Heart-Shaped Kiss

It started out raining.

Not the gentle, elegant, beautiful sort of rain that smells like spring and whispers to rainbows. Instead it was the heavy rain that pelts so hard down upon the earth that the roof shakes and demands all attention, no matter how loud Something Corporate are blasting through your headphones. Kara Stewart grumbled at that realization, and then at another.

Today was the 20th of June.

Today was her birthday.

Kara dumped her half-eaten bowl of Cheerios in the kitchen sink and rubbed her tired gold eyes as she slowly trudged up the stairs and to her bedroom. Her father had left in the obscenely early hours of the morning to go to work, as per usual, and her mother had left before Kara had woken to take her younger brother to soccer. Regardless of the occasion, or lack thereof, Kara was perfectly alright being at home by herself. Her parents were often busy, so she was taught to be independent from a relatively young age. She liked her space and freedom, and considered herself pretty lucky to be granted it so often.

She made her way over to her desk and picked up her small dark blue phone, unlocking the keypad to be melancholically greeted with a grand total of zero new messages. It was already 11 am. It wasn’t as if Kara didn’t have any friends. On the contrary, she had many. But she didn’t have anyone that knew her inside out. No one that understood her like no one else did. No one she could just call up whenever she was feeling down.

She may have liked her space and freedom, but many a time it could get heart-achingly lonely.

***

“Shit!”

Nick cursed under his breath as he bumped his head on the door of his dodgy white car as he scrambled to get out. He slammed the door shut behind him and started to walk, only to be yanked back as the strap of his olive green messenger bag got caught in the door. He inhaled deeply through his nose and let out a heavy breath, all in vain as he jumped when vicious thunder rumbled overhead. A few ten year old kids on their bikes snickered as they rode past him into the almost-vacant parking lot.

Nick carefully opened the door to his car again and pulled out his bag, ensuring that it was safely behind him as he shut the door again. He took a moment to lean against the door, closing his eyes, trying to calm his frustration and even out his breathing.

After a minute or two, he collected himself and began walking towards the group of shops on the main road, checking his watch quickly as he did. It read 1:46 pm. Thanks to the build up of traffic congestion and slow drivers on slippery roads, he was forty-six minutes late. He’d forgotten his wallet once and had to drive back for it, so that didn’t help either. The sky began to sob again, and Nick started to run for the shelter of the coffee shop as the raindrops tried to attack him.

He burst through the door with labored breath, the bell above the door ringing and swinging violently as he hastily swung the door open. Customers were startled and turned to look at him quickly, disgruntled, before frowning and turning back to their conversations. He felt the blood rush to his cheeks, and muttered an inaudible but sincere apology under his breath. When he dared to raise his eyes from his black converse shoes, he scanned the café for the sight of the person he was supposed to meet almost an hour ago.

He caught sight of her near the corner, looking up at him through sparkling blue eyes outlined in dark eyeliner. Her light blonde hair was messy, but stylishly so, and her slightly pouted lips set her expression into one of disappointment. Nick felt terrible.

“Tina,” he started as he rushed over to her. “Tina, I’m so sorry. The traffic was crazy and I left my wallet at home, and I got a call from Eric and…”

“Save it, Nick,” Tina sighed. “I don’t want any excuses. You’re here now, so why don’t you just take a seat and we’ll order?”

He nodded glumly and slumped down into the seat opposite her, deciding against kissing her cheek in greeting.

“I’ll pay,” he told her.

She opted not to argue, seeing how wretched he felt, and gave a small nod, biting her lip. She didn’t want to be angry or upset with him. Not today.

***

The first text came at about 1:45 pm.

Kara picked up her phone cautiously, completely at a loss as to who it could be from. Her friendships were all pretty even, so there was no telling who it was. She scanned through the message, from her friend Steph, and replied agreeing to the offer to go out shopping. She slipped on some grey skinny jeans and a dark blue tank top, paired with white flats and a silver heart necklace. She fixed her simple make-up – foundation and eyeliner – and neatened her brunette drop-curl hair before grabbing a black hoodie and her white handbag and leaving the house, writing a quick note for if any of her family arrived home.

Her family only owned two cars, so her only option was to walk. The rain had subsided for now, but it had been on and off all day so she’d slipped a small umbrella into her bag just in case. It would take her about forty-five minutes to walk to the street of shops that Steph had suggested they scope out, so she assumed she’d get there at about 3, which was when they’d agreed to meet.

Steph had mentioned nothing about ‘happy birthday’, so Kara was in doubt as to whether she even knew. Kara was happy that her birthday was on the weekend, for once. When it was on a school day, someone would usually remember and she’d have to endure several of the fake ‘I knew all along!’ expressions. She couldn’t stand that.

