It all started during the three day weekend given to us students for Rosh Hashanah. I received a text from my friend Adam saying "SALLY INVITED US TO A PARTY I’LL BE OVER IN AN HOUR". Now for my twelve year old self, a party on a Sunday afternoon didn't strike me as odd, so I genuinely thought I was about to attend a rager at two in the afternoon. I immediately responded with "OKAY I'LL ASK MY MOM". So after telling my mom I was "going over to Adam's house to play Call of Duty", I went up to my room, sprayed myself with a deadly amount of Axe body spray, and changed into my favorite flannel. About an hour later I heard a knock on my door, and Adam was standing there with the same pungent Axe cloud surrounding him.

We began walking to Sally's home, and I began regretting not wearing a sweatshirt on this cool autumn day. But cool kids didn't need to wear sweatshirts. Before my body could completely freeze over, we arrived at the single story brick house. And there were children everywhere. Not angsty teenage children like myself, but eight year old boys running and screaming. Sally ran out of her front door to greet us, and I was relieved to find out that there was at least one other person our age. I immediately asked her, "Where's the party?"

"Oh yeah my brother's party, don't worry they'll stay outside."

"Oh" was my expertly crafted response.

Suddenly, two other girls our age emerged from the house. I recognized both of them from school, but wasn't too acquainted with them. We exchanged greetings and made our way to the basement, where the real "party" was going to happen. On the way down the stairs I pulled Adam aside and told him that I would suggest "Truth or Dare" if he would dare me to kiss one of the girls. Because that's the only way that anyone got action in seventh grade: truth or dare.

Once we arrived in the dimly lit basement, we all stood awkwardly in our respective corners. Across from me was Molly, a small girl with dark brown hair. Small in this situation means she was 4'8" to my 5'6". The other girl, Ella, was a bit taller with strawberry blonde hair.

After a solid thirty minutes of awkward small talk and varied eye contact, I texted Adam (who was standing not two feet away) telling him to suggest Truth or Dare. After another thirty minutes of texting back and forth, he finally did it.

"How about we play Truth or Dare?"

An awkward hush fell over the room, as if he had suggested a game of strip poker rather than Truth or Dare. We all stood in silence waiting for someone to acknowledge the scandalous words that had come out of Adam's mouth. Finally, Molly, just barely audible, said "Sure." It was on.

We played a few rounds of harmless truths, the most common being "What's your favorite color?" and "What kind of animal do you want to be?" Finally, Adam asked Molly "Have you ever kissed a guy?" The same hush fell over the room, and we all stared at Molly. She smiled shyly, and answered with a soft "no", as if she wasn't quite sure if she had or not. We then went around the room asking everyone, with all "no's" except from Adam.

Then, it was Adam's turn. He looked at Molly and asked the infamous question, "truth or dare?", to which she finally responded "dare". Without making the hand gestures too obvious, I signaled to Adam to ask the question. He stared at me for a solid five seconds as I mouthed the words, drawing all the attention to me, then declared "I dare Connor to kiss Molly".

Everyone let out a collective gasp, and turned to look at Molly and I to see our reaction. As nonchalantly as I could muster in such a dire situation, I managed an "Okay". While staring at me, she said the same.

Like all normal teenagers in this situation, we forced everyone out of the room. This was going to be the most intimate moment of our lives, and we couldn't have anyone watching us. Then Molly, who had suddenly become the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, sat on the ping pong table positioned in the middle of the room. At first I was confused, but quickly realized it was so she could be eye level with me when we kissed. I walked over to her as her feet dangled off the table, and said the most creative thing I could think of in that moment: "So, how do you want to go about this?"

"I don't know."

"Same."

It was off to a great start.

Then she said something that I can only imagine came from the thought process that the people of NASA had when they were thinking of how to launch their rockets: "Let's count down from ten." Because that's always a great idea.

Of course, I said yes, and she looked right into my eyes. As she continued this staring contest with my soul, she began counting down from ten, without blinking.

"10"

"9"

"8" Still no blinking.

"7" Still nothing.

"6" Nope.

"5"

"4" Is it normal to feel like I'm going to throw up?

"3" What if I throw up on her, do you think that will ruin it?

"2" I got this far I'm not going to ruin it now

"1" Oh look she's blinking…

It was not a blink. She was closing her eyes and leaning in. I closed my eyes and brought my face as close as I could without falling over the table, and our lips touched.

That was also the moment her tongue found its way to the back of my mouth.

I opened my eyes and stood there with my mouth agape. I imagine I must have looked like someone who was watching this situation unfold: someone with their mouth wide open, staring in horror at this poor twelve year old beginning to suffocate.

I stood there, motionless. Then, after the longest five seconds of my life, she opened her eyes. And for a moment, I thought maybe it would all be okay. Maybe this was normal, and I was just new to this "kissing" thing. But then, as she stared into my eyes, she pulled her head back ever so slowly. I smiled at her, just as she began sobbing. She jumped off the ping pong table and pushed passed me. She ran up the stairs sobbing, and slammed the basement door behind her. It was only at that moment that I realized she was in fact upset, and those were not tears of joy.

I walked defeated to the door. Adam ran up to me, and asked me how it had gone.

"Phenomenal, now let's go."

We walked through the crowd of eight year olds in the front yard, and made our way down the street. It was only later that I found out not only was this my first kiss, but it was hers too. She would forever remember my name along with the wonderful memories that came with it. But I never got a chance to clear things up, because I never saw Molly again.

Five years later, and Molly is addicted to meth, a high school dropout, and has the face of a thirty year old woman. Now most likely I had nothing to do with this. It would be egotistical to believe that by ruining her first kiss, I caused a snowball effect that ruined her life. But I’m plagued by one question: “What if”?

So, Molly, if this was really my fault, I want to formally apologize. I never meant to ruin your life by kissing you that day. If I had known it would lead to this, I would have just had my first kiss with Ella or even Sally. But alas, I did not, and here we are.

And if I had nothing to do with this, which is most likely the case, then please disregard the past 1434 words.