Hey guys, this is a short story that I wrote, hope you guys like it (:
It features the guys from Panic At The Disco, by the way!
<hr>
Am I the only one who finds birthdays
really depressing? So yeah, you get presents, and that’s always nice. (Well,
most of the time. One year Jon gave me half a sandwich, and I was not
impressed.) But presents aside, birthdays are in general pretty damn lousy.
Every year it feels like God has sent this big iron rod down from heaven and
brandished a new number on my forehead, and then pointed at me and laughed, and
said “That’s how old you are, Hannah Proctor! And what do you have to show for
it? Nothing! Nothing!”
So, on August 29th, as I stared at the
pile of cards that had been discarded on my desk, I unleashed the details of my
woes upon my best friend, knowing that he alone could provide the sympathy and
advice which I required in my hour of need.
“It’s just, every year I get older, and
I think about all the things I should have done by now,” I wailed. “And so I
promise myself I’ll do them by my next birthday, and then that comes around,
and I still haven’t!” I shook my head hopelessly. “I don’t know, Brendon. I
just don’t know. It just feels like my life is running away from me. And I
don’t have that much longer left! Before I know it I’ll be dead and gone and
there’ll still be a million things I’ve never done.”
I sniffed dramatically. Brendon looked at
me, with a bewildered, yet vaguely amused, expression on his face. He raised
one skeptical eyebrow at me, and said, “Hannah?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re twenty.”
“I know!” I howled, my hands flailing
wildly in despair. “Twenty! Twenty whole years, Brendon! That’s...erm...that’s
a lot of days. Think of the things I could have seen! The people I could have
met! The clothes I could have bought!”
Brendon (who clearly does not
appreciate a good theatrical performance when he sees it, as he appeared to be
unmoved by my drama) cocked his head to one side, and asked, “This isn’t about
the kissing thing, is it?”
“N-n-no!” I stammered, outraged at the
mere suggestion. “What kissing thing? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
You’re crazy. Shut up.”
“It is!” Brendon exclaimed, laughing at
me – so much for advice and sympathy. Thanks a lot, buddy. “Hannah, you’re
making such a big deal of it!”
“It is a big deal!” I insisted. “It’s a
huge deal! I’m twenty, and I’ve never kissed anyone!”
This was the ‘revelation’ that had
emerged two weeks ago. The group of us had gone to the mall on Friday night,
just to hang out like we always did at the weekends. And I was having a good
time as usual, until Ryan brought up his favorite topic: girls. Hot girls, ugly
girls...any sort of girls. He just loves to talk about girls. So we did, for
half an hour or so, and the conversation soon turned to how many people we’d
made out with.
“Three,” said Melisa – one of my good
friends.
“Two,” said Spencer.
“Four,” said Jon (that was such a lie).
“Six,” said Brendon.
“Yeah, same, I’ve made out with six
girls,” Ryan claimed. And then he turned to me. “What about you, Hannah?”
“Um...none, actually,” I mumbled.
Cue much mocking from my so-called
friends. Ryan hadn’t stopped making fun of since. Jon had got his fair share of
jibes in, as had Melisa, and even Spencer had cracked a few jokes. Only Brendon
had been nice about it. He’d just smiled and put his arm around my shoulders,
and told me the guys were idiots and that it was nothing to worry about.
Their reaction really took me by
surprise. We’d never really talked about it until then, but I didn’t think it
was an important, or even interesting, think to discuss. I mean, it was only
kissing. Surely it couldn’t be that great? It looked sort of wet and gross and
unhygienic to me. And I’d never really wanted to kiss anyone. I mean, there
were some guys who I thought were nice, or even attractive, but I didn’t want
to kiss them. I’d never, ever thought of it as being a big deal before. But
since that night, I’d really started to get a complex about it. Thoughts began
to run through my head, and once they were there, it proved pretty hard to get
them out again.
“I’m nineteen. That’s not that old.
