thoughts, my Mom taps a foot in the background, urging me to take a closer look at this. But the thought immediately evaporates. The feel of Sebastian is still too fresh.
When we stood up and dusted ourselves off, it felt a little like puncturing a bubble. Even out in the open up there, we seemed to be genuinely alone. But every step we take down the hillside dissolves more of that protective film. Provo spreads out, vast and tidy, below us.
I don’t want to go back down there. I don’t want to go home; no matter how much I love my house and my family and my bedroom and my music, I like being with him more.
Sebastian is predictably quiet. He’s walking a safe distance away, out of reach, with his eyes on the spot his feet land before him on the trail. I’m sure he’s more of an internal mess right now than I am, but I’m pretty messy, and it makes it hard to figure out what to say, whether we should be talking about what we just did.
In this type of post-make-out situation with girls—my only Provo experience to date—we’d be holding hands, and I’d be working to get my body under control as we walked back to town. No doubt with guys the same would apply, but not Mormon guys who—our silence and lack of touching seems to suggest we’ve realized this in unison—would be in for a heap of discussion and prayer if found walking down the mountain holding hands.
Still . . . despite it all, I hope this silence isn’t a bad thing. Every now and then he looks over at me and smiles, and it makes me glow inside. But then I remember his easy smile (despite his stress) after his mom left the room, his easy smile when girls talk to him at school (but he only likes guys), and his easy smile in the photos of him on the wall at home (where he has to hide one of the biggest things about himself), and it feels like a shallow knife wound to wonder whether I could tell the difference between an easy smile that’s real and one that’s fake.
“You okay over there?” My voice gives an awkward waver.
The smile barely falters. “Yeah.”
I dread what happens in five minutes when we reach the sidewalk outside his house. If there were some way to take him out of this town and drive until we ran out of gas and spend the night talking about this and helping him work through it, I would. I know what he’s going to do, because it’s a more dramatic version of what I did when I first kissed a guy: go back to his room and tell himself over and over the reasons why what happened can be explained by simple curiosity, nothing more.
“What are you doing this weekend?”
He inhales sharply, as if answering the question first requires putting himself back together. “I have a soccer tournament tomorrow, and then Lizzy and I are headed to Orem to help a family move in.”
Ah, service. And Orem. Oof. The houses there are sometimes nicer but, if possible, it’s quieter than Provo. “Where are the poor sacks moving from?”
The look he gives me is bewildered. “From Provo.”
“You say that like no one would move to Orem from anywhere else.”
This pulls a real laugh out of him, and I drink up the sight of his crinkly eyed smile. “No. I just mean . . .” He considers this and then laughs again. “Yeah, okay, I don’t think anyone would move to Orem from anywhere but Provo.”
“Heyyy, Sebastian?”
His cheeks flush at my tone, and his smile is somehow both shy and seductive. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay with what we just did?”
He blanches, and his answer comes too readily for my liking: “Yeah. Totally.”
“You sure?”
Shy and seductive gives way to magnanimous, and I feel like we’re talking about whether he genuinely liked my mom’s overdone pot roast. “Of course.”
I reach out, intending to touch his arm out of some instinctive need to connect, but he flinches and then looks around us in a momentary panic. “We. I, no. We can’t.” His words come out so choppy, like clumsy hacks at a tree trunk.
“Sorry.”
“Not so close to town.”
Clearly I’m not as good at schooling my emotions on my face as he is, because he winces, whispering, “I’m not trying to be a jerk. It’s just reality. I can’t . . . talk like that . . . not down here.”
• • •
I avoid Mom all night when she gives me that lingering wanna-talk look, and claim I’m swamped with homework, which is true, but it’s a Friday night and I’m not fooling anyone. Autumn calls. Manny calls. Eric calls. Everyone is headed somewhere, planning to do something, but it’s the same nothing-something we’ve been doing for almost three years. Drinking three-two beer or root beer and watching people peel off to go make out in the dark corners doesn’t sound like what I want to be doing tonight.
I want to be alone—but not so I can scroll through my Instagram feed full of hot male models. I want to replay the hike over, and over, and over. All but the end.
It’s just reality.
Not down here.
I could spiral into this depressing truth, except Sebastian texts me before bed with a simple snowy mountain-top emoji and it’s kerosene dumped on the flickering candle in my chest.
CHAPTER NINE
On the walk back down the mountain, I don’t even know what to do with my hands, let alone the gnarled tangle of my emotions. What just happened back there is tattooed onto every synapse I have; I’m sure I’ll remember the sensation of every touch, even four decades from now.
Mom always tells me to take an accounting of my feelings. So, other than dizzy with lust, I’m feeling
Nervous.
Hesitant.
Desperate for that to happen again, and soon.
But the more queasy emotions are paled by the elation.
I
Kissed
Sebastian.
I felt his mouth on mine, and his tongue, and his laugh reverberating in the space between us. We kissed over and over. All kinds of kisses too. Fast and messy, and the slower deep ones that make me think of sex and long afternoons safely hidden in someone’s bedroom. He bit my lip, and I did it back, and then he let loose a sound that I’ll hear echoing around the frenzy of my thoughts for the rest of the weekend. It felt . . . so fucking right. Like, whatever I did before, with someone else, wasn’t really kissing. Maybe it sounds dumb, but it was like every cell in my body was engaged. It makes everything else I’ve ever done feel sort of whitewashed and hard to remember. We kissed until the chill started crawling beneath our clothes.