Taking a deep breath of refreshingly chilly air, Kara zipped up her hoodie and began walking to something unknown.

***

Nick and Tina sat in quiet. The buzz around them negated the possibility of silence, but had they been somewhere alone the terribly awkward air would have completely smothered them. It was difficult enough like this. Tina sipped her latte and Nick sipped a hot chocolate, both drowning in their own thoughts.

Nick glanced up at his girlfriend, who was pointedly staring at her coffee. He had been with her for quite a long time now. Eighteen months, maybe, going on two years? They’d graduated together last year. He had the pictures to prove it. But it was undeniable; their relationship had changed. The transformation was so gradual that he hadn’t even noticed it until now.

Tina was still as beautiful as she had always been, but her smiles were less frequent now. She always seemed so preoccupied, so worried, and he didn’t know what to do. She didn’t open up to him anymore. Their relationship had become heavier. They didn’t see each other as often. She was struggling through college whereas he didn’t accept any of the college places he’d managed. He spent a lot of his time writing songs, which was something Tina didn’t understand.

It wasn’t that they argued regularly or anything. They’d just… changed. This realization wounded Nick, and he automatically leaned over the table to take Tina’s hand in his.

Tina flinched and looked up at Nick with guilty eyes.

“Nick…” she started.

He could tell where she was heading, and he would do anything to stop her from saying it.

“Please, Tina…”

“Come on, Nick, don’t purposefully make this more difficult…”

“Ti, we can work this out. We’re high school sweethearts. We’re Nick and Tina. We don’t have to just give up…”

“Nick…”

“Ti, this isn’t necessary. We don’t have to break up…”

“Nick, I’m seeing someone else.”

Her words hit him like a ton of bricks. He can’t have heard her right. No way would his Tina do that to him. But she had, and it wrapped him in a stunned silence.

“W-what?”

Tina sighed, eyes stinging with tears, choking out her explanation.

“I go to college with him. He’s a really nice guy, and I never intended on anything happening. Then one day we were just hanging out and he kissed me and I realized that I liked him, but then I said I couldn’t because I had you, and then he said that he’d wait for me, and I…”

“Shh.”

That was all he needed to say to cut off her rushed dialogue. His mind was spinning a thousand miles an hour. He could just imagine this guy. He would be someone really attractive. Someone who wasn’t so skinny or pale. Someone who didn’t have such a large nose, someone whose head was on Earth instead of in the clouds. Someone who wasn’t Nick Santino.

“I’m sorry,” Tina muttered, her head shaking in her hands.

Nick coughed, drawing Tina’s eyes back up to him. He placed a twenty dollar bill on the table and licked his dry lips as he stood up.

“Okay,” he nodded once, his voice croaky, and he turned to leave.

“Wait, Nick!” Tina stood up and moved until she was a few feet away from him. “I don’t want this to end badly. We’ve been a part of each other’s lives for so long, can’t we stay friends?”

Nick looked bluntly into her eyes. She was about as tall as him in her heels. Now she was the one showing emotion, and he was the one seeming indifferent. Could she seriously not understand how much she had just hurt him?

“Maybe in time,” he told her. “But for now, it’s too painful to look at you.”

Nick gave her the same blank stare for a few seconds longer, ignoring the stares and whispers of the other customers, before turning on his heel and walking out of the coffee shop. He looked left and right, then left again, and began to plod his way up to the traffic lights.

He couldn’t quite believe what just happened. Tina had dumped him. They’d been together for so long now, they’d become such a normality in each other’s lives that he couldn’t quite remember how to live without her. He felt somewhat empty now, as if there was a hole in him that just didn’t make sense. Yet at the same time, he felt almost… liberated. His breaths seemed fresher, freer. He didn’t like feeling this way. Tina was supposed to be the one. Tina, his second ever girlfriend, had been perfect.

Well, obviously not if she practically cheated on you, he told himself.

He dug around in his cluttered bag, feeling around for his car keys. His sensitive fingertips brushed many scrunched sheets of paper, discarded lyrics, and pens left caught in the rips in the bag’s lining. He skimmed over the the thorny stem of a flower he had forgotten to give to Tina before she broke up with him, and he grimaced. Old gum wrappers and stray coins jumped to attention, but no jagged key edge could be felt.

“Great,” he laughed humorlessly to himself like a crazy man. He must have accidentally locked them in his car. “Fucking fantastic.”

Nick felt like he should be crying, but as he crossed the road it dawned on him that he hadn’t shed a tear yet. That was very odd. This was probably the worst day of his life, and his tear ducts wouldn’t cooperate. As he thought this, the sky gave a low rumble and the rain started up again. By the time he got to the bus stop, he was drenched. He quickly scanned the bus timetable, and swore at the typicality that there wouldn’t be a bus going his way for… he checked his watch… an hour and a half.

