Tia always looks amazing. It doesn't matter what she does, what bracelets or necklaces she wears. It doesn't matter what she wears or the way in which she styles her hair and makeup—she consistently stands as the most beautiful girl in the entire world.
Her eyes possess a captivating shade of rich brown, evoking the sensation of swimming in a pool of velvety chocolate whenever I fix my gaze upon them. Her hair flows in enchanting waves of golden brown, a sight in which I could easily lose myself forever. Her fragrance is gentle and sweet; simply being near her feels like dancing across a fragrant meadow.
After our English teacher's fatal decision to assign seating on the first day, my disappointment at Tia being placed so far from me broke my heart. However, after a few days, I came to appreciate the luck of having a perfect view of her. There's little learning to be had in that classroom for me. All my academic effort is focused on studying Tia. Stevenson, Bradbury, Golding—it's a marvel that I can even recall their names given the minimal attention I pay in that class. The true marvel, however, isn't my capacity to recollect their names from the class. The amazing coincidence is that Tia is my best friend and so much more focused in class than I am.
Each day after school, Tia helps me with homework and projects. As tedious as studying may be, somehow it becomes significantly more manageable when I listen to her gentle voice explaining all the details I may have missed during class. At times, I wonder whether some unconscious part of me intentionally disregards the teacher just so I have a pretext to seek Tia's help one more time.
"You there, space girl?" she asks, jolting me out of my daydreaming and the thoughts of her that had me lost once again.
"Yeah, no, I'm still listening," I say, adjusting myself on the floor beside her. "This book really doesn't do it for me, though."
"What? An island teeming with boys isn't good enough for you?" she asks jokingly.
"They're stupid, Tia. They all are," I shoot back with an amused smile.
"It's a story. You can pretend they're all courageous or something," she says playfully.
"Still, there is not a single thing I find interesting in the story. They're not exactly the nicest boys, you know?"
"Oh yeah?" Tia says, setting the book aside. "Would you prefer it if the island was full of girls?" She gives me a playful grin.
Tia and I have been best friends since the first grade. She knows me better than anyone else in the world. She knows every struggle I've had, every happy moment, and every single secret.
Except for one.
"I'd rather read a story about two girls on an island together," I lament wistfully. "They'd be BFFs, and their names would be Tia and..." I trail off, losing myself in her eyes.
"Sounds like a nice vacation," she says cheerfully. "But I'm sure you'd want to hang out with someone else eventually," her impish voice still happy and playful.
Never as long as I have you, I think to myself.
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
When we were in the fourth grade, Tia and I were bored one day, hanging out at her place over the weekend. While trying to figure out what to do with ourselves, we started talking about the future, love, and romance. Then, out of nowhere, she asked me if I'd ever kissed a boy before. I said "no", of course, and she said she hadn't either. We tried to imagine what it would be like to actually kiss a boy.
My entire life, I assumed that it was normal for boys and girls to kiss when they loved each other. My parents, however, had a different idea. They insisted that I wasn't allowed to kiss boys until I was much older. I think, even now, they'd still say the same thing if I asked them if I could. I never really had the urge, though. I always figured I was still too young, and that would change as I grew older. But now I'm almost thirteen, and the desire to do so is still intriguingly missing from my life.
Tia, being the smart girl that she is, had an idea that day. She figured that, seeing as neither of us knew much about kissing, maybe it would be a good idea to practise. I was confused, so I asked her how we would practise without any boys to practise on, but she already had that covered. She suggested that we practise on each other. It seemed like a clever solution to our problem. I remember getting up to close the door to her room to make sure no one would overhear or see us if they walked by.
I was nervous, as if I knew in the back of my mind that what we were about to do was braking some unwritten rules. But at the same time, I also felt safe kissing her. It was Tia, after all. She was my best friend, and I knew that I could trust her with all of my secrets, so it made perfect sense that we could practise kissing on each other. As this reasoning played out in my head, I suddenly found myself gazing at her pretty face, gleefully imagining how kissing her lips might feel.
