Chapter Twelve

Why won’t you tell me? Come on, Benji! You gotta tell me, I ain’t telling anybody. I just want to feed this burgeoning curiosity at once! I am so so frustrated to know about it!”

“This is weird, Lily. Just you asking this from me, is already insane! Why can’t you just do it with someone else?! You’re even past the adolescent phase and you’re still whining about a peck on the mouth. It’s not like it can be a bother to you? Certainly, someone would be willing to do it for you. Maybe that Carl guy or whoever it is--”

“His name’s Chris.”

“Whatever. I’m not telling you anything. It’s too personal and I ain’t babbling out someone I’ve been intimate with.”

“You don’t have to tell me all the gory details and who’s who! Just share with me what you felt after it.”

“Damn it. I don’t even know how we ended up talking about this. A kiss is just a kiss, Lily. And even if I tell you all about it, you still won’t understand.”

“But nobody wants to tell me anything! I asked Jenny, Fred, mom, Erica and even William! But all that I got was Jenny’s annoying bragging with how many boys she already kissed. Everyone else avoided answering.”

Of course, no one would talk about it if she was the one asking. She would not only ask one question. Knowing Emily, she would definitely bombard series of inquiries that will tire anyone out of explanations and bring discomfort in the room. And yes, leave it to her sister Jenny bragging something that she already did. And while he mulled over this, a short but clear memory of his high school life with Jenny’s cute smile suddenly came to mind and Ben almost scoffed as he recalled it. It was something he cannot tell Emily at all. If Emily finds out that he was one of those kisses Jenny had in the past, he would surely never hear the end of it. So he kept himself shut until it all passes on.

“You’re still not going to tell me? How come you won’t tell me? We always share our secrets to one another! I always tell you my secrets!”

Secrets… Well, some things he still can’t quite stop from building up.

“Not all of them,” he blurts out.

“Well, of course. Not everything but it’s not like you can’t tell me this now!”

After a few more seconds, Ben knew she was still going to push it.

“Hush.” He abruptly tells her. And whatever that she was going to blurt out with that clever mouth of hers stopped midway before she even uttered a sound.

“Fine, I’ll tell you a bit of it,” he finally surrenders with a loud sigh. And in return, she grins at him like he was some kind of a hero.

“Kissing, for the basics of romance, is just naturally sweet and affectionate, Lily. I can’t really explain it the same way the books you’re reading tell you. But personally, I could say it’s something you can be truly addicted to if you really like a person so much.”

 “But how about the best kiss you’ve ever had? What made it special?”

The mere utterance of the word “best” caught Ben into a trance and summoned a brief glimpse of an old memory from a very long past in the early years of his consciousness. The nostalgic sensation of the wind breeze on his face that sunny noon of his childhood gave him a realistic rewind. Somewhere in the past, him and a little girl of his age who was smiling at him with that toothless grin, brought a jolting realization to him. It was not the best kiss he was expecting to recall but it made him blush and almost forget where he was at the moment until he finds himself speaking dumbly.

“Cute.”

“Cute? Just cute? How can a kiss be described as cute though?” Emily laughs at his short yet unexpected adjective.

But it was the only word he can describe it. That kiss… How come?

 His troubled mind gave him a bit of a loop and he could not understand why his heart is even reacting from it. It was not even something he had deliberately did in the past, and the mere knowledge of attraction was never there yet at that age at all. If he remembers it correctly, he must be around four years old then. It was certainly not even near the blooming phase of infatuation. The little girl just gave him a kiss on the cheek. The cheek, but it was all that he can recall as the “best”! Why?

Maybe because Emily was the one bringing it all up and somehow it stirred up the old little moment and be brought out of his subconsciousness. Maybe that’s why… But he can not still quite understand where the warming ache in his chest is coming from.

And it was not even painful, it was just… warm.

Ben was still in the bundle of anxieties when Emily brought him back from his dreamy state.

“Benji! What happened? Are you still there? Was that really too good and ‘cute’ for you to get lost in your memory?”

He blushed and turned away from her gaze. “It was not.”

“Oh, this is funny. Are you really blushing?! With just remembering it?! You must really liked that girl if that’s how you’re reacting from the mere reminder of the kiss! My gosh, Benji! You’ve grown!”

If she only knew.

“Stop it! It’s not like that.” But he still can’t keep himself calm. He can still feel the blood rushing on his cheeks.

“So was it really that good to be the best?”

Ben took his time to answer that question and breathes deeply. “I don’t know, to be honest. I guess...Maybe because I could still remember how it feels even when it already happened a long time ago.”

“A long time ago? You mean it was really that long ago? As in even before our high school years?”

“I’m not going to tell you when it happened. Just that, it happened in the past.”

“So you liked this girl.”

“Shut up.”

“Too bad she’s in the past now.”

Those words echoed to Ben’s ears. Too bad, it is.

“Bet she no longer remembers,” Emily teases and as her words register, Ben laughs bitterly. And without hesitation, he nods.

“I can’t blame her.” But it gave him a little pain in the gut.

If she only really knew. Ben thought to himself, she already forgot everything about it.

And thankfully, from that conclusion, Emily finally stopped her inquiries. Ben felt relieved because it was over yet he was still bothered by all of his realization. Thanks to Emily’s curiosity it left him a feeling of discomfort and anxiety. Because the memory was supposed to be buried deep from knowledge, but Ben somehow ended up thinking it until that night on his bed while he found himself still reminiscing about the memory of that kiss.

“I have to give you a reward,” the little girl tells him.

“Reward? What reward would you give me?” Ben anxiously asks. Then without even a warning, the pretty little girl leans closer to him and gave his cheek a quick peck.

“There,” the little girl says to him, “That’s a reward for good men like you, Benji. My mom does that to dad when he makes her happy. And I hope it makes you happy too.”

For that it was so new to him, Ben was confused for a moment because no one ever did that to him except his mom and dad before. But as he stared at the brown-eyed little girl in front of him, his smile widens. It was such a sweet gesture and he appreciated it, after all.

“Thanks, Lily,” he replies to her and tucks the hair on the side of her face back behind her ear, “It made me happy.”

How funny. Ben muses as he forced himself to sleep. He did not realize the mere effect of such first kiss was going to haunt him back until today. He did not even expect that it was something he would call his “best kiss”. 

Yet, he, for some reason, just did.