“Of course,” he muttered bitterly, taking a seat on the cold silver bench.

This was such a bad day.

***

“Ooh, what do you think of this one, Kara?”

Kara glanced upwards from where she sat, bored, on the dressing room chair. One of her legs was crossed over the other, her elbow rested on her knee, and her head rested on her hand. She looked up to see her voluptuous friend in a very cleavage-complimenting red dress, her caramel curls falling around her shoulders. She really was a stunning girl, and it didn’t leave Kara feeling very good about herself. Steph hadn’t, of course, remembered that it was Kara’s birthday, but Kara dutifully played the part of retail companion.

“It looks really… nice,” she said lamely, hearing her un-enthusiasm in her own voice.
She never said she played her part well.

“Really? Yeah, you’re right. I like it. I think I’ll buy it.”

“Okay. You go buy it then,” Kara forced her face into something resembling a smile.

“Nuh-uh,” Steph said, as if Kara was missing something painstakingly obvious. “We’re not leaving here until you buy something.”

Kara blinked.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious! Come on, it’s obvious that you’re bored out of your mind. Splurge, buy something nice! How many dresses do you own?”

“A couple…” Kara answered defensively.

“Okay, and how many do you ever actually wear?”

“All the more reason not to buy one now! Let’s go.”

“No. I saw one that’s kind of your style back there somewhere…” Steph muttered, disappearing for a second and emerging with a pretty black, white and red dress in her hand. The top was black and the skirt was white with intricate black and red patterns climbing up the left side, and a black satin ribbon tied around the waist. Even Kara had to admit, it was a pretty dress.

“Okay, it’s lovely,” she admitted. “But I have absolutely no reason to wear it.”

“We have that semi-formal coming up at school. That dress would be perfect. That’s what I’m getting my red dress for.”

“Uh, I don’t think I’ll be going to that,” Kara said awkwardly.

“What? Why not?”

“It’s just… really not my thing.”

“Is it because you don’t have a date?”

Bingo.

“No, I just don’t really go to dances. It’s not my scene.”

After several more minutes of light bickering, Kara managed to make Steph buy her dress and pulled her outside. The two parted ways with a quick hug, and Kara checked her phone again. Still no new messages. Looking up at the heavily pouring rainy sky, she sighed and pulled out the umbrella that she’d packed earlier. Popping it open, she made her way down the street and to the bus stop, the rain pounding above her as she tightened a new black and white checkered scarf around her neck.

As she reached the bus shelter, she put down her umbrella and started shaking the water droplets off it, sniffing back tears as she did. It wasn’t until a few moments later, after she sat down, that she realized that she was not alone, glancing over to meet the crystalline blue-green eyes of a ginger-haired boy.

***

Nick looked up as he heard footsteps clicking towards him. A pretty girl entered his view a second later, her rapid breaths creating clouds as the humidity met the cold air. She struggled to put down a small black umbrella, decorated with several images of Jack Skellington’s face. After several attempts, she finally managed to tame the difficult object and dropped it at her feet, her white flats now tainted with streaks of dirt and mud.

She slumped down on the other end of the bench, and he saw her shiver slightly as she touched the cold metal. A moment later, she turned her head and lifted her honey eyes to meet his. He saw water brimming in them; she was on the edge of tears. He didn’t even feel embarrassed at being caught watching her, and he was left with the urge to start conversation.

“Nice umbrella,” he muttered lamely as he moved his eyesight back to his black skinny jean clad legs.

He heard her let out a soft, grim breath of a laugh.

“Thanks.”

She sounded about as upset and bitter as he thought he must have. For some reason, whoever she was, he felt an instant connection to this girl.

“Rough day?” he asked. Hell, if she didn’t want to talk to him, it would just be another of his several failures today. It seemed, however, that the idea of talking to him wasn’t as rejected as he expected it to be.

“Oh yeah,” she replied. “Is it really that obvious?”

“Just a little,” he answered truthfully.

She laughed a little, with slightly less misery this time, and Nick felt a thrill at being able to make someone feel better, make someone laugh. He’d been wasting that effort for so long now on someone who apparently never appreciated it.

“Well in that case, I guess I can tell you that you don’t look so crash hot yourself.”

Nick’s mouth began to twist into a small grin and he looked up at the girl again.

“I appreciate the honesty,” he told her. “And you’re right. Today has just been downright bad.”

“Join the club,” she sighed.

There was a brief silence, a comfortable one compared to what Nick had been stuck in earlier that day. He didn’t feel any specific need to break it, but he felt like maybe he could try to be a little more gentlemanly. His dignity at this point was lost, but he still had scraps of composure.

