THE TROUBLE WITH KISSING YOU

by Gen Phan

  "Yeah, you know, some big Hollywood guy-gets-girl-back kind of thing."

  "Hollywood?"

  "When last did you watch a chick flick? Like Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Classic grand gesture. Riding through the streets playing romantic opera music with a bunch of flowers."

  "You want me to play opera?"

  "No. You're missing the point. It was something that meant something to them. What do you and Maria have that's special. That's just you? That means something to you both? A song... movie, place...?"

  I didn't need to think very long and hard about that one. The tree. Our tree. The place we had gone for years together.

  "I have a place, but what do I do?"

  Brenna shot me a displeased look. "I can't give you all the answers. You have to figure that out yourself. You know her better than anyone, so figure that part out!"

  My mind started racing, grappling for some amazing, magical idea that could set us all right. "Do you think she'll.... I mean, you know...?"

  "Mike, chicks love big romantic gestures. Trust me. If it's a good one, and you mean it, she won't be able to resist!"

  And with that Brenna walked out the room, but before leaving she paused and looked at me. "For what's its worth, I'm rooting for you guys." She was gone and I was left with a lot to think about.

  I went home that evening and took out a pen and paper. I wrote at the top of the page.

  Plan: Romantic Gesture

  I thought that by labeling the page, it would inspire me to come up with the big idea. But after staring at the paper for ages, I just couldn't think of a single one. Well, not true, I had thought of a lot, but none of them seemed good enough for Maria. She needed something special. Unique. Like she was. I needed to come up with something that would knock her off her dirty Converse sneakers.

  Inspiration is a curious thing, because later that night I woke up. Sat bolt upright in my bed and knew exactly what I was going to do, and it was fucking perfect! It was the perfect grand gesture for Maria. But I had a lot to plan and sort out. I threw myself out of bed and started writing a list of what I needed. It was the first time this week that I actually started to feel better. At least I was actively doing something about this. God knows Maria deserved it, after waiting for all these years for a blind man to open his eyes.

  I had hope now! And I was excited.

  Maria

  I was so nervous driving home. The closer I got to my house, the closer I got to Mike and the closer to the reality of what I had really just done... well, technically McKenzie had done it, but it was on my behalf.

  With each purchase of ticket, flight, tour and accommodation my heart had beat faster and faster and faster until it was a veritable high-speed train hurtling towards, towards... what?

  Heartbreak? The thought of a year without Mike felt like a lifetime. Not being able to see him every time I wanted to. Not talking to him endlessly. I wasn't totally sure how I was going to cope, but I knew it was the right thing to do.

  On the drive back, I'd been reflecting on what had happened between us, the debacle and total disaster that was mystery mint kisser. And I felt completely embarrassed by the way I'd conducted myself. Lying to him about my parents getting divorced because I was so desperate for him to love me. So desperate that I would take him loving me when he thought it was someone else.

  McKenzie had told me to stop thinking like that. People make mistakes... blah, blah, blah and all that. But in retrospect, that was a pretty big, and callous one to make, not to mention that I had never lied to him before. I cringed wondering what Mike thought of me now. And if he could ever forgive me for that?

  We pulled into the driveway that evening. It was already getting dark and I willed myself not to look at Mikes house. Which lasted all of seconds, because I did. His light wasn't on, which meant he wasn't in his room. I couldn't help my mind racing away, where would Mike be on a Friday night? I tried to shake off the terrible feeling that was creeping all over my skin like a million spiders. A psychosomatic itch made me physically scratch my arm.

  How was I going to apologies to him? How was I going to tell him that I would be gone next year?

  The spiders felt like they were in my stomach now and as I thought I was about to lose it a little, I felt McKenzie's arm come around me. She pulled me closer.

  "What say we movie tonight?"

  "I don't really feel like going out."

  "Me neither. You, me, our combined chocolate stash, my room, chick flicks all night?"

  "Oh God, please don't make me watch click flicks" I pulled a face.

  "Maria." She stopped me in my tracks, "Listen, you have seriously missed out on feminine guidance over the years and I think I am going to have to make up for lost time, or else you are a lost cause."

  I smiled, "Like what?"

  "Um... which seventeen year old doesn't know how to put on mascara. God, even some of those dark, dressed -in -black guys do mascara and eyeliner better than you. Adam Lambert does mascara better than you!"

  "Who's that? Is he at our school?"

  McKenzie froze. "Oh my God, this is worse than I thought. We need chick flicks all night," She looked down at my hands, "A fucking manicure which is about ten years overdue too and some lessons in hair styling."

  I laughed and we walked arm in arm to the door. But when I got there it was my turn to freeze. An envelope was taped to the door. It was in Mike's hand writing.

  "Shit!" I took a step back, too frightened to approach it and certainly way to frightened to open it and read it.

  My mother walked up to the door and ripped it off, "This is a polished mahogany door, not a street pole to put pamphlets on," She tisked and put the thing in my hands and then walked off. I was forced to confront it now.

  I opened the envelope with shaky hands and gestured for McKenzie to read it with. me.

  Maria,

  For the last ten years you've taken me on the adventure of my life. Now it's your turn, and since I know how much you enjoy a good one....

