Just One Kiss - J. Saman Page 0,12

I take a step inside, glancing this way and that. It smells exactly how I expected it would. Like expensive perfume and wood polish and money.

No one can make you feel inferior unless you let them.

It’s a good line, but it does little to settle my nerves as I force myself away from the door, clutching my schedule in my hand like it’s the one thing I’ve got going for me. Maybe it is. The admission person I spoke with on the phone was excited to tell me about their art program. About all the different mediums I’ll have access to at no cost since they’re available to all students, scholarship or not.

I meander my way through the front of the building, coming upon something resembling an atrium with five halls branching off the center. This seems to be the place all the students congregate and for a moment, I allow myself to linger on the periphery, curious about what I’ll find. I was not happy about leaving my last school. I had made a couple of friends and was settling into what felt like a normal version of a life when the rug was ripped out from under me again. The foster family I was living with out of nowhere decided to move states, leaving me to bounce back into the system.

It was a brutal reminder to keep my distance. To never grow too comfortable or form attachments because nothing good lasts. The bad stuff doesn’t either, I remind myself. It’s all just the pendulum of life and in three years, I’ll be able to chart my own course.

Three years.

I can do three more years of this shit.

I start off again when something, or rather someone, catches my eye. A girl everyone is standing around, and just by the nature of curiosity, I stop without thought to try to discover what has over a dozen other students flocking to be near her.

It takes me a moment to weed through the other bodies, but finally I catch the flash of midnight colored hair piled on top of her head in a pristine ponytail. She’s gazing up at one of the guys standing beside her, a tall built guy who looks like he could play professional football. He’s smiling down at her like she’s the sun, but it isn’t until she turns her head to talk to another person and I catch sight of her that I truly understand why.

She is the sun. She is the stars and the moon and everything exquisite about the universe. I read Romeo and Juliet last year in English, and I remember thinking how fucking stupid and ridiculous Romeo was for getting thunderstruck over a girl he’d never even spoken to before. But not now and never again will I ever think that about him.

Because holy shit. This girl. This fucking girl.

My breath, trapped somewhere in chest, wheezes pathetically past my lips.

My eyes are glued, my body humming with some strange foreign sensation that I never want to go away. It’s like some kind of sweet, torturous bliss. Like a pleasure-pain.

I stare, helplessly entranced by her as she laughs and talks with her friends.

She isn’t wearing heels like the other girls, but she doesn’t need them. She’s tall, her long legs slope up to her tartan skirt that hits just above her knee. Her white blouse is tied in a knot at her waist instead of tucked in, revealing the tiniest hint of tanned, tone flesh beneath. Her blazer is draped over her arm and I’m grateful for that because if she were wearing it, I wouldn’t be able to appreciate her full, perky tits that could easily fill up my hands and then some.

Her rose-tinted lips are quirked up in a bright smile that shows off all her white teeth, and before I know what the hell I’m doing, I find myself drawing closer when I should be working on finding my locker and my first period class.

A bell rings out through the air and the group collectively groans, saying their goodbyes and heading for their classes down the various hallways.

She must notice me standing here, staring at her like a creepy mindless fool because suddenly she turns, and our eyes meet. If I thought I was blinded by this girl before, I was wrong. Because her eyes are this incredible shade of purple, a deep amethyst with flecks of lavender and blue, so rare and unexpectedly stunning, I assume they are contacts.

They have