Actually, now that I think about it, we kissed until Sebastian pulled away when my hand was flirting with the hem of his shirt.
He said he’s never done anything with a guy, but it’s clear the mechanics of this weren’t new to him, and I’m betting he’s had girlfriends. Still, we were both literally shaking with the same manic hunger, so maybe for him this was as different as it was for me.
Has he . . . had sex before? I’m guessing he hasn’t—I’m sure Autumn would laugh and say that some of the LDS kids are the dirtiest kids at school, but something about Sebastian tells me he’s different in that way, like, other than what we did today, he honors those sorts of rules.
But would he? With me?
The question triggers anxiety and heat in my blood.
Clearly I am getting way ahead of myself, but I’m worked up and high and don’t know how this proceeds. Are we . . . dating, or something? Even if only on the down low?
Will he see me again?
In my thoughts, my Mom taps a foot in the background, urging me to take a closer look at this. But the thought immediately evaporates. The feel of Sebastian is still too fresh.
When we stood up and dusted ourselves off, it felt a little like puncturing a bubble. Even out in the open up there, we seemed to be genuinely alone. But every step we take down the hillside dissolves more of that protective film. Provo spreads out, vast and tidy, below us.
I don’t want to go back down there. I don’t want to go home; no matter how much I love my house and my family and my bedroom and my music, I like being with him more.
Sebastian is predictably quiet. He’s walking a safe distance away, out of reach, with his eyes on the spot his feet land before him on the trail. I’m sure he’s more of an internal mess right now than I am, but I’m pretty messy, and it makes it hard to figure out what to say, whether we should be talking about what we just did.
In this type of post-make-out situation with girls—my only Provo experience to date—we’d be holding hands, and I’d be working to get my body under control as we walked back to town. No doubt with guys the same would apply, but not Mormon guys who—our silence and lack of touching seems to suggest we’ve realized this in unison—would be in for a heap of discussion and prayer if found walking down the mountain holding hands.
Still . . . despite it all, I hope this silence isn’t a bad thing. Every now and then he looks over at me and smiles, and it makes me glow inside. But then I remember his easy smile (despite his stress) after his mom left the room, his easy smile when girls talk to him at school (but he only likes guys), and his easy smile in the photos of him on the wall at home (where he has to hide one of the biggest things about himself), and it feels like a shallow knife wound to wonder whether I could tell the difference between an easy smile that’s real and one that’s fake.
“You okay over there?” My voice gives an awkward waver.
The smile barely falters. “Yeah.”
I dread what happens in five minutes when we reach the sidewalk outside his house. If there were some way to take him out of this town and drive until we ran out of gas and spend the night talking about this and helping him work through it, I would. I know what he’s going to do, because it’s a more dramatic version of what I did when I first kissed a guy: go back to his room and tell himself over and over the reasons why what happened can be explained by simple curiosity, nothing more.
“What are you doing this weekend?”
He inhales sharply, as if answering the question first requires putting himself back together. “I have a soccer tournament tomorrow, and then Lizzy and I are headed to Orem to help a family move in.”
Ah, service. And Orem. Oof. The houses there are sometimes nicer but, if possible, it’s quieter than Provo. “Where are the poor sacks moving from?”
The look he gives me is bewildered. “From Provo.”
“You say that like no one would move to Orem from anywhere else.”
This pulls a real laugh out of him, and I drink up the sight of his crinkly eyed smile. “No. I just mean . . .” He considers this and then laughs again. “Yeah, okay, I don’t think anyone would move to Orem from anywhere but Provo.”
“Heyyy, Sebastian?”
His cheeks flush at my tone, and his smile is somehow both shy and seductive. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay with what we just did?”
He blanches, and his answer comes too readily for my liking: “Yeah. Totally.”
“You sure?”
Shy and seductive gives way to magnanimous, and I feel like we’re talking about whether he genuinely liked my mom’s overdone pot roast. “Of course.”
I reach out, intending to touch his arm out of some instinctive need to connect, but he flinches and then looks around us in a momentary panic. “We. I, no. We can’t.” His words come out so choppy, like clumsy hacks at a tree trunk.
“Sorry.”
“Not so close to town.”
Clearly I’m not as good at schooling my emotions on my face as he is, because he winces, whispering, “I’m not trying to be a jerk. It’s just reality. I can’t . . . talk like that . . . not down here.”
• • •
I avoid Mom all night when she gives me that lingering wanna-talk look, and claim I’m swamped with homework, which is true, but it’s a Friday night and I’m not fooling anyone. Autumn calls. Manny calls. Eric calls. Everyone is headed somewhere, planning to do something, but it’s the same nothing-something we’ve been doing for almost three years. Drinking three-two beer or root beer and watching people peel off to go make out in the dark corners doesn’t sound like what I want to be doing tonight.
I want to be alone—but not so I can scroll through my Instagram feed full of hot male models. I want to replay the hike over, and over, and over. All but the end.
It’s just reality.
Not down here.
I could spiral into this depressing truth, except Sebastian texts me before bed with a simple snowy mountain-top emoji and it’s kerosene dumped on the flickering candle in my chest.