  . The Halloween dare that I was too shit scared to do.

  Love,

  Mike X

  I turned the note over to see if anything else was written on it that could explain what it meant. I held it up to McKenzie in a questioning manner.

  "It's the big romantic gesture." She said with a knowing smile. Clearly this was another one of those 'girl-things' I wasn't au fait with.

  "What should I do?"

  "You should go!" She said and gave me a reassuring hug.

  I read it one more time and clicked. This was a treasure hunt and this was the first clue. I couldn't help smiling, and it felt like all my insides exploded. I stared at the last few words and almost forgot for a moment that I had booked my trip. And no doubt Mike had been offered some huge, fancy scholarship.

  I stopped smiling as the realization started hitting me again – we would not be together next year.

  The clue was easy to figure out. On Halloween, about five years ago, we'd dared each other to knock on the wooden witches house and wait for her to answer the door. We all called her the Wooden witch because apparently she had a wooden leg. She had long grey hair (although no one had ever seen her long enough to confirm this) and was as scary as hell. She lived alone in the only crappy house in our area and had five black cats that everyone said were a clear sign of being a witch. She also never opened her curtains so you couldn't see inside and had never mowed her lawn. There was a story going around that she had killed her husband and buried him under the lawn and that's why she never mowed it.

  Wow! The things we used to believe when we were younger. We lived in this kind of magical world where everything was possible, and then you get older and reality kind of comes crashing in and crushes all of that.

  I walked off in the direction of the house. The Wooden witch had moved years ago and some developers had come in and demolished the place and built fancy townhouses that all looked the same with a row on neat Loll
ypop trees outside. But my steady walking soon became faster as I started wondering what he'd left for me there. The anticipation grew as I reached the grey walled complex.

  I looked around but couldn't find anything. Clearly he wasn't going to make this easy for me. I looked around to make sure no one was watching, and pulled myself up onto the wall. And there it was. He'd stuck another red envelope onto a door, this time it was a stranger's door and the strangers in question, were all siting around their dinner table eating in front of a large window that looked over the garden and onto said door.

  Crap! I climbed the wall as quietly as I possibly could, hoping to hell that these people did not have a Doberman and ducked into a bush. Now what?

  The door was only a few meters away, but it would mean walking in front of the window and being spotted in a second. I was litrally breaking and entering! The only way to do this was on the ground. I got down and started leopard crawling across the freshly watered grass. Double crap.

  I finally got the envelope, leopard crawled back and stealthily scaled their wall... manly thighs are good fore some things!

  Maria,

  A lot of things have changed over the last ten years...especially us. Because I'm ready to be more than just your 'best friend'. And if you'll let me, I'll show you how much I love you everyday.

  My heart fucking stopped and I was incapable of reading further for a few moments while I gathered my organs and lungs off the floor and popped them back into my body. Holy Fuck!

  I took a deep breath and continued to read the next clue.

  . Remember the moment we met?

  Love,

  Mike XX

  Of course I remember the moment we met. How could I forget it? It changed my life forever. There was a thin strip of open land running along the boarder of our gated community and I often went there when I was younger and imagined that I was some explorer in a far off land. It had felt so wild and big there, like a far off forest or jungle. I walked up the road, grass stained and wet from the sprinkler which had also come on the second I was about to leave, it would.

  The grass had been trimmed now, like most things in this place and the strip of land seemed so small and thin. I couldn't imagined how I found this place so big and vast when I was younger. I looked around, it was barely recognizable without the black-jacks and tall weeds. Mike had been sitting on a rock, I remember that. I had already seen him move in and it was a few days late.

  I walked the perimeter for a while looking for something that looked familiar and then I saw it. Well, Mike clearly had made it more visible. A pink painted rock was very visible and I approached it. The paint was still wet like he'd just been here a few moments ago and that thought made me feel a little giddy.

  Dear Maria,

  The day you found me sitting here was the best day of my life. I just hadn't known it at the time. I'd been so scared of my new home and new school and there you were! And you never left. You've always been there for me. Always. It's my turn to be there for you now. Always!

  . That time we nearly got into BIG trouble but managed to get ourselves out of the sticky situation.

  Love,

  Mike XXX

  I burst out laughing immediately. That was the lamest attempt at a pun! The woman across the road, much to my mothers absolute horror had garden gnomes. One day during an impromptu soccer match in the street we broke three of them. She's nuts over those things, so with some super glue we quickly and secretly glued them all back together. To this day she hasn't even noticed. She hasn't even noticed that one of the gnomes arms is glued onto the wrong gnome body.

  I rushed to her garden and went straight for the one with the weird arm. Under it's glued on foot was an envelope.

  Dear Maria,

  Lets' fix this. I'm broken without you.

  This time it was the lump in the back of my throat and the misty eyes that stopped me from reading any further. I wiped the tear away and looked down at the next clue.

  . The day we held hands for the first time.

