The second time I kissed her was at her school's spring ball. We were 14.
She had been at my parent's house for dinner and told me about the humiliation of not having a date. Some dumb girl had made fun of her and told her she was ugly and would never find a boyfriend.
She couldn't have been more wrong. Izzy was beautiful.
Most guys didn't ask her out because they honestly understood that they didn't have a chance.
Besides, there was me. I made sure she was seen with me enough to send a message.

The band played a slow song. I stood and held my hand out to her. I led her on to the dancefloor and lay my hands around her waist. Fighting the shivers in my legs I waited untill her hands were circling my neck before laying my cheek on hers.

"Thank you, Simon," she whispered quietly.

My skin prickled at her breath.

"Are they buying it?" I asked.

"Well... I'm here with the best looking boy in the house I'm not complaining," Izzy giggled.

We danced cheek to cheek for a while. I was pulling her as close to me as my teenage nerves dared. At fourteen we were roughly the same height. I still hadn't had my growth spurt and my voice was still doing weird little acrobatics. I positioned myself differently so I coold look at her. She was so beautiful. Her green eyes were glittering and she was smiling. Best of all, her smile was focused on me.
Only me.
As if I was the only person there.
We were swaying slightly to the music. Her hands were in my hair at the nape of my neck, giving me goosebumps.
I had started growing it the year before and she was always playing with the hair at my neck. If we were watching TV or in my room, if I was teaching her how to play the guitar or the bass. Her hand would somehow find my hair and run through it.

Izzy looked sideways a few times before looking back at me with a frown.

"We're being stared at," she muttered.

I glanced around to see several dancing couples surrounding us. Some were just dancing, but most were surreptiously studying us.
I caught a nasty smirk displayed on that horrible girl, Maddie's, face. She led her partner close enough to speak.

"So Izzy. I didn't know you could afford to pay someone to pretend to be your boyfriend," Maddie said with a superficial smile.

I felt very self conscious from her studying me up and down.
I looked back at Izzy who had tears in her eyes and her face turned away from the crowd. I smiled as she buried her face into my shoulder.
I felt angry towards the people who made her feel so small.
My arms enclosed her even tighter and I felt her cling to me as if I was her only hope.
My headstrong, stubborn, smart and funny best friend, had in the company of these people been reduced to a desperate geek. She was so much more than that.

"Do you trust me, Izzy?" I asked.

I felt her nod.
I moved my hands from around her back to rest on her hips. In all of Izzy's romantic films, this seemed to be a good move.
Staying with recreating a movie moment - because quite frankly I had zero idea what I was doing - I let go of her with one hand and gently touched her cheek. She raised her eyes to mine. I had to smile at the suspicious look on her face.

"What are you doing?" She whispered.

"I'm gonna kiss you," I said knowing I was showing a wide smile.

She blinked a few times, trying to register my words, before smiling brightly.

"Okay," she nodded and I almost did a little fistpump when the tip of her tounge quickly, unconciously shot accross her bottom lip.
She had agreed to kiss me!

Then I carefully cupped her cheek and looked into her eyes for a few seconds. Another move, courtesy of Hollywood movies.
I honestly don't know how guys got girls before movies showed them how.

"Don't blame me if you fall in love with me after this. My kissing skills are epic," I whispered with my best cheeky grin.

Inside I was desperately hoping that would be exactly what would happen.
We both knew I had never kissed anyone before. But neither had she. I smiled at the idea of us sharing our first kiss with each other.
I had to make her look like we belonged together.
Izzy laughed softly.

"Just kiss me, you idiot," she giggled, just loud enough to be overheard.

Raising an eyebrow, making her laugh again, I drew her closer to me and inhaled the scent of her. She was closer than ever.
Somehow we had stopped moving to the music, but my heartbeat was still following the bass rhythm.
Carefully my chapped lips met her soft ones.
I wasn't sure what I had imagined, but there were no angelic choir. No fireworks and no immediate floating away.
But it wasn't awkward either.
I felt myself pulling her closer. My body was twitching in uncomfortable ways.
And then it hit me.
I was kissing Izzy.
We moved gently on eachother untill she started giggling. We stopped kissing and I looked into her eyes, giving her the most worshipful look a skinny, shortass, fourteen year old me could muster.
She grinned.

"Simon. You are the best!" She smiled.

I was soaring through the clouds.

A year later I joined a band.
Two guys a year above me at school were starting a band and needed a bassist. Izzy spent a weekend with me practicing for their half assed audition.
For some reason Oddball had imagined that it would attract some serious talent. Instead they ended up with me and the notorious bad boy Billy, who for some reason figured singing in a band would help him score girls.
I had absolutely no faith in the band. There was a grinning, long haired madman with only rudimentary ideas about rhythms, on drums, Billy singing on top volume only and this skinny little almost 5 foot little nerd on guitar.
We sounded like shit.
Turned out that the skinny damned nerd was our musical foundation with an impressive range and an intuitive way with music. Through him we managed to find a style of music we all could cope with.
I spent six months trying to get Oddball to understand that drumming was more than just beating the shit out of things, but once he caught on, he actually turned out to be quite good. He'd be watching MTV with a single focus on the drummers and then return to us copying whatever he'd seen them do.
Somehow it worked.

As Ethan grew a foot he became the perfect wingman too. Girls thought he was cute, but he didn't really shake that nerdy shyness. He simply did not take their flirting and he never spoke to anyone he didn't already know.
By this time our band was getting quite good too, which meant we had girls deliberately coming back stage when we played.
Oddball ignored them, Ethan tried to be polite when refusing them.
Which turned out to be a bonus for Billy and me. Girls came to talk to Ethan, and left with either me or Billy.
Fair deal.
Which meant my first sexual encounter not only happened after a gig, but also with a girl I don't remember anything about. But I awoke to a new kind of physical gratification. I'd sleep with any girl that offered. Drunkenly I told one girl at school about how Izzy didn't want me and somehow that made me more attractive to girls. They wanted to comfort me. And I let myself be comforted.

Ethan found my manwhore ways hilarious. Told me I had no standards.
His standards were ridiculously high anyway.
Until Lauren.
She persisted and nagged Ethan with a determination that could have drilled holes in a diamond. And like a deer caught in headlights, Ethan had to be told what to do.
As in: go poke your thing into her thing...
It didn't last long. She got what she wanted. He got fed up with her high maintenance and she was history.
He shook some of his shyness though, and actually tested the waters with a few other girls before declaring one night stands overrated.
I mean... Seriously?
What guy turns down the hottest girls in school because he wants it to "mean something"?
By the time we had lost Billy and the band was on the verge of breaking up, I had gotten to the point where I was tired of playing the field.
I was trying to work up the courage to say something to Izzy.
Unfortunately, Ellen got in the way.

The plan was simple.
I had to get Izzy's attention.
She had started getting closer to Oddball and Ethan.
I saw Ethan's eyes follow her through the room and I had to move fast.
I had to cast myself in the role of leading man again.
The romantic hero.
So on my birthday, when Ellen came on to me, I saw a way.
If I could show Izzy that I was boyfriend material, she would understand what she needed.
It backfired.
Badly.
Izzy was extatic about Ellen and me. Said we were cute.
And yeah.
Ellen was hot. I mean smokin.
She had all the curves and all the moves. And she looked at me as if I was something special.
I just couldn't make myself feel that way.
I cared.
I really did.
And she turned me on like a bazooka.
But all I got was some heavy petting. And when I found out that her track record was a lot looser with a lot of other guys I was genuinely hurt. All that sex and none for me!

And I was nowhere nearer getting more than a hug from Izzy.