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The Taste of Her Cherry Chapstick

Kissing this girl is an impossibility—or is it?

By Jillian SpiridonPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
3
Image by Phuc Nguyen from Pixabay

Just wanna try you on

I'm curious for you

—Katy Perry, "I Kissed a Girl"

The first time I meet her, I nearly barrel into her as I squint at my phone to read my class schedule and figure out what room English 101 is in.

Her startled brown eyes make me forget for a moment that I'm lost.

"Oh!" She staggers back a step, and so do I. "You okay there?"

By this time, I'm almost in tears. I have five minutes till the class starts, and I didn't expect my first day at a community college to be so frenetic. "I'm sorry," my voice blubbers. "I'm just trying to find my class, and I keep getting turned around."

"What class is it?" she asks, concern flitting across her features, and I know right then that she’s one of the nice ones, a keeper, far from the vultures of high school.

"English 101 with Camilla Braun," I say.

She turns and points down an adjacent hallway. "All the English classes are in that block, I think."

I blow up the class schedule on my phone now that I'm standing still. Breathe. Just take a breath. "Oh, it's room 2404."

"Yeah, that'll be down that way," she says, a smile dashing across her lips. I can tell she likes helping people. Maybe she should be a tour guide.

I think about asking her name, but then I glance at the time on my phone and yelp. "I'm sorry! I'm gonna be late if I don't go now."

She laughs. "Good luck on your first day."

Afterward, I feel like such a spaz. Was it so apparent that I was a duckling straying from the herd? God, what did she think of me?

And I could kick myself because I never even asked her name.

*

A few days later, I go to the bookstore down on the first floor to buy a snack. I'm thinking a Kit Kat, something I can hide away in my jacket pocket and then nibble on the bus ride home before Mom spots me and tells me—again—that I need to lose weight.

The inner dialogue I'm imagining with my mother makes me pause at the array of options available to me. Maybe I'd be best off with the sugar-free gum—something to curb the hunger but not mess with the diet regimen Mom's been having us on ever since before summer. I didn't get the bikini body and neither did Mom, but that hasn't stopped Mom's lecturing.

My hand reaches for the innocuous spearmint gum when I hear a voice from the counter. "Oh, hey! It's you! Did you end up finding all your classes all right?"

I turn, and there's the girl who helped me days ago during my mini-meltdown. She's grinning in my direction, to the point that I feel a blush come to my cheeks. Why do I have to be one of those redheads who doesn't just glow but lights up like a Christmas tree?

"Hi," I say, grabbing my gum and walking to the counter. "I didn't think I was that memorable."

"Believe me, you were," the girl says as she scans the gum. "How did things go?"

I try not to linger on the words. Getting my hopes up when it came to girls was something I thought I left behind in high school. This girl may be just a year older than me, but the ease with which she carries herself just makes me feel like such an awkward mess by comparison.

"Good," I say, glancing anywhere but at her pleasant face. Her dark hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and I catch sight of a tattoo of twin blue stars at the nape of her neck. Pretty is too tame a word.

"That'll be $2.25," she says, and I hand over my debit card. She glances at it before inserting the card in the reader. Then, a few seconds later, the machine beeps. She hands me a receipt to sign and gives me my card back. All the while, I worry that our fingers will brush and I'll go a darker shade of red.

"Have a good day, Lissa," the girl says, and my head jerks up.

"How—how do you know my name?"

The girl tries to suppress a laugh, I can tell, but her smile just scrunches in an adorable way. "Your card," she says, pointing to the offender in my hand.

"Oh. Oh, yeah, right."

We don't exchange any more pleasantries, and I snatch up my gum and flee the overly friendly girl who's making my heart race.

*

But I still go back to the bookstore, as if I'm being pulled there by invisible string. The girl's not always there, but I want to know her name like it's a prize to be won.

I luck out one day while I'm pretending to look at the different varieties of ramen noodle cups available. One of the girl's coworkers laughs as they stand behind the counter. "I can't believe you did that, Jori."

Jori. Short for Marjorie? I don't know, but I grasp onto the name that's fallen into my ears like birdsong from far away.

When I go up to the counter with yet another pack of gum—this time, peppermint—Jori smiles at me. "You look happy," she says. "Having a good day?"

"Yeah," I say, "it's going better than I thought it would."

This time, unlike all the others, I actually walk out of the bookstore in a way that doesn't seem like I'm running for my life.

*

It's almost winter break when I finally see Jori beyond the bookstore again. She's standing outside the front doors, her head down as she looks at her phone, and I just happen to be waiting for the bus.

Jori glances up, and I offer a half-hearted wave with my gloves on.

