The bar we were at was sweaty, despite the cool fall temperatures outside. I was out with friends, new friends who were part of my new girlfriend’s group. Neon beer logos decorated the walls, the only thing illuminating the space besides the Christmas lights strung along the grimy trim and lamps over the pool tables. College kids swarmed bar counters, their wet boots and Converse mixing the grit and salt onto the tiled floors in odd, dune-like patterns.

I felt out of place in my red corduroy flares amongst a sea of jeans, flannels and Carhartt hats. I couldn’t tell if I looked straight or slutty compared to my drinking companions, and I was hoping that the answer was neither, but it was likely both. I had been out of Minnesota for too long, and suddenly didn’t feel like I could claim to be the Midwesterner that I was, underneath my Florida tan.

The gin and tonic I was handed sat unpleasantly, and I began making a list of everything I’d consumed that day, not enough to combat the anxious bile building. Coming from a school where party and beach culture blended, I was completely out of my depth in this PBR paradise but badly wanted to fit in and seem cool to my girlfriend’s friends. I was new in dating her and being openly a part of the queer community in the way her friends were. It had only been a few months since I came out, and I want so badly to be accepted into my partners cool, queer friend group yet have no idea how to succeed at that when I could feel the sweat accumulating on my chest and in my armpits, my sheer top doing little to hide my smelly nerves. Looking, talking or acting like a straight person felt like the ultimate embarrassment, but I hadn’t been out long enough to know how to not do that. I was focused on trying not to make a fool out of myself in the most popular bar on the University of Minnesota campus.

Ally had suggested it first, after the credits rolled on “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and all of us stood up to stretch from the couch, the floor. “Let’s practice kissing,” she’d said, and maybe we all agreed because we wanted our own coming of age experience like Charlie did in the movie. Or maybe it was because it was the first weekend of the summer, when our hair stuck to our necks and high school was nearing on the horizon. Maybe we needed to feel older, more prepared. All I know is that we ended up in a circle on the carpeted floor of Lauren’s basement and practiced with no questions and no judgment. At least, that’s what it felt like for me, and I kept that feeling until the next morning.

I woke up in the bed where I fell asleep in a sugared, practiced, daze. I saw her on the floor, in a makeshift bed of her own, a nest of blankets and pillows. I rolled out of bed, stepping gently onto the floor, conscious of the open door leading to where our friends are sleeping. I curled up behind her on the floor, tucking my arm between us and closing my eyes. The hard, carpeted ground dug into my shoulder but I was comfortable, leaning in so that my cheek rested on the nape of her neck. I didn’t know what I was doing. After a late night with a Coke bottle spinning in the center of eight girls, I was shielded by the masquerade of “practicing” for future boys.

By the entrance of the bar, I tried my best not to look anywhere, at anyone, much less the random group of older men playing pool near the entrance where we were stuck. Half a dozen college kids lingered at the door for the glow of an Uber to round the corner. Her friends stood with us, pulling on their coats and gloves in preparation for the nights’ chill. The glass door slammed with the entry and exit of the students, their laughter mixed with the sound of a bell dinging. My eyes scanned over the C-shaped, beat up booths, girls sitting on top of the wooden trim, their legs crossed as they chatted with their companions on the vinyl seating below. I felt the eeriness of someone observing me as I turned away, and I turned back to meet her brown, almond shaped eyes, a mole by her mouth tilted upwards with the curve of her lips.

She said my name like a question. I could hear her say my name after a moment of eye contact, cocking her head at me as she stepped out of the booth and walked towards me, like a lion stalking its prey. I said her name back, and I knew that I was faking it well because her face didn’t change, stuck in a plastic smile. I could see the fraying ends of her bleached, crinkly hair and the slightly raised spots in her makeup where she covered her moles. It felt calculated when she hugged me with one arm, holding her light beer with her other hand. I leaned in, the smell of her Victoria’s Secret perfume and hair products meeting my nose. Of course I knew that it was her. I’d watched her evolution over social media, the Lululemon and bleach introduced into her wardrobe, the ripped jeans and dance shirts disappearing. She seemed so far from how I knew her before, the girl who played guitar in class and drew perfect eyes in the corners of her notebooks. I pretended, asking a question I knew, confirming that we went to middle school together. In the old church building across the river from here, that has since closed.

