by Daphne Cloutier

Created on: May 31, 2009

I could have flown home. And it was just a peck on the cheek. If he had left right then and I never saw him again then I still would have needed assistance coming down from the clouds.

The moment it happened we had been talking about nothing and everything. There was a break in the conversation and I was staring off in the distance when I peripherally noticed him lean in (which wasn't very far, considering how close together we were sitting) and then I felt his lips against my cheek. Everything inside me went away and I was filled with air, light enough that a calm breeze could have blown me away. Only my heart was left and it was beating in my chest so hard it's a wonder he didn't hear it. I was shaking too - no, not shaking, shivering. I was shivering as though the temperature had dipped below zero, but we were outside, in Florida, on a sunny, summer day. The temperature was nearing ninety degrees (not including the kiss-induced heat welling up inside me and turning my cheeks pink in a completely obvious blush.)

Later that day, he kissed me. The real kind. On the lips. If I could fly from a peck on the cheek, then this hand-in-hand, momentary lip-lock could have taken me to the moon.

I had seen it in his eyes. The want - the need, really - to kiss me. Yet, even knowing it was coming, there is no way I was ready for it. And that is what made it so wonderful.

That was my first kiss. And the most romantic moment of my life. Until- no, it'll probably take a marriage proposal to override that kiss (and he's done that, too.)

At the end of the day, we had been all alone at a public park for somewhere around six hours. He walked me home, holding my hand -fingers interlocked- as the sun went down. We tried to prolong our separation by continuing to chat, but eventually he kissed me one last time just a few steps from my driveway so that anybody in my house who happened to be watching out the windows wouldn't witness it. Then, he waited while I walked up to my house. As I reached for the door handle, I glanced back one last time and laughed silently as I saw him turn to leave and after only a few steps jump in the air and quietly cheer. Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought kissing could lead to flight.

That was one of only two times that I saw him that entire summer. Two completely memorable, totally share-worthy, heart-throbbing, wish-I-could-fly days.

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