k-i-s-s-i-n-g

LINK: k-i-s-s-i-n-g

Have you ever had a health scare?

Prompt created by yours truly. 
Feel free to use any prompts for September that I post and/or tag me.
I’d love to read your responses

I thought I was going to die from AIDS…

I was ten years old when I had my first kiss with a boy I had a crush on. Benny. He was my best friend’s older brother.

Benny was about fourteen or fifteen at the time, a few years older than me. Early on, he made it clear that he liked me, and I remember feeling oddly flattered by the attention. Benny was older and good looking, and, according to the other girls at church, a hot commodity. Yet, despite all the girls fawning over him, he was looking at me like I was a snack.

One night, while I slept over at Ally’s house, her brother snuck into her room where we were sleeping. He opened the door slightly, watched me for a few seconds before crawling over to where I was lying. He poked me on the side to see if I was awake. I opened my eyes, looked over at him, and mouthed, “What?” He motioned with his hand to follow him into his room.

Benny sat me at the edge of the bed while he examined me. He inquired if I’ve ever kissed anyone before. I shook my head and then he asked me if I wanted to kiss him. