Pink moonlit haze / cold pavement.

I made no secret of the fact that I hated our first kiss. You'd huff dramatically and laugh, not unlike how you did when you told me you were leaving and I asked you if there was anyone else, joke with our mutual friends, all of whom were actually mine, and tell me I need to let this go, to move on. I couldn't. 

The night you came to stay, we went to a nineties throwback gig with my parents, upstairs at the local noisy pub, the one one only goes to to get drunk. One one, to to, two. As we got our drinks before heading up the stairs, I saw a friend at the bar who silently clocked you and raised an eyebrow at me. I stood in front of you, felt your hands slip under my loose shirt and trace a path up my not yet sweaty back, your warmth on my neck. It was so exciting. I'd already broken the touch barrier earlier that evening, when I took you for rushed cocktails and applied some of my [PR gift] aftercare cream to your forearm, which you'd got a TV show reference inked on the day before. You'd tell me later that it had hurt quite a bit as I'd affectionately rubbed your skin, but you'd swallowed the pain for the sake of the moment. 

Photo by Jan van der Wolf.

I was giddy as we left the gig, tipsy on my third drink and high on the promise of what was to come. We'd agreed to venture back down the same dark side street and return to the first bar I'd taken you to, for one more round before the inevitable, excitable stumble home. All the touching had happened, dancing had transpired, glances sparkled over glasses. The vague idea of the first kiss had formed in the middle of my mind; I'd been hoping it would happen over our last cocktails, we'd come together mutually, quietly and happily, in the perfect bookend to the night. You'd taste the lime and salt sprinkles on my lips, I'd take your big beautiful face in my hands and swallow the knowing smile you'd been wearing just for me, all evening. The moment was appearing to me through some pink moonlit haze, soundtracked by the noise of the pub spilling from the upstairs windows and the more jazzy sounds I could hear on the wind from the bar down the road - the one we never called by its full name. 

But then you interrupted my chattering and pulled me in by my arm, on the cold pavement next to a little staff car park lined with chains. Your knowing smile said in a mutter, 'let's get this over with first' - and you kissed me. I was caught unsuspecting, surprised but not pleasantly, but I tried my best to lever it and lean in, close my eyes and make the most of the moment even if it wasn't what I'd wanted. I remember being reminded of someone else's lips by yours. Someone from long ago, who had hoped to marry me. The familiarity was strange, and fortunately it passed, and then we came apart still on the pavement, still between cars, still in the dark of the pub's shadow offset by the blinking streetlight. Okay, I thought. I can work with that. But it's a shame. 

That was one of many things you initiated in the beginning. I brought it up the night you left; you were the one who set a date to visit, you kissed me first, you laid out the five-year plan over dinner at that little place in Rye where we went to celebrate our first year together. You told me you wanted to propose, someday. It was all you. Your decisions, your directions. My heart was still healing from what had come before, and I know you could feel I wasn't convinced, so you did everything you could to woo and win me over. To unspool the clumsy stitching around my open wound, which I'd done drunk and wrong-handed. As soon as you'd got my trust, you stopped trying and I came untethered again. I was surprised how articulate and calm I was when I said it that night, then even more surprised when I saw you start to cry. 'This is so unfair,' I said, simply. Because that was all I could say. I wonder how different it would have been, if I'd had a say in how we first kissed. 

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Thank you for reading.

G. x