There must be loads of nineteen-year-olds that haven’t kissed anyone. It’s not
a big deal. But what if it is?! Maybe I should have kissed someone by now...why
haven’t I? What’s wrong with me?! Am I ugly? I’m not ugly, am I!? Mom says I’m
‘pretty’...and that guy from that... uh street said I was cute. No, I’m not
ugly. I could get a boyfriend if I wanted. I just don’t want one, really. There
aren’t any guys that I wanna go out with...but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t. I
could kiss somebody, too, if I wanted to. Easily. I just don’t want to. Not
yet. But I will soon. Before I’m 20. Crap, my birthday’s in less than 2 weeks!
I’d better get going...”
For those next fourteen days, I’d
really tried to find someone to kiss. But it was hard! It wasn’t as if any
blatant opportunities came up, so what was I supposed to do? Walk up to some
random stranger and say, “Hey, I’m Hannah! Will you make out with me?” I
couldn’t do that! I mean, that’s the sort of thing Ryan would do! And what if
they said no? What if they said yes?!
So August 29th came, and I still hadn’t
kissed anybody. And now I wasn’t just “nineteen-and-never-been-kissed”, I was
“twenty-and-never-been-kissed”. And that was, like, a million times worse.
“Hannah, it really doesn’t matter,”
Brendon told me again, as we sat in my room on the evening of my birthday. He
lowered his voice, as if worried that anyone else might hear him, and added,
“I’ve only kissed two girls and both times were pretty crappy.”
“Two!?” I yelped. “You said you’d
kissed six!”
“It’s called lying, Hannah,” Brendon
grinned. “You should try it some time.”
I scowled at him, though really I was
just as angry with myself. I could have saved myself a whole lot of bother if
I’d just been more dishonest.
“Well, I’m still the only one of us
who’s never kissed somebody, and that sucks,” I muttered. “And you know what? I
bet it won’t happen this year either, and then I’ll be sixteen and I still
won’t have kissed anybody! And then Ryan’ll have a field day. He’ll probably
declare it National Ryan-Gets-to-Make-Fun-of-Hannah Day or something.”
Brendon just laughed again, but before
I could snap at him for not taking me seriously, he silenced me by putting his
hands on my shoulders and looking me straight in the eyes. His expression
changed – it suddenly became more sincere.
“Tell you what,” he said. “If you still
haven’t kissed anyone by your 20th birthday, I’ll kiss you myself.”
My eyes widened. “You’re kidding,
right?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I mean it,
Hannah.” Then he let go of my shoulders, and grinned. “And that’s a threat – so
you’d better hurry up and find somebody. You wouldn’t want to kiss me, would
you?”
I giggled, somewhat nervously. “Oh
no...no way...”
Maybe Brendon told him how much it had
bothered me, because Ryan cut down on the jokes after that. (Either that or
he’d chosen to save all his remarks for a special occasion. I could just
imagine him, writing up a list of “Mean Things to Say to Hannah”.) And so, for
a little while, I was more than happy to have forgotten about it. It was
actually Brendon who brought up the subject again several months later.
“So still no luck in your quest to kiss
somebody, Hannah?” he asked, as we walked between lessons together one morning.
I shook my head. “I’d hadn’t thought
about it, actually,” I admitted.
“Well, you know Pete, from Fall Out
Boy? He’s having a party next weekend, and he told me to bring some
friends...I’m sure you could find somebody there,” he told me.
I was struck by a sudden, sickening
feeling of dread, but I managed to cover it up pretty well.
“Cool,” I forced myself to say, through
clenched teeth. “Great.”
At first, I didn’t know why I was so
nervous. If anything I should have been glad – I mean, there’d be alcohol and
stuff at this party, and guys do stupid things when they’re drunk...it’d be
easy to find someone to kiss. And yet I really, really didn’t want to go, and
for a while I just couldn’t figure out why...
