The Truth About You

The First

-*- Holly -*-

-//- ONE WEEK BEFORE FRESHMAN YEAR -//-

For my fourteenth birthday, my parents decided I could have a semi-supervised party. Basically, my friends and I were allowed to be in the basement without them. However, they were making unscheduled sporadic pop-up visits to make sure no funny business was afoot.

As my mom made her way back up the stairs Christine gave the signal that we had decided on for the all-clear. We all gathered back around into the circle on the floor to pick up on the game of truth or dare we had paused when we heard the door open.

"Okay, my turn!" Jeffrey Thorne announced. "Dale, truth or dare?"

"Seriously?" he scoffed, "dare."

"Alright," said Jeffrey proudly. "I dare you to lick the banister."

Dale glared at him, but like the bull-headed guy he is he stood up and marched over to the basement stairwell. Without hesitation, Dale stuck out his tongue and licked the railing. A chorus of ew's rang out and Dale made his way to the refreshment table and downed an entire bottle of Pepsi.

He put the cap back on the bottle and an evil glint flickered through his eyes. He scanned the room until his eyes landed on me. uh oh.

"Holly, truth or dare," he said, "and don't pussy out this time."

"Fine," I said with a sigh, "dare."

Dale tossed the bottle in the air then caught it and said, "I dare you to do seven minutes in heaven with whoever this bottle lands on."

Before I could protest, he laid the bottle in the middle of the circle and spun it. I held my breath as it rotated several times then stopped. My eyes followed the invisible line that lead up to my partner.

Hunter.

A chorus of noise drowned out my rapidly beating heart. Christine nudged me to stand as Hunter stood too. His face was expressionless as he held his hand out for me to grab then gently tugged it leading me towards the closet.

I swear I saw Dale wink at Hunter, but it must have been in my head.

When the door clicked shut behind us, I didn't grab for the string to pull on the light. I didn't want Hunter to see my blazing red cheeks. The noise from the other side died down as if our friends were listening in.

Light filtered in from under the door just enough that I could make out Hunter's face, but I couldn't see his expression. The air was tense.

"Hunter, you don't have to do this," I said quietly fidgeting with my sleeve nervously.

"Hey, Holly."

"Hmm?"

"Shut up."

I wasn't expecting what happened next. I'd dreamed of it sure, but never did I believe Hunter would actually kiss me. It had only gotten worse since that almost moment a few months ago. Hunter had acted like nothing happened, so I never brought it up. I didn't want to make our friendship awkward.

The kiss was gentle at first as if he was testing the waters. When I didn't pull away, he took it as a sign to keep going. I felt Hunter's hands slide up my arms to my neck and gently guide my head to a slight tilt. As if he knew I needed the assistance because this was my first kiss.

Who the heck am I kidding? Of course he knew that. I tell him everything.

I gasped quietly as he slowly pulled away and pressed his forehead against mine.

"Holly," he said quietly, "I..."

The door to the closet flew open and light flooded in as Hunter was ripped away from me.