"Oh, hi, Lissa," she says. "Are you being picked up too?"

I shake my head. "Bus."

"Oh. Okay. That's too bad." She goes back to her phone, but I pounce on the moment before it's too late.

"What's too bad?"

"Oh," she says, "my dad's going to be late picking me up. I was going to go to get some coffee and see if you wanted to come too."

My heart thuds in my chest. "I can take the next bus!"

The words sound so desperate that I wish I could punch myself in the stomach.

But Jori grins at me. "Really? You don't mind sitting around with me?"

I was thinking you'd never ask, I tell myself alone. Instead, I say aloud, "Nope, it's fine. I might do some extra studying in the library too while I'm at it."

"Cool," Jori says. Then she actually links her arm in mine, and I feel like I'm on another planet. "Let's go get something warm to drink."

I let her lead me back inside as if there's no other place I'd rather be than beside her.

*

"Just these two, thanks," Jori says to the cafeteria cashier after we have secured our coffee cups. She even pays for my coffee. There are still students lounging around the cafeteria, but Jori shows me an alcove upstairs with no one else in sight.

She settles down in her chair and sips her coffee. "I always come here," she says, "to get away from the noise."

"It's nice," I say, looking at the white winter light wafting in from a few windows above our heads.

"I know people make digs at community colleges, but I like how tight-knit they can be. You know?"

"Yeah," I say, "I like the smaller class sizes too. I can't imagine having group discussions with thirty other people."

"Right?" She laughs, and the sound of it is even warmer than the coffee cup between my hands.

Then, just when I think I've found a place of calm, Jori glances at me and says, "I don't know why you look down all the time. You have such pretty eyes. You should be more confident."

The words make my heart speed up and then stumble in a pit-pat, pit-pat rush. "I'm just not very good with people," I say.

"You don't have trouble talking to me," she says.

And I think, That's because you're Jori. You became a beacon to me the first day I met you. And I worry sometimes I'll never see you again because all I know is that you work at the college bookstore.

"You're a good conversationalist, I guess," is the lame thing I end up saying instead.

But that just makes Jori laugh out loud. “But I’m always so anxious I’ll say the wrong thing!”

The conversation feels like whiplash. “What? You?”

“Yeah! All the time!”

“But—but you’re probably the bravest person I know!”

Now it’s Jori’s turn to be the shocked one. “What? That can’t be true.”

“You—you seem so sure of yourself. I wish I could be like that.”

To my surprise, Jori looks away from me for the first time and down at her cup. “You’re making me so embarrassed here.”

Then I do something I’ll probably regret later: I place my hand on hers, the one still warm from the coffee cup. “I’m serious,” I say.

Jori looks up, and it’s so hard not to look away. I can feel my blush begin its reappearance. I know that I probably look like an idiot—

But then Jori squeezes my hand. “Can I ask you a question? A serious question?”

“What is it?”

“Do you like girls?”

The words should pummel me, should make me want to curl back inside my shell, should fill me with the cold dread of coming rejection.

But my eyes don’t waver from hers. “Yeah,” I say, my voice nearly a whisper, “I do.”

Jori heaves out a sigh. “Good, because I really want to kiss you right now, and I didn’t know if you’d be okay with that.”

A disbelieving laugh sputters out of me. “What?”

“Hey, I’m being serious here,” Jori says, and for once I actually see her blushing.

Kiss me. Yes, please kiss me. I want to know what kissing you is like.

Instead, all I manage is, “Uh, okay. If you want.”

I don’t know how to be romantic in the least—but Jori grins at me.

“I warned you,” she says.

And then she reaches across the distance, her hands on my cheeks, pulling me into a kiss that tastes of coffee and lip balm. I don’t even know how to react. Or breathe. Or know where to put my hands.

I don’t even worry if someone will catch us up here. All I can think is that I want to make an impression, I want her to like kissing me, I want to do everything I can to keep her right here with me—

“Lissa,” Jori says against my mouth, “just relax.”

Relax, she says. As if it’s that simple! As if I can actually think the moment her tongue brushes against mine!

But we find a rhythm in the way our mouths move against each other. I imagine that if we were on a bed I’d be splayed out below her as she kissed me into oblivion.

When we finally part for breath, Jori smiles at me. “That was so worth the wait.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to kiss me,” I say, delirious and babbling and still lost in the headiness of a kiss with a girl I really, really like.

“I don’t start up conversations with everyone, you know,” she says.

And, suddenly, just like that I’m blushing again.

For once, though, it feels right.

Jori feels right.

And I’m on track to feeling right with myself too.

Humanity
3

About the Creator

Jillian Spiridon

just another writer with too many cats

twitter: @jillianspiridon

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