A girl’s first kiss is always one to remember. It’s supposed to be magical. Not fairy tale magic, this kind is real. A magic that makes your stomach flip over, that makes your heart stop and your foot pop.

It was all planned. Timothy told his friend who told another friend who told me that I was going to be kissed Friday at Katherine’s house. Not only did I, Angela Marie Radville, have a boyfriend, but he was going to kiss me. And that was that.

Friday was complete and utter chaos. I tried on outfit after outfit on but none of them looked good enough and clothes were strewn everywhere. As my mother says, it looked as though a bomb had exploded in my room. Somehow I managed to reach a conclusion.

According to Cosmopolitan, I needed to apply makeup that gave my eyes an almond appearance. I had no idea what that meant, but they gave advice for each different eye color. My eyes, however, are stuck in some sort of blue-green limbo and no help was offered on this topic. I was on my own.

My mother dropped me off at Katherine’s. Embarrassing? Probably. But I was a freshman and it didn’t really matter. A lot of people were there, which worried me. I hoped he wouldn’t try to kiss me in front of them. Timothy and I sat on a couch, watched The Breakfast Club and avoided any topic that alluded even slightly to intimacy: school, sports, my mom. We didn’t flirt, although both of us made a few awkward attempts. He tickled me, bad idea. My arms and legs flailed around and worst of all, I snorted. He told me he thought it was cute, but I knew he was lying.

It was getting late. He wasn’t going to kiss me. It was because of the snort, wasn’t it? I wish I had a normal laugh. He nudged me and nodded towards a back room. I didn’t want to play ping-pong, I just wanted him to kiss me. He closed the door and looked at me, raising his eyebrows as if to say “Come get me.”

“You’re short.” He was laughing at me. I was not amused. He leaned in and I scrunched my face. His eyes were closed, but mine were open. Wide open. I saw remnants of cheetos at the corners of his lips. Gross. He was moving closer and everything went out of focus. Our noses nuzzled against each other, His lips hit mine and I didn’t move.

My thoughts were all over the place, paralyzing me. He had cheeto breath and my blueberry glitter gloss was sticking. It wasn’t what I imagined at all. My foot never popped, and my heart never stopped, but the butterflies were definitely there. If this was kissing I did not like it. My face was soaked, actually soaked, in slobber. I felt as if I was kissing my dog. When we finally separated, I ran into the other room, dying to get away. My phone vibrated and my mother was here to rescue me.

Outside, the fresh air somehow made me forget the disgusting aspects of the kiss and I felt lighter than air. I was no longer a little girl, after all. I bragged to my sisters about what a great kisser he was.

“Fireworks!” I said, “There were fireworks.”