Then it hit me.
I didn’t want to go because I didn’t
want to kiss someone.
Because if I kissed someone, then I
didn’t get to kiss Brendon.
And I really, really wanted to kiss
Brendon.
It scared the pants off me at first. I
mean, Brendon was my best friend, and I shouldn’t want to kiss my friend. But
the more I thought about, the more I did. And the more I thought about it, the
more I realized that he was the only person I’d ever wanted to kiss...and if I
had to wait another seven months to do so, then so be it. All I had to do was
avoid kissing anyone else, and I’d managed that for twenty years. It’d be easy
- as long as I didn’t go to that party. Or any party, for that matter. So that
was the plan: to become a social hermit for seven months. It’d be worth it if I
got to kiss Brendon, I decided. It wouldn’t have meant anything to him, but
it’d be the only chance I’d ever get to kiss him, so I might as well take
advantage of it.
So I tried every excuse I could think
of to get out of going to Pete’s gathering: I had to go to the dentist for a
full-scale four-hour operation...my cousin was getting married...I’d converted
to Orthodox Judaism and I wasn’t allowed out on Friday nights any more...
Brendon saw through every single one of them. Maybe the Jewish one would have
worked if I hadn’t been eating a ham sandwich at the time.
“Why don’t you wanna go? I thought
you’d be dying to kiss someone by now,” he grinned. “I mean, you’ve only got seven
months left and if you don’t do it by then, you’ll be stuck with me...”
Well, I couldn’t tell him that that was
exactly what I was hoping for, so I reluctantly gave in and agreed to go. And
so the six of us turned up to Pete's party. It was a pretty big party, and
there were loads of people –Ryan was in his element. But, as parties go, it was
pretty boring. The good thing was, for a while I wasn’t faced with any
situations involving guys that I would have found difficult to worm my way out
of – until some moron (and by that I mean Jon) suggested a game of Spin the
Bottle.
“You playing, Hannah?” he asked,
smirking at me.
“Erm, nah,” I said, trying to sound
casual.
“Why not?” he demanded.
“Um...ulcers,” I said quickly. “Mouth
ulcers. Loads of them. I don’t wanna infect anyone.”
“Eww, gross! Let me see!” Jon said
enthusiastically, and I cursed myself for forgetting that he likes anything
disgusting.
“No!” I yelped. “Really, Jon, it’s not
a pretty sight...I think I’ll just go...and...er...”
“Aw, come on, play,” Jon ordered. “What
they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
I sighed, but reluctantly followed him
to Pete's lounge of his bar, where he’d gathered a group of people for the game
- including Ryan, Melisa, Spencer and Brendon - who had formed a circle. In the
center lay a single plastic bottle. I gave it the Evil Eye as I walked in,
willing it not to go anywhere near me.
“Okay, who wants to go first?” Ryan
asked brightly, as we sat down.
“I will!” Hayley, the lead singer of
Paramore, offered. She moved forward, and turned the bottled. It spun around
for a few seconds, and then stopped, pointing right at Jon. His face went
crimson, but he leaned over and kissed her on the lips for about two
milliseconds.
“Jon! That was pathetic!” Ryan barked.
“Put some effort into it, man!”
“What, here?!” he stammered. “In front
of everybody!?”
“That’s kinda the point,” Melisa
laughed.
It went on, and on, and I kept getting
more and more nervous. It wasn’t just the threat of the bottle pointing at me;
I kept getting worried that Brendon would have to kiss somebody, too. It wasn’t
that I wanted to deprive him of kissing somebody; I didn’t want to see it
happen. I liked him a lot - I’d probably explode with jealousy or something.
But I knew that one or the other had to happen eventually - and it was the
former of the two options.
This girl called Anna had spun the
bottle around for about the fifth time (I could tell she was aiming for
Brendon, so I’d taken an instant dislike to her – luckily she’d had no luck so
far) and missed and got Ryan again. Then this boy named Tony spun and it landed
right at me. My heart sank, and his probably did too, but we both tried to hide
our disappointment.
