“I don’t know why her brother thinks I like her. And I don’t know why she would think I did. I’ve never said anything to…never.”
Her head still dips so I can’t see all of her face, but a smile curls the corners of her mouth. “Have you ever kissed anyone, Ez?”
I don’t speak, not sure how to tell her the truth without sounding like a total dweeb. There was a time when I told her everything, but things have been changing so much lately. The way we hang out, the things she tells Mona but doesn’t tell me, the way I feel around her.
“No.” My answer is so hushed I barely hear it leave my lips. “But I…”
“But what?” She takes a few steps toward me. “It’s okay that you haven’t kissed anybody yet. I haven’t either.”
“Maybe we could…” I clear my throat. “Maybe we should kiss each other.”
When she doesn’t respond right away, I rush on. “Just to get it over with, I mean. It’s not a big deal. We don’t have to—?
?
“Okay.”
I look up sharply, connecting our stares in the quiet. “Okay.”
In a few steps, I erase the small space left between us, standing close enough to smell her minty gum.
“Can I do something gross?” she asks, a smile pinching her eyes at the corners.
“With your tongue?” I ask half-apprehensively, half-jokingly.
“Ez.” She laughs. “No. I mean…not yet.”
She reaches into her mouth, pulls out a blob of gum and sticks it to the wall right under a poem scribbled in red ink that begins “Roses are dead.”
“You r-r-ready?” she asks, her eyes are steady like she’s in command, but I know what Kimba’s actual confidence looks like, and she’s as nervous as I am, which somehow makes me feel calm. I reach for one of her hands and link our fingers and I stroke my thumb along hers.
“Can I do something weird?” I whisper.
“With your tongue?” she whispers back, her smile as bright as the fluorescent lights out in the hall.
I chuckle and shake my head. “Not yet.”
With my free hand, I reach up and swipe my thumb across her bottom lip, smearing her red lip gloss.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her mouth moving under my finger.
“Taking off this lipstick stuff.”
“Why?” She’s turned the volume of her voice down to secret.
“Because I like your lips the way they always are.”
Her smile dwindles into a straight line, and the laughter drains from her eyes. I trace her top lip with my index finger, swiping until the red tint of gloss is mostly gone. Even after there’s barely color left, I touch her mouth unnecessarily, so soft and pillowy. I should feel self-conscious or nervous or weird. It’s my first kiss, after all, but I don’t. It feels, instead, like I’m walking up to a moment that’s been waiting on me all my life. Since we were both born on the same day in different cities. Since Mrs. Allen plopped Kimba into the tub with me before we could even talk.
I lean forward and press my mouth to hers, tentative in case she pulls away. Holding my breath because even the effort of breathing might detract from this place between our lips that deserves all my concentration. We’re still for a second or two, my lips resting against hers, our eyes open.
“Aren’t we supposed to close our eyes?” she whispers, the words cool across my lips.
“Yeah. On the count of three, we’ll close.”
She nods.
“One,” I say, not looking away from her. “Two. Three.”