My heart beat faster as I made my way to her bed, where she was sitting. I sat on the bed across from her, timid and shy. I looked deep into her bright eyes, seeing a beauty I'd never allowed myself to recognise before. My hands found their way behind her head, and I looked down at her lips, asking her if that was the right way to do it. She shrugged her shoulders and giggled. She said she saw it once in a movie, and then she put her arms around me. Slowly, hesitantly, we drew our faces closer to each other. There was a shy pause before we crossed that final barrier between us, past the boundaries we had always known but never understood, and then I hugged her closer to myself. Closing that last centimetre was all that was needed for our lips to press together. We held onto each other like that for a split second before pulling apart and falling on the bed, laughing silly at ourselves.
After the giddiness and hiccups from laughter subsided, I told her that was kind of fun. I tried so hard to hide how, in reality, I was desperate to try it again and again. I needed to feel her little lips on mine; I needed that warm and comforting feeling of her pressed against me. Thankfully, she asked if we could try it again. She wasn't sure if we were doing it right or not, she said, and of course, I jumped at the opportunity with more enthusiasm than I was willing to admit. We tried it again, more confident this time, attempting to hold our composure a little longer. We asked each other what it felt like and how we might do it better. We couldn't let the boys down, she said. We practised again and again and again... By the time I had to return home, my lips were tender and bruised.
I knew that afternoon that there was no one else in the world I ever wanted to kiss.
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
"Why would you want to be on an island full of boys anyway?" I ask. "How many boys have you turned down despite never having a boyfriend?"
She scowled playfully at me. "Ew gross. You know what the boys are like at our school."
She had a point. The boys at our school are nearly all insufferable, especially to girls. They only respect a teacher, so it doesn't affect their grades, but that's about all you could expect from them.
"Fair point," I say.
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
I saw Tia at school the day after our first kiss and immediately felt my heart leap with joy in a way I'd never felt before. I wanted nothing more than to kiss her right then and there in front of our entire school, but somehow I managed to resist the urge. She smiled her sweet smile at me, and we went to our class as usual. Later, when she came over to my house after school, I was all hyped and excited, the way kids get when they're high on sugar. I just couldn't wait any longer; I had to ask her if she wanted to practise kissing again.
"We shouldn't do that any more," she frowned at me while busying herself with a bundle of sharpies.
"But didn't you like kissing me, Tia?" I asked her, not even considering how that might be interpreted.
"We... we should save our kisses", she looked away. "You know... for our future boyfriends."
On that day, I had no choice but to reluctantly accept her sudden change of heart. I agreed with her, even though, deep down in my heart, I couldn't accept the reality of never kissing Tia again. The devastation of discovering Tia, only to lose that precious joy the very next day, has never really faded.
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
I look at Tia's lips, my mind drifting back to that day, as it so often does. Her lips had only become more beautiful and kissable over the years. How I miss the taste of her strawberry lip gloss. I miss the soft tickle, her warm, humid breath as they brushed up against my own lips.
"Hey, Tia," I say casually, trying not to let her see how nervous I really am.
She smiles at me, and I can feel myself start to blush.
"You remember that time when we... when we practised kissing?"
She laughs effortlessly, and it comes across so innocent it makes her sound as if she were nine again. "Imagine thinking we needed to practise kissing. I doubt we learned anything, as silly as we were."
"I don't know about that," I say. I learned about me, I think to myself.
Despite my desperate attempt at a poker face, I'm slowly losing my mind. Part of me is screaming to just tell her finally how I feel about her, while another part of me is terrified that I'll ruin our friendship and everything with my stupid, selfish obsession with kissing her. I look up into her eyes, and my heart melts all over again.
"I—I was actually wondering if we could try it again," I say, my nervousness visibly creeping into my voice. "After all, we... we know a lot more now, so... maybe... well, maybe we'll know if we're... you know... doing it right," I stammer, trying to justify myself.
