I’ve come close have caused full-on panic attacks.”
There. I’d done it. I’d said it out loud, and despite my body telling me otherwise, the world hadn’t ended. I let out a shaky sigh of relief as the adrenaline started to fade away.
And in the same moment, Noah coughed and sprayed milk out of his nose.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. Sorry. That just went in the wrong way.”
“More like it came out the wrong way,” I said, trying to lighten things up. Because other than hosing down his couch with two percent, he hadn’t responded, and his reaction seemed desperately important. But instead of letting him speak, I had to keep going, nervously. “I had that happen with a Twix bar once. That tasty cookie layer really hurts when it’s coming out of your nose. Then I smelled chocolate for, like, three days. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
He hadn’t laughed. He might have turned into a milk sprinkler, but he hadn’t laughed. I at least had that.
“Does that mean you’ve never kissed anyone?” he finally asked.
“Not technically, no. Is that so hard to believe?”
I could seriously almost hear the record-scratch sound as we descended into awkward silence.
“It’s unusual. Which is why you heard disbelief in my voice. But that doesn’t mean it’s, like, a bad thing you should be ashamed of,” he said, putting his bowl down on the floor. “Does that mean you’re a virgin?”
Heat rushed to my cheeks, bringing out my inner snark. “Of course not, because in between all the being terrified of kissing I was hooking up constantly.”
“No, right. That makes sense. Sorry. I just need a second to wrap my head around this.”
Now I was annoyed. “People can be virgins.”
He held up both of his hands for a second, like he was trying to ward off my anger. “I know! That’s not what I . . . Sorry, I’d never considered that this might be your deep, dark secret. Being scared of kissing. And what do you mean, you’ve never technically kissed someone?”
Might as well give him the full story. I took one of his throw pillows and put it in front of me, like a shield. “When I was fourteen, I was the only one out of our friend group who hadn’t been kissed, and it was really embarrassing. Everybody except Shelby used to tease me. So at Anna-Marie’s birthday party, they all decided that it was time for me to get kissed. And they announced that we were going to play Seven Minutes in Heaven.”
His eyebrows furrowed.
“Haven’t you heard of that game?” I asked.
“I didn’t have a normal childhood, remember? I’m assuming it’s a kissing game.”
“It is.”
“Why is it seven minutes? That seems like an arbitrary amount of time.”
What did that matter? “Because it rhymes with heaven? I don’t know. That’s not really important.”
“Right,” he agreed. “I’m just trying to make sure I’m understanding everything.”
“In that case you should know that it’s basically a couple being put into a closet or a room, and they’re supposed to kiss for seven minutes. The people outside keep track of the time and then they throw the door open when it’s over. They had me go in Anna-Marie’s bedroom.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to strengthen myself. This was the worst part. And it was the part I could not give him every detail of. “So I was waiting for Chris Quintana. He was the cutest boy in school—everyone had a crush on him.”
Noah’s eyes narrowed. “I already don’t like him.”
“It gets worse. So I’m in there waiting, feeling completely anxious and nervous because this was going to be my first-ever kiss, and Anna-Marie had this pillow. And the pillow had a picture of my celebrity crush on it.”
That celebrity had been Noah as Felix Morrison. Which I was never, ever going to tell him.
It was also part of the reason why I could never kiss him. I was worried it might be like reliving that moment again.
“And since I’d never been kissed, I thought I’d practice.” My whole face felt like it was on fire.
“And this Chris kid caught you?”
“Well, yes, but there was a problem. The face was like one of those puffy decal types and . . . my braces got caught on it. I was stuck. So he found me, my face pressed against a pillow, and he had to help me get free.”
“I mean, that’s embarrassing, but was that enough to put you off kissing forever?”