We Still Don’t Kiss
BY PAUL ROUSSEAU
In the hall after homeroom Kate says we should hang out sometime and I like some bubbly elfish quality about her like her face looks like a masquerade mask of an owl but a very cute owl that must blow through a tube of liquid eyeliner almost every other day of the week and one of her canine teeth comes to a fine point like she has a single fang aka half werewolf or half vampire whatever team she’s on all I know is the way her blond hair swoops across her eyes each like a diorama of an enchanted woodland enshrined in glass is as magical as any fairy tale I’ve seen.
I tell Kate my mom can make eggplant parmesan well she can make a lot of things but if you were to come over tomorrow after school that is technically something she could make and Kate thinks that sounds great.
We text a little that evening while I tidy up my room Kate asks me a series of questions like are you a cat person or a dog person what’s the last book you enjoyed reading and what is your favorite onomatopoeia and like the world’s silliest goose I mix up the definition of onomatopoeia thinking she means oxymoron and say my favorite is earsplitting silence how about you?
Her one-word reply is splat and I facepalm hard thinking only whoosh as that one sails over my head so long goodbye.
The next day Kate is actually here in my house for real and thank the lord I’ve been redeemed by our divine mother’s heavenly parm.
After dinner I show Kate upstairs and my room is melted-butter yellow strung up with café string lights on the popcorn ceiling both remnants from when this was my sister’s room before she left for college and a necktie hangs on the inside doorknob like a hotel do not disturb sign even though the door is cracked open Mom’s orders and for the life of me I can’t remember how I even got the tie maybe one of my sister’s boyfriends left it here after prom or maybe Mom bought it for me at Goodwill I don’t know but its raw cow meat pink and looks almost laminated with dull plastic sequins and now Kate has lassoed it around my neck and asks if I know how to slow dance she’s happy to teach if not.
Suddenly the room’s got the same ambient buzz of expectant energy as when you first walk into a movie theater to find your seats and I’m leading Kate on when secretly I know and I’m anxious and I’m goofy and I’m so unfair because I’m already in love with a totally different girl and I’m second-guessing everything I think and feel unsure if I’m really ready for any of this ready for anything really God why am I so cringe.
My hand barely touches the middle of her back her spine protruding like a serpent’s boney remains my other hand clasped so loose with hers a little furry critter could crawl in there and make the cavity its home after a few awkward laps of half-assed sashaying like that and one failed attempt at a princess twirl I think Kate can sense something’s off and asks if I want her to give me a tarot card reading to which I happily agree anything else please and after a few minutes of intense card flipping sitting across from one another on the floor Kate says in essence current path equals bad change equals good speaking so seriously it could only be interpreted as truth.
I playfully shrug it off like wowzers talk about doom and gloom haha but immediately recognize my fortune’s forking paths are in reference to Kate and Kate’s flipside the girl I really like whose name is Blaire.
Blaire is this pretty hot junior who I think must have some blood pact with the color black and for as much eyeliner as Kate wears I think Blaire must use about double she drives a Ford Escape to school the same Ford Escape we made out in once listening to German death metal though I’m more of a Beatles guy myself at two in the morning during the worst blizzard of the year something like five feet of snow we had to pull over on the main road nearly stranded in a frozen tundra so we kissed under the streetlamp me and her in the car with the moonroof shade pulled back I seriously thought we’d get buried alive but I could’ve cared less I am in love with her even though she has a boyfriend but it’s fine he lives out of state and doesn’t know.
Which is why I’m awful so awful awful awful awful and don’t forget cringe as I climb on my bed and pull out my guitar it’s so obvious I’m leading Kate on because I know I’m good at guitar and she knows I’m good at guitar she’s seen me perform at our school talent show and now she is sitting next to me on my bed and I’m strumming her songs what do you know Kate too is a fan of the Beatles we really have so much in common it’s dumb.
Meanwhile I’m still wearing the dorky pink tie and now Kate grabs ahold of it and ropes me in and we freeze face to face inches away for a full minute at least as she waits for me to close the small gap between us and complete the circuit I want to kiss her lips and chin and throat like a vampire/werewolf hybrid like I’m both cold sexy protective and clingy loyal kind but Blaire’s impossible ghost is preventing me from making contact like an anti-makeout forcefield and I think it’s finally time to confront why.
In the moment I know I am being unfair to Kate but also years later I realize I’m being unfair to myself the real reason I prefer Blaire is not born out of some depraved lust for homewrecking for all things dark for equal parts pleasure and pain aka my inevitable impending heartache as the other guy but out of my own lack of self-worth and low self-esteem all through school I’ve been so obsessed with and hyper-conscious of my ugly ugly skin and the zits on my back that were once a simple constellation now look like one of those pictures taken to prove just how full of stars space really is and something about Blaire’s overall gloomy disposition and the ugliness of the whole situation with her actual boyfriend like when he comes to town I’m back to being nobody chopped liver for some reason I feel this grants me false permission to be ugly with her and my perceived ugliness adds its own barrier between Kate and I because I feel she is so beautiful and good I am unworthy in fact she could do much better for certain so taking this all into consideration I decide we mustn’t kiss.
We just sit there in earsplitting silence which is my favorite oxymoron in case you didn’t know for another thirty seconds and we still don’t kiss and we still don’t kiss and we still don’t kiss until I myself have become the moron then finally Kate breaks the spell by bringing up our mutual friend Derek I think out of embarrassment and off rip the only thing I think to say is how good he looks shirtless like holy crap is he shredded or what again with my insecurities.
By the front door before Kate leaves she says I got something for you and we still don’t kiss instead she reaches in her bag and pulls out an ultra-realistic ceramic unicorn figurine that she bought at a giftshop overseas which I later pose saddled with a red Power Ranger on top as if the Power Ranger were riding the unicorn into some time-bending interplanetary battle and I post a pic on Facebook which maybe Kate took as adding insult to injury looking back I don’t know she never liked or commented probably my bad how nice of her to think of me while on a cool trip to Europe we haven’t talked since honestly after everything I wouldn’t like me neither but rest assured my friend nowadays I see strength in vulnerability and would be the first to tell you Kate was spitting facts all along change really does equal good.