“Hannah!” Ryan cried delightedly,
grinning wickedly at me. I glanced at Brendon, but he wasn’t looking at me –
instead, he was gazing at the floor, as if trying to avoid eye contact.
“Go on, then,” Ryan urged me. I threw
him a look of pure contempt (after all, now I wouldn’t get to kiss Brendon and
it was all his fault) and reluctantly edged towards Tony. At first, I actually
intended to do it; I was going to kiss him, purely because I had no way of
opting out. But, just before our lips met, I got this strange feeling in my
knees. They’d been bent, but now they were straightening up, and my hands,
which had been pressed against the floor, were now in mid air. Suddenly my feet
were moving...it was almost as if my body had been taken over, for without even
realizing, I’d leapt to my feet and darted out of the room in a manner of
seconds.
“Hannah!” I heard a voice call, and
somebody came running after me. Suddenly I realized what I’d done, and I was
filled with embarrassment. I was never going to live that down, never – Ryan
would be talking about this one for years. Without bothering to get my coat, I
rushed to the fJont door and left, bounding down the steps three at a time.
I heard the door open again, and more
footsteps followed. “Hannah! Wait!” I stopped as I reached the hallway, and spun
around – Brendon was just a few meters behind, trying to catch up with me.
“What was all that about?” he asked,
with a confused, startled expression on his face.
I tried to think of an excuse, but what
could I possibly come up with to cover that? “I just remembered that I left the
iJon on?”
“I didn’t want to kiss him,” I
admitted, feeling my face burn as the words left my mouth. “I didn’t want to,
Brendon...I just...”
Brendon laughed lightly as I broke off.
“Hannah, it was just a kiss – it’s not like you have to marry him afterwards,”
he teased.
“It’s not that,” I wailed. “It’s not
the actual kissing that worried me.”
“What was it then?” he asked, with the
same look of misunderstanding.
I stared at my feet awkwardly. I didn’t
want to tell him.
“Tell me,” he said gently.
I bit my lip, as if trying to lock the
words inside me. I didn’t want to tell him.
“Please?” he begged.
“If I kissed him I wouldn’t get to kiss
you, okay?” I blurted, the words almost overlapping as they spilled out of me.
“I know you only said that as a joke, but I knew that if I didn’t kiss anyone
else ‘til my birthday I’d get to kiss you instead, and that’s all I wanted.”
His jaw dropped, and he stared at me in
complete shock for a moment. I cursed myself for telling him – he was going to
be pissed off, or he’d think I was a complete freak...fear flooded me as I
thought of the possibilities. After a few seconds, he blinked, and an extremely
serious, grave expression passed over his face.
“I’ve got some bad news,” he said
sadly.
“What?” I asked, my voice trembling
slightly.
“I’m busy on August 29th. We’ll have to
celebrate your birthday early.”
And with that, he put his hands on my
hips, and leaned in and kissed me. My body tensed up in shock for a moment, but
then I relaxed and began gently kissing him back. I’d been wrong – it was that
great. And yeah, it was wet – and probably a bit unhygienic, too – but it
certainly wasn’t gross: it was perfect. I found my hands traveling up his body
and into his hair, gently playing around with it before we drifted apart. Then
I smiled at him – and he smiled at me – and we laughed. I’m not quite sure what
we were laughing at: maybe the fact that I’d been so dumb as to think I had to
wait another seven months to kiss him. Or maybe the fact that I’d just shamed
myself in front of half of my friends by running away from kissing a guy – it
was pretty funny when I thought about it. Or maybe we were just laughing
because we were happy. I don’t know – but we laughed, and we were definitely
happy. Then he kissed me again, took my hand in his, and led me back inside.
And I may have been the last of my
friends to kiss somebody, but it was definitely worth the wait.
