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“Better. We’re going to find you a guy to kiss.”
“In a book?” I peered at it closer. “Wait, you spent the last twenty minutes digging around for last year’s yearbook?”
Rachel flipped through the long, glossy pages until she got to the class line-up, going straight to our grade. “In a class of three-hundred and twelve, there’s got to be a cute guy you could kiss. Would you be willing to kiss an underclassman? Because then your pool is even wider.”
I rolled over onto my stomach too, digging my elbows into the firm mattress. “You’re seriously looking for a guy this way?”
“Uh, do you have any other suggestions?” She slammed her finger down on a portrait, poking his laminated cheek. “What about Aaron Keesler? Look at those eyes.Soblue.”
His eyeswereblue, almost vividly so. He was cute. His hair was cut short and looked a little spiky, but as my eyes trailed to his lips, I winced. “Is his mouth too small?”
“Small?”
“Like, his lips.” I pressed my fingers to my lips again, tracing their shape. “Are my lips too big?”
“You’re thinking about this too much,” she said with a sigh, flipping a page. “Ooh, what about Justin Rothford? He’s got normal-sized lips.”
Justin was the opposite of thin-lipped Aaron, with dark eyes and long brown hair. It nearly touched his shoulders, which were covered by a goldfish-printed shirt he wore for picture day. There had to be fifty small goldfish all over the fabric. Questionable choice. “He’s got braces.”
“So?”
“What if our teeth get stuck together?”
“Ava,youhave to have braces too for that to happen.”
I guess that made sense. She flipped through a few more pages, pausing long enough for me to scan through the portraits, but each time I tried to imagine actually kissing any of them, my stomach tied up in knots so tight that I almost thought I’d puke all over her duvet. What did she expect me to do with these guys? Waltz up to one of the guys in the halls and plant one on them?
The idea had me nearly breaking out in hives.
Kissing seemed…weird. Like it involved a lot of chapped skin and saliva. Don’t get me started ontongues.
With a groan, I buried my head into my arms. “It’s no use.”
I heard the softthunkas Rachel shut the yearbook. “You’re taking this more seriously than I thought you would, honestly.”
“I guess I feel embarrassed.”
“Trust me, you’re not the only senior who’s never had their first kiss. It’s not something to be embarrassed about.” She nudged me, but I refused to lift my head. “It’s just a list.”
“Easy to say when you’re not on it.”
I regretted the words as soon as I said them. Not because they were biting, but because they instantly made me feel pathetic. And I didn’t want to be that person. Iwasn’tthat person, but it was hard to not feel self-conscious when a personal detail was put on blast like that, for everyone to judge and see.
Everyone would be looking at me, whispering about me. I’d never been the one on blast before, and I hated it.
Again, I was fully aware of how much I, the owner of the Brentwood Babble domain, was a hypocrite.
“I need to take a page out of Maisie’s handbook,” I said with a little shake of my head, trying to clear out the thoughts circulating like a never-ending merry-go-round. “She brushed off her label so easily.”
“That’s Maisie. She doesn’t care about any of the popular stuff.”
That was true. Popularity, sports, who’s-dating-who—Maisie lived her life as if none of it existed. As if none of it could touch her.
“You shouldn’t put too much energy into it, anyway,” Rachel went on. “You’re hot. It’ll happen eventually. And don’t worry, I’ll be your wing-woman and keep an eye out for potential mouths.”
I couldn’t help but snort and laid my head down on my folded arms. Despite her teasing, I felt uneasy, like instead of laying on her soft mattress, we were on a bed of nails. If I shifted too much weight in one direction, the points would stick into my skin.
My thoughts went back to who might’ve put me on the list. Who saw the label Never Have Their First Kiss and immediately thought “oh, yeah, Ava Jenson.” Maybe I’d posted an article that ticked one of the Top Tier members off. Maybe I didn’t post about themenough.