Tia looks down, seeming to ponder for a moment, then gets up and closes the door to my bedroom. I tremble with excitement as I watch her slowly walk back over to my bed and sit down across from me. She smiles.
"Are you sure?" she asks confidently.
I hesitate for a moment. I know she's giving me a chance to back out. Maybe she wants me to back out?
My nervousness must have been apparent.
"I don't mind if you really want to," she says in a reassuring voice.
I stare into those sparkling brown eyes again, glancing down at her ruby lips as I brush her hair back. She places her hands around my neck, just like the first time. I close my eyes, leaning in slightly, feeling as if I woke up in a dream. But before I can close that gap between us, like I did years ago, I feel her lips press into mine. I wrap my arms behind her back, cradling her against me, pulling her close into me.
We held the kiss for what felt like a lifetime before breaking away, and we didn't laugh this time.
"How was it?" Tia asks.
"Better than I remember," I say, forcing my mouth not to beg her for more. "How was it for you?" I manage to ask.
"Do... do you think we could try again?" she asks shyly, her round cheeks flushed with a cute blush.
I nod, ever eager to please her. I draw her back into me. She presses into my hands, pushing me gently down onto the bed... and then we kiss. I hold her close. My head sinks into the pillows under her pressure. I feel her fingers run through my hair, and her curls tickle my cheeks. But all too soon, she pulls away.
Tia sits back up and asks, "Did I ever tell you why I didn't want to do this again?"
"You said that we should save the kisses for boys," I remind her.
"Yes, but... that's what my Mom told me," she explains, and I sit myself back up, too. "I don't know why... I think I was happy and proud like never before, so I told her what we did after you went home. She wasn't mad or anything, but she told me that girls aren't supposed to... you know, do this sort of thing. She told me that I was too young to be kissing anyone, but later, when I'm older, I should only kiss my boyfriend or husband."
I blink, beginning to see that I'm not the only one who has kept a part of myself hidden since then.
"I've never forgotten that day, though," she continues. "And to be honest... I've been wanting to do this with you again ever since."
"Me too," I say, watching her eyes glow with urgency as the words leave my lips.
"Then, does that mean you want to practise some more?" she asks.
I smile and feel a joyful tear form in the corner of my eye. "I think I've had enough practise," I say. "Do you think we can try it for real?"
She dives into me once again, pushing me back down on the bed. Her hands find mine, and our fingers lace into an unbreakable bond. I'm barely aware of kicking the book off the bed before I lose myself completely in Tia's kiss. We continue kissing for what seems like hours until Mom calls us down for dinner.
"I think... we have to take a break," Tia says while catching her breath and pulling her lips away without unpinning me from the bed.
I raise my head back up, trying to catch her lips again and stealing one last kiss in a futile attempt to preserve this moment forever.
"You're so pretty," Tia says, carefully pushing herself off of me.
"So are you," I respond.
As Tia and I reluctantly drag ourselves out of my bed, she asks, "What would you do if I said I liked you?"
I blink and look at her for a moment. We've already crossed so many lines between us that her question perplexes me. The answer is obvious, but it feels strange after everything we've done, even just now.
"I love you," the whisper crosses my lips before the hope in Tia's eyes can turn to concern in my hesitation.
Tia wraps her arms around me, and I hug her back with all the strength I can find in myself. I close my eyes and lose myself in her scent and the warmth of her body pressed against mine.
"I love you too," she says softly in my ear.
Our special moment is broken once again when Mom calls us for dinner.
"Come on," I say as I take her hand. "Let's get going before my Mom gets worried."
We walk together, holding hands until the last moment, before Mom sees us. Someday we'll have to tell her, and Tia's parents too. For now, however, we'll keep this our little secret. We'll steal kisses whenever we can, cuddle whenever we're alone in one of our rooms, and hold hands whenever no one's looking.
No matter what challenges may lie ahead in our lives, I am convinced that everything will be fine. Regardless of the trials, troubles, and adversities that may cross our path, as long as she stands by my side and I stand by hers, I know that we can overcome any obstacle that comes our way.
❤ The End ❤