and•then•i•felt•it
By jemimahwest

"When his lips touched mine, I felt the 4th of July was being celebrated in my stomach. The delicious taste of his butter soft lips literally made my knees weak but his firm yet gentle grip on my waist kept me from helplessly crashing on the floor. The smell of his cologne filled my lungs as I took a deep breath when he pulled me closer. Oh, my head was spinning. Then he-"

"Snap out of it Cinderella, it doesn't work that way!" Mira has always been a killjoy. She doesn't believe in the magic of a first kiss as I did.

"Way to ruin the moment evil stepmother," I smirked and poked her ribs.

Mira is my younger sister and only sibling. We are so different yet so close. Mira is all straightforward and unromantic like some robot, while I on the other hand might as well be Cupid's sidekick. She blames the romantic movies on Netflix and the "stupid" romantic novels, most especially the one I was quoting(Forever yours by Nellie Chapman) before Miss Unemotional cut me short.

"But seriously Jenna, you don't actually believe that first kisses are that magical do you?"

"My baby sister, it can only be as amazing as you can imagine," I sang twirling around the room in my hello kitty pj's.

"Then why haven't you kissed Jordan yet?" Her eyes lit up with mischief then.

Jordan is my boyfriend. The very first. We had been dating for a week then and had been avoiding a kiss because I was nervous and I didn't want things to go wrong when it happened.

"I dunno," I shrugged. "Well at least I'm sure it'll happen soon enough..."

Mira laughed and slumped sleepily on the bed and I laid beside her picturing 'the moment' until sleep took over.

***

It was lunch break and I was already tired of school. Tenth grade biology was much more stressful than I imagined when I was a ninth grader. I was making my way past a bunch of eight graders towards the cafeteria and I barely made it past the janitor's closet when someone dragged me inside. Dazed, I looked up into Jordan's hazel brown eyes.

"Hey Jen", he smiled and rubbed the back of his neck. He looked so cute.

"H-hey, what's up?" I managed to stutter. Yes we were dating, but I still felt queasy around him. "it'll wear off", I always said to myself.
Jordan said nothing. His smile had faded now, and he just stared deeply into my eyes. I didn't dare break the stare. It was like his eyes were saying, "let's do this already".
Then I noticed something. he was leaning in. Very slowly. My mind was running wild and I was so confused.

"Just do it!"

"No run away!"

"Its gonna happen sometime, why not now?"

"I'm warning you!"
"Shut up!"

The conversation in my head was getting pretty heated and luckily Jordan came to the rescue.

"I can see myself in your eyes."

"Me too" I said, smiling weakly.

Oh, Lord let's end this.

I leaned in and closed my eyes as his lips met mine. No 4th of July. No helpless knees. My head wasn't spinning. His hands were on my shoulders and mine were just laying limp beside me. Don't get me wrong, his lips felt nice and soft and all and he smelled like strawberries, my favourite fruit. But it wasn't overwhelming. It didn't light anything up inside me. It was just nice. Nice, that's all.

"I have to go, bye." I ran out of the janitor's closet towards my locker to get my books for history class.
Maybe I wasn't ready enough. Maybe he should've used some other cologne rather than the strawberry perfume he used. Maybe the environment wasn't perfect enough. Just maybe. Well too late. First kiss gone. It'll be better next time. I sighed and walked silently to class.

I was lying on my bed now. I didn't see Jordan after our "scene" and I switched off my phone because I was too nervous to talk to him (or anyone) about it. I closed my eyes to think about the moment one more time.

And then I felt it.

A bubbly nice feeling in my stomach and I was happy Mira was asleep because I wasn't ready to explain to her why I had a stupid smile on my face. Recalling the kiss felt so nice then. I turned on my phone and quickly texted to Jordan: Hey, it was wonderful. Then I quickly switched of my phone because I didn't want to go any further.
I closed my eyes and fell asleep, the kiss still playing in my mind. I guess the real problem was the fact that I was nervous.