  Love,

  Mike XXXX

  Of course I remembered that, but I was surprised he had. I walked over to the park, it was a ten-minute walk from here and I kept thinking about how many millions of times I had walked this was with Mike over the years. I reached the park and headed straight for the roses. We'd buried him there, under the pink one. My hamster had died and Mike and I had put the little guy in a box and given him a funeral. We hadn't really know what to do, so at the end of it we'd held hands, closed our eyes and prayed for his little furry soul.

  The soil was loose, as if he had just been there too. I started pushing it away with my hands. And there was the little box. Still with a ribbon around it. The letter had been slipped under the ribbon. I was temped to look and see if Hamish, yes, that was his name, was a perfect little skeleton, but decided against it.

  Dear Maria,

  We've come to the end of this little treasure hunt, but I hope this is just the beginning for us.

  . Where we promised to be best friends forever. Until the day we both died.

  Love,

  Mike XXXXX

  I looked over my shoulder to the tree. Our tree. I could just see the top of it peeping out over the hill. There seemed to be a faint light coming from it and my heart pounded. Was Mike there waiting for me?

  I had a sudden urge to fix myself up. I tried to straighten my hair, but instantly felt the sand on my fingers turn to moist soil as they connected with my damp hair. Shit! I tried to rub it off with the back of my hand and just felt a moist smear. The water and the sand were not a good combination.

  I walked up the hill slowly. I was both excited and hesitant all at the same time. A few more steps and the tree would be in sight. I stopped and took a deep breath, readying myself and continued to walk.

  And there he was!

  Mike

  I watched as Maria came over the hill. The light was bad, but there was just enough for me to see that she was wet, and smeared from top to bottom with a large green grass strain. Brown muddy hand marks on her top, where she had no doubt tried to wipe soil away. A muddy swipe across her forehead and into her hair. A tuft was sticking up, as if the mud was acting as gel.... God she looked so beautiful. I don't think I'd ever seen her looking better. A total sight for seven-day sore eyes.

  It felt more than seven days thought. It felt like I had just experienced the great Maria drought. I drank her in and my heart did some kind of corny swelling and filling, and felt like it was going to burst. A balloon being blown up to bursting capacity.

  I'd thought long and hard about what to do for the final leg of the 'grand romantic gesture'. I even Googled it, and they all seemed to end in romantic candles, Champagne, red rose petals and soft music.

  Not Maria. At all.

  So I'd gotten a picnic blanket and had a three-course meal laid out. Sort of . Starters; Donuts. Various shapes, sizes and toppings. Main: Pizza, crammed crust, extra cheese and all the other fillings. Desert: A truckload of chocolates.

  "Hey." I called out to her.

  She gave me a tiny wave and I was relieved to see the small, coy smile playing on her face.

  "Hey!" God, I'd missed that voice so much.

  "Your meal awaits you," I waved my arms trying to act formal, like a butler at a fancy restaurant. This caused the smile to widen and the hope I was still holding onto for us, grew.

  She started walking over to me and I swear, I had to fight the urge – so damn hard- not to run up, sweep her up and just kiss her forever. I wanted her in my arms. Wanted her in my life in a completely different way now.

  She sat down on the blanket, opened the basket and looked inside. Her eyes flicked up to me and twinkled with a smile. "Good choice."

  She grabbed the most sugar laden, chocolate drenched, dripping with sprinkles and caramel sauce donut and started shoveling it into her mouth.

  "Where've you been," I asked, watching intrigued as she finished it in a few bites and
moved onto another one.

  "At the lake house. My dad took us there for a week."

  "I was worried. I couldn't get hold of you." I sat down next to her, not sure what the parameters were, how close I could get. Could I reach out and touch her shoulder?

  Fuck parameters!

  "I fucking missed you." I didn't hold back and wrapped an arm around her, pulled her closer and put my head on her shoulder. She dropped the donut and reciprocated, she wrapped her arm around me too.

  Two arms. We both grabbed each other and held on for dear life. I could feel her breathe on my neck and I wanted her. My weight was more that hers, and like a see-saw tipping to one side, she fell back and I landed on top of her. This was the first time we'd ever been like this.

  Maria lay on her back and my body pressed into hers. Like this, her face was just centimeters away from mine. I took the opportunity to look at her. In this light her eyes were almost a deep green. Her nose was sprinkled with freckles. I looked from her eyes, to her nose and then to her lips. She bit her lip just a tiny bit and I had never wanted to kiss anyone more in my entire life.

  And so I did.

  Her lips tasted salty and sweet at the same time. I rubbed my lips against hers softly. I wanted to take my time. I wanted to remember this moment forever. I didn't want it to be a rushed kiss in the dark. I wanted to treat this like the first time we'd ever kissed. She ran her hand through my hair and it came to rest on the back on my neck. My skin came alive with Goosebumps. Not just on my neck, but everywhere.

  I lifted by hand and let my fingertips gently trace her cheek. She shivered and her mouth opened a little wider. I kissed her all along her bottom lip until if felt like we could both no longer take it.

  I held her face and she held onto the back of my neck and the kiss deepened and intensified. I poured all my feeling for her into it. I wanted to convey my feelings to her in a way that she would never doubt and question them ever again.

  "I love you," I managed to whisper pulling back for a tiny seconds.

  "I've always loved you." She replied in an equally soft whisper.