“I’m Nick,” he introduced himself, holding his hand out towards the girl.

“I’m Kara,” she reciprocated with a small smile, accepting his hand and shaking it slightly.

They held hands for a millisecond longer than perhaps they should have, but when they let go they both felt a small warm sensation in their chests. This new feeling wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

“So what’s your story?” he asked, and she looked up at him again, biting her lip adorably. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, sometimes it’s just easier to talk to someone.”

Kara nodded a little and gave him a clearly forced smile.

“In a nutshell, it’s my eighteenth birthday today. None of my friends remembered. As far as I know, my family remembered, but they’ve been out all day so I haven’t spoken to them. On top of that, I look like a disaster, I’m dying of cold, and everything today that should have been simple was just not.”

He watched with sad eyes as a tear leaked down her cheek. He’d only just met her, but all he wanted to do was make her feel better. Somehow, he felt like saying sorry wouldn’t have much of an effect on her. Instead, he shifted over on the bench so that they were closer. Tentatively, he brought an arm up around her shoulder, and let out a breath of relief as she seemed to relax into his hold.

“Happy birthday,” he whispered, his lips dusting over her dark, silky hair above her ear.

She smiled a little and sniffed, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her hoodie and smudging eyeliner along her cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispered with a small hiccup. “I don’t even know you, and you’re the first person to say that to me today.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I got dumped today by my girlfriend of two years. The girl I thought I was in love with. She’d been seeing someone else.”

“She doesn’t deserve you, then,” Kara said quietly after a moment. “You’re far too good for someone like that.”

“I try to tell myself that,” Nick sighed. “But it doesn’t make the thought that she chose some other guy over me any less painful. And the sprinkles on this delicious sundae of a day, I was caught for almost an hour in traffic trying to meet up with her, I left my wallet at home and had to drive back, I got laughed at by ten year olds, I locked my damn keys in my car, and I’ve been waiting here for over an hour. Not to mention the fact that it’s so cold and rainy in June. That’s just a concept that makes no sense to me.”

Kara stayed quiet for a minute before letting out a strained kind of laugh.

“Well aren’t we a pair of miserable sob stories,” she smiled a little, looking up at him.

He looked down at her, nestled perfectly in his arm. He hadn’t clicked with someone like this for as long as he could remember. Even he and Tina never had this kind of correlation.

“Yeah we are,” he agreed quietly, his mind somewhere else.

Kara was beautiful, classically beautiful. Tall and lean, though not taller than him, with wide, entrancing eyes and long lashes. Her long dark hair fell in soft curls around her chest, a side fringe draping over her right eye, and her eyebrows were elegantly shaped. Her skin was creamy and pale, only a few blemishes that were mostly covered by make-up. Already, she had him somewhat captivated.

Simultaneously, it seemed, the two leaned towards each other slowly and closed the gap between their lips. Their kiss was sweet and slow, nothing urgent, just looking for reassurance in each other. The new, sweet flavors of each other’s lips felt special, amazing, and they wanted to hold onto this moment forever, for a first kiss cannot be redone. But this was close enough to perfect. This made up for all the heartache, all the forgotten happy birthdays. This patched up hearts, and fixed the bad day.

Just as their lips had parted and their tongues were about to touch, the kiss was broken by the coughing of an elderly woman taking a seat at the end of the bench that Nick had previously vacated. Breaking apart, a blush crept into each of their cheeks as their eyes met.

No more words were spoken. Nick held Kara in perfectly content quietness for the last ten minutes as they waited. They didn’t even notice that the bus was late. Either they didn’t notice, or they didn’t care. Just as the bus was pulling up to the stop, Nick stood up and gestured for Kara to wait as he searched around in his bag. A few moments later, he pulled out the remains of a squashed white rose and some loose petals, pricking his thumb on a thorn as he did. He grinned guiltily at her and she started to laugh as she accepted the flower.

“Bad day?” she questioned teasingly.

He chuckled and looked into her eyes again.

“Not anymore.”

She blushed again as she held his gaze, but let go as she began to move towards the bus. She glanced back at Nick, who was wearing a confused expression as he looked for something in his bag. When he pulled out his car keys and started laughing, she giggled too at his truly baffled and surprised expression.

“Of course…” he trailed off, now with a true sense of humor.

Nick gently reached for Kara’s wrist and stopped her just in time from walking onto the bus.

“Can I give you a lift home?” he asked her, his eyes now shining bright out of a newfound happiness.

She smiled bashfully and nodded, taking the hand he held out to her. Perhaps she’d have a reason to go back and buy that dress after all.

Maybe bad was just a synonym for unexpected.