Stolen Kiss

My teacher is standing at the front of the class room. It is the second to last week of school; she is smiling and talking about how we should record our summer on an online blog, or in a journal. That way when we are older we will be able to remember it all.
A lot of things that have happened in the summer are things I would just rather forget.

It is ten minutes to the freedom bell, till the sunny warm weekend where I can go to the outdoor pool and swim laps until my arms turn to boneless jell-o.

“Now for your last homework assignment I want you all to write me an essay.” There is an audible groan in the hot, stuffy room and I see my blessed weekend of swimming flicker and vanish. “You may write it in any format or way you like. It may be a haiku, an epic poem, a short story or a descriptive paragraph, or a longer story, or maybe even a photo that sums up the event with a small paragraph or a few sentences. The topic I wish you to write it on is one of the moments in your life who have affected you the most; Maybe the death of a family member or a friend, or the birth of a sibling. Or maybe breaking a leg, or an arm or getting lost somewhere as a kid or a fear that was caused by something that happened when you were very small.
You have until Thursday next week to complete it and then we will spend Thursday’s and Friday’s class to orally present them.” She finishes just as the bell goes and I stand up silently pulling down the hem of my sweat damp shorts. Turning up the volume on my i-Pod I leave the room, get my skateboard and put away my text books and head home.

I go home change into my one piece and French braid my hair tightly to my scalp. When I get to the pool I begin to think about what my teacher had said. I could write about my little sister, or maybe my friend that had died a few years ago. The one thing I don’t dare write about lingers, I know two things that have affected me but I daren’t write about them let alone orally present them. I quickly finish my warm up and dive into the cold waters and begin my slow laps to get my muscles moving, soon I am absorbed in my patterns and have no time to think about a trivial English project.

The week goes by and soon it is a late Wednesday evening, the light is low and I am sitting on the side of the dock at the lake with my sketch book in hand. Tomorrow I need an essay of sorts to present. Putting my pen to the paper I begin to write against the blank page. Whatever comes out, I decide, is what I will present.

I’m afraid
I’m running away.
All of the kisses I have had since my first kiss was stolen are imprinted as catastrophes on my mind.
My first kiss was stolen from me, ripped from my hands and beaten into a bruised, frightening memory.
The arms that had held me tight, making me stay as I stood too shocked to move until I had struggled and pushed away and began to run back to the cabin.
I didn’t go in but hid behind the building, near the speed boat docks with the rain making patterns on the water.
I held my face in my hand to shocked and horrified and disgusted to do anything with myself.
I could not even cry.

We left early and my mom told me it was a learning experience.
I was twelve.

The next year I had a boyfriend and we liked each other as much as eighth graders could.
It was Halloween; we were hanging out in the band room on the stage, wrapped in the thick musty curtains, away from everyone else.
We were whispering and I thought the memory of the last years events were gone.
After we kissed I was afraid of him.
We broke up a few weeks later.
A few months later I began to crush on another guy, he eventually asked me out. I said yes completely ecstatic. We kissed at the grade eight graduation dance and a few times the next day.
I avoided seeing him all summer.

Our first year of high school he dumped me and asked another girl out later that hour
I was crushed and when I got home I collapsed on the floor and cried.

Four months later a guy asked me out that I had only began to know. I thought it was worth a try and complied.
Not even two hours after me agreeing he made out with me on the walk home. He wanted me to come over to his house.
I panicked
All the memories and feeling I had carefully hidden away under my mind came up and two weeks later in the middle of class I had a panic attack and left school.
I had my friend break up with him for me.

I have decided not to even consider dating through high school. Or maybe even a little after it.
My worst fear is what if I never get over my simply stolen first kiss?
What if my boyfriend and I fall madly in love.
On our wedding day in a chapel, where my first kiss was stolen, would I be able to do it? And all that followed after that?
Or maybe I would simply run away; over stone steps in the crisp spring or maybe midsummer night.
I would lift my skirts up with my hands and kick off my heels and run away afraid of everything I would never be able to give.

I would run up the stairs and never look back, because if I did I would see his hurt, and it would hurt me.
Because I wasn’t able to get over my simple nightmares

I’m standing in front of my grade ten class. There is no movement. No restless hot stuffy shuffles of teenagers wanting to leave the gross sweaty school and eat ice cream and drink cold beer and go to beach bonfires. Everyone’s eyes are fixated on me. The truth should have been kept under a lie. Everyone is speechless. I pick up my back pack and leave the room. No one stops me and a few minutes later I hear my teacher call up the next presenter to the front of the room. I’m going to skip the last few days of school and disappear over the summer. Maybe take the canoe up the lake and get lost for weeks on end with the stars above me and forest and rivers to explore.
I smile knowing I’ll never have to face these people again and break through the heavy metal doors of the school greeted by the bright sun, my tanned back saying goodbye to everyone and the truth I am leaving behind me.
I am not running away, simply leaving, to see what else I can find in the world.