by Susan Lower

Created on: September 07, 2008

His name was Greg.

I can still remember it now, the fireworks, the dark, and the sneaking behind the shed at the ball field. Of course the fireworks were going off in the sky, not as a result of two clumsy teenagers groping for each other in the dark.

It was both scary and exciting at the same time. The thrill of anticipation that grows up your spine with each step you take towards the expected. He waited for me. We'd just played a tournament all day long between the two fields at the park. The town was celebrating its bicentennial with food, music and crafts all weekend long. My parents had allowed me to stay this night with an aunt so I could see the fireworks after dark.

The girls on my softball team giggled and walked around the park with me, waiting, waiting for the dark to fall and sit on the fence to watch the loud burst of light trickle through the sky, but there I was standing behind the shed instead in front of the only boy in school who wanted to hold my hand and carry my books between classes.

It's hard to say what was going through his mind; it was dark so I couldn't even see the expression on his face. I knew this wasn't his first time; he'd probably kissed lots of girls before me. I think he knew, the nervously little stutter, the step backwards when he approached close enough to touch a finger to my arm. But then as any teenage girl would do I sucked up my fear and embraced my first kiss. It was not anything one would expect at that age, but older now, I'd say it was about right for never being kissed before.

It was quick, sudden, and made my heart skip beating for the seconds it lasted. Then he walked one way around the shed and I another. Dazed and touching me lips I made my way back to the fence. Beside the shed laid a pile of old wood when nails that had been torn off the old bleachers when the built new ones earlier that summer.

Not paying attention as I rounded the corner of the shed I stepped into the pile of boards and directly on top of a set of rusty nails. I never made it back to the fence. I never got to watch the fireworks display across the sky. I found my cousin and not so much later I was taken to the hospital where I had three bandages across the bottom of my foot.

I spent the rest of the summer limping. My softball team pitched running for me when I batted, but Greg moved on to another girl, and I, well I always have the memory of that first kiss.

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