Lessons From the Kissing Booth

I remember walking up to our first date to find you leaning against a bike rack, wearing a typewriter on your shirt and reading a battered Balthazar, and feeling all of my plans for skepticism and distance escaping through a trap door in the back of my skull. Twelve hours later, when we parted, I found all of my trains on new rails and a feel of anticipation hovering in a cloud near my ears.

I remember a night of home made pizza, arts and crafts, looking for and finding the treasure of the Sierra Madre in backyard flashlight beams.

And fighting until I cried, I remember that too, over your snap judgements of the people I love. Trying to make you see that everyone has more to them than you gave them credit for. Until eventually I couldn't stand to have you all in the same place. I remember how you pushed all of my buttons, constantly, because you felt invigorated by the arguments. And how I felt sad and closed up because of them.

Rollerskating and frisbee playing all followed by telling secrets and pulling hair late into the night, getting lost in rows of corn and stepping on disintegrating pumpkin husks in a field. I recall all of that. I remember how you chose movies because you wanted to watch me react to them, how you looked at me like a new species of girl every time I surprised you.

I remember how I loved the smell of your cologne on my pillows.