Member-only story
At Twelve, I Saw Two Girls Kissing
Fifteen years later I remembered the scene again and what one of the girls had said
Twelve years old. There I was in my one-size-too-big burgundy blazer, rushing up the staircase, skipping two steps at a time, clutching the school bag strap with one hand, the other hand sliding up the cement balustrade, on my mind, the image of hot lunch waiting on the dining table, mouth already watering thinking of my mother’s home-cooked pickle on my tongue, when on the second-floor landing I stopped.
I had seen something.
I descended slowly and standing on the edge of the last step, holding the balustrade, peered on the left, down the long corridor. At the end of the corridor was sitting someone.
Brown ponytail-hair girl whom I figured at once — the senior girl from my school whom I knew. Next to her another girl. My senses perked up. It was the way they were sitting, incriminatingly close.
Those were the pre-internet days of the nineties and even small things could induce great shock. But this wasn’t a small thing.
As I stood transfixed, and saw the lips brushing lips, tongue licking tongue, my feet froze, my heart galloped, and in that state of shock, my shoes slipped over the edge of the step, my bag swung around…