Yes, of course, she said back, the foam of her beer slightly sloshing over the rim as she nodded.

I smiled back at her, looking into her blank eyes for a moment of recognition of what happened, and was met with nothing. I had always wondered if she kept it in, if one day she’d realize that a kiss like that could not mean nothing, like I did. I wondered if I was the last, or if she’d stuck to her script with guys.

The morning sun was shining through the basement window when somehow, I was there, holding her as she turned. I met her eyes before she closed them, leaning into me. My eyes closed as I felt her breath on me, her dry lips meeting mine. I held my breath, frozen in the moment as her hip bone leaned to match mine. I was being kissed. It was the summer after 7th grade, in Lauren’s basement, and I was being kissed.

This didn’t feel like practicing last night with the other girls. I wanted to kiss her back, but my heart was beating so loudly in my ears. She must have been able to hear it too, a great rhythmic drumming, echoing from my ribcage throughout my body. She must have felt the dampness in my palms as she pressed my hand to her chest.

She grabbed me and pulled me tighter, and my stupid fucking brain was stuck in neutral as I was kissed, and I could not. Kiss. Back. My face was hot and she was hot and I was so warm and that was not practicing. My breath wouldn’t quaver if it were, as it hadn’t the night before. Then again, no one had kissed me like her.

Close to the door of the bar, I introduced her to my girlfriend. After years of watching her post on Instagram, announcing boyfriends, college acceptances and international adventures, it felt like seeing a ghost, or a celebrity in real life. I’d nearly forgotten about her, moved on from my middle school crush once I realized what it was, and that she was straight. She smiled at my girlfriend, clutching her drink to her chest and nodding hello. It didn’t seem genuine, I knew because it wasn’t. After our kiss, she pretended like I didn’t exist, ignoring what had happened until we both switched schools and never spoke again. I knew, later, that it was nothing and the moment meant more to me than it ever did to her, but I wondered if she faked it like I wished I could. If she ever wondered what it had meant to me too.

It was nice to see you, I said.

You too, she said back.

She was always the performer, the attention seeker at our class talent shows and concerts. She could be, when her voice was like an angel’s and she slipped into roles like a second skin. I envied her popularity and the ease with which she moved throughout social groups. She had the kind of personality that everyone liked, that everyone wanted to be friends with and I fell into wanting it too, soaking up any small bits of attention that she gave me. I wanted to believe that she was being genuine, but I could never tell if she was. And I suppose, I was a little bitter.

“That was her, my first kiss” I told my girlfriend as we dallied behind her friends.

“That was her?” she asked, our entwined hands swinging between us.

“Yup,” I said, “And I think she’s still pretending.”

My blonde and her brunette hair splayed on the carpet beneath us. I pulled away, her brown eyes opening and the indents by her mouth dipping. Her dimples came out of hiding into a smile, as I was staring back at her flustered. Already missing my hands touching the dark hair that I had envied for so long, I watched from across classrooms as she casually threaded her fingers through it. I was drawn by an attraction I could not understand, wishing to replace the touch of her hands with mine.

We were suddenly back to friends as she laughed, her perfect teeth breaking through her cracked lips, and the mole by her mouth that I always noticed rising. I smiled back, my brain shifting into gear just as the moment ended. I had missed my opportunity, it was clear that she had moved on but I had not. I held onto her arm in the nest of blankets, and looked down at her face for meaning, hoping that my reading was wrong.

Wait, I wanted to say. What now?

I released as she stood to see if the others were up, her long frizzing by her temples and her shorts bunched high around her hips. She walked out of the door, and I watched the carpet indent fresh on her thigh disappear from view.

Amelie Minneapolis, MN