Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
All that changed the Saturday Annie rode her bike to my house. My parents were gone, and Chad was supposed to be keeping an eye on me, but that was always a joke. I sneaked outside to meet Annie behind our garage.
“Hi.” I grinned.
She looked pretty in her pink hoodie and jeans with flowers on the legs. She had straight blond hair and high bangs. The opposite of Josie’s dark, unruly hair that always had waves in it and long bangs that she sometimes clipped to one side with a barrette.
“Hi.” Annie smiled and wet her lips several times because the whole purpose of her riding her bike to my house the morning my parents were gone was to kiss me. And unlike Josie, I didn’t mind kissing someone who licked their lips.
“Ready?” I asked because ten-year-olds asked to kiss each other. They excessively wet their lips. And they hid behind garages to do it.
“Are you ready?”
I nodded. I was ready. It had nothing to do with Annie and everything to do with kissing a girl before Josie kissed a boy. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure she hadn’t kissed Derek, but I felt pretty sure she hadn’t kissed a kid with braces after her unwillingness to kiss me for licking my lips.
I leaned in a few inches. Annie leaned in a few inches. We stayed there, separated by another three inches for what felt like forever. Finally, I went the rest of the way and pressed my lips to hers. We both kept our eyes open, and that was really weird. She blinked, and I pulled away. There was no sound. No suction. I’m not sure it counted as a kiss, but she smiled like it did, so who was I to argue? I wasn’t exactly an expert on kissing at that point.
“Oh my gosh!”
Annie glanced over my shoulder. Then, I turned around to Josie and her gaping mouth catching flies while her eyes swelled to big brown saucers.
“Did you really kiss her?” Josie tripped over her words.
“Get out of here,” I said.
“I’m telling your parents.” Josie pivoted and stomped toward the front door.
“I’d better go. I hope you don’t get into trouble.” Annie’s face wrinkled.
Yes, we were hiding behind the garage to kiss, but not because I was worried about getting in trouble. It’s not like my parents specifically ever told me I couldn’t kiss a girl. I just didn’t want my stupid brother to see us. Or Josie.
“I’ll call you tonight,” I said while chasing after tattletale Josie. She wasn’t at my front door. She was, instead, running into the wooded area behind her house that backed up to a dirt trail where people walked their dogs or sometimes road dirt bikes.
“Josie … stop!” I jogged after her.
She jumped up and grabbed the lowest branch of her favorite tree. Then she climbed up three more branches to her favorite perch where she often spied on people along the trail. It was also where she escaped to when her parents would fight. Josie climbed trees, fished, hunted, and rode a skateboard. She was the definition of a tomboy. She also wore girly clothes and painted her fingernails and toenails. She was a mix of … perfection.
I never told her that.
“That’s gross, Colten. Just stay away from me.”
“Kissing a girl is gross?”
“Kissing Annie is gross. Why did you do that?”
I laughed as I climbed the tree and sat next to her, our legs dangling in sync. “Because she’s my girlfriend. Why did you hold Derek’s hand every day after school while walking to the bus?”
She kept her expression neutral and her tongue mute as she stared ahead at the empty dirt trail.
“Are you going to tell my parents?” I didn’t care. Well, I kind of cared, but I didn’t understand why she’d tell them. Did her parents know about the handholding?
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because if you’re just going to tell on me, I’m going to tell them first.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Why did you kiss her?”
“I told you. She’s my girlfriend.”
“Ugh!” Josie maneuvered past me, nearly knocking me out of the tree to get to the trunk and shimmy down it. “I hate that she’s your stupid girlfriend.” She marched back toward her house while I hopped out of the tree.
“Why?” I ran behind her.
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because now you can’t be my boyfriend.”
“You broke up with me.”
“Ugh … you’re so stupid. Boys are so stupid.” She ran up the deck stairs.
I was really confused. And I had no idea that moment was a tiny glimpse into a lifetime of not understanding women. I thought it was just Josie being Josie. Wrong. It was Josie being a female.
As usual, I needed my mom to interpret things for me. She spoke female.
“She likes you. That’s why she’s upset that you have another girlfriend,” Mom explained as if it should have been crystal clear to me.