It was a particularly chilly November day when I kissed my best friend.
Wait let me back up a bit.
My name is Tabitha. I get average grades, I play trumpet in the marching band, I have a secret stash of Pixy Stix in my sock drawer, and I'm hopelessly in love with my childhood friend Summer.
The two of us met when we were just five years old. I still remember it like it was yesterday.
~It was Page 1 of my journal~
"Hey, look out!"
I heard those three simple words shouted my way. As I turned to look at the source of the sound, I was greeted by something large and orange ramming directly into my face.
It was a basketball and the impact sent me sprawling to the ground.
I sat up and immediately started crying. I was a pretty big crybaby back then, but for once I had a pretty good reason. It hurt like hell.
"Oh jeez!" A small voice above me exclaimed. "Why didn't you dodge?"
"Why didn't I... huh? How was I supposed to?" I grumbled angrily as I glared up at the voice. The action caused a fresh wave of pain to shoot through my nose.
"Oh crap. You're bleeding!" The kid knelt down and immediately shoved their sleeve against my nose.
"Ahhh! What are you doing!?" I squealed. I tried to get away but they were clearly stronger than me. I squinted through the pain to see it was a little girl about the same age as me. She had short dusty blonde hair and gray eyes. I momentarily found myself staring directly into those eyes. I suddenly couldn't think properly and I had no idea why.
"Hold still, dummy! I'm trying to help!" She pinched my nose with her sleeve. My nostrils were filled with a mixture of her scent and my own blood. Her shirt was a bit sweaty and musty. Strangely I didn't completely hate it.
"Y-You're going to get blood all over your shirt!" I whined, my voice sounding weird since she was holding my nose so tightly.
"Huh? Ah who cares? It wouldn't be the first time. And I don't even like this shirt!"
"What? Do you always go around throwing basketballs at people? Ow!" She pinched my nose harder, either to better stop the bleeding or just to get me to shut up. I glared at her.
"It's not my fault! You shouldn't have been standing there!"
"Hmph!"
"Don't you 'Hmph!' me!" She moved a bit closer to get a better angle on my nose. She was sitting so close now I could see the freckles under her eyes. My heart began to beat rapidly in my chest and my cheeks started to burn. I had never felt this way before. It was actually a little scary.
We sat like that for a good five or ten minutes before my nose finally stopped bleeding. When she pulled away from me I felt both relieved and oddly disappointed. The girl then chuckled and nudged me playfully.
"So... what's your name? Do you live around here?" She asked. I watched her stand up and retrieve her basketball.
"Um... I'm Tabitha. We just moved here..." I pointed towards my new house, which was only about a block away.
"Oh! Cool! I'm Summer." She tossed the ball in the air and caught it, a little clumsily. "Do you play?"
"Huh? Oh.. no. I don't really like sports..." I said sheepishly.
"What? Laaamee. Come on, it'll be fun!" Before I could say or do anything, she was pulling me to my feet. At the time I really couldn't understand why, but I really wanted to keep spending more time with her. So I reluctantly followed her back to the basketball court.
And that was how I met Summer and quite literally fell in love with her.
~~~
Ever since that day I kept a journal. This little brown book was my bible. I wrote down everything we did together. Every detail about her that I learned over the years. Every feeling I got when I was with her. I even wrote my wishes for a future with her. A whole slew of things I planned to do with her. This tome was my prized possession.
That was why I was freaking out when I lost it on that cold November day.
"Where is it!?" I shouted as I ruffled through my locker frantically.
"Tabby what are you freaking out for?" came my favorite sound in the world directly behind me. I tried to turn around, a little too quickly, and smacked my head on the locker door.
"Ow... Summer, don't scare me like that!"
"What? You're the one being loud as hell! What's got you so worked up?"
"My journal! It's missing!" I exclaimed, finally looking up at her. I was momentarily taken aback. She was just standing there with her usual cocky expression. She wore a blue jersey and her beautiful blonde hair was cut short. Oh she must've gotten a haircut yesterday. I'll have to write that down later.
It was a pretty normal sight, but damn.. why does she have to look so hot in that jersey? I couldn't help but blush a little, so I looked away quickly.
"Oh, that dusty old thing? Why do you still keep that?" She asked, scratching her head in confusion. "Why not just use your phone?"
"You're kidding right? It's so hard to type on that thing! You have to press the same key like 3 times for one letter!" I shook my head. "That'd take forever. Besides... my journal is special."
"That special huh?" She studied me for a moment. Those wonderful gray eyes were trained directly on my face. It made my stomach do a kickflip. Finally, mercilessly, she shrugged and grinned. "Alright, I'll help you look for it."
"You will? Oh thank you, Summer!" I jumped up and pulled her into a tight hug. God I loved hugging her... Oh my... I think her muscles were a little bigger than last time. I'll have to document that too.
"Heh..." She chuckled nervously and pulled back. "A-Alright... so um... where'd you have it last?"
I reluctantly let go of her and thought for a moment. "Uh... I could've sworn I had it this morning. Do you remember seeing me with it?"
"I.. think so?" She crossed her arms in thought. Summer always had the cutest expressions when she was concentrating. I liked the way she chewed on her bottom lip. I wondered what it'd feel like to just lean in and...
Summer snapped her fingers which brought me back to reality. "Yeah! You definitely had it on the way to school. You were looking at it when we met up, remember?"
"Oh yeah. You snuck up on me there too!" I growled and jabbed a finger at her shoulder.
"What? No I didn't! It's not my fault you had your back turned!"
I had been checking my notes, making sure I hadn't forgotten any important events in Summer's life for that week. We always met up in the same spot before walking to school together. I was so distracted that I didn't hear her walk up behind me. It scared the hell out of me, mainly because she almost saw into my journal. I had to be more careful.
"Maybe you dropped it on the way here? Let's go retrace your steps." Summer said confidently and started walking towards the exit. I was momentarily distracted by the sight of her walking away. It wasn't fair how she could look great at every angle.
I shook my swooning self back to reality and hurried after her. "Hey! Wait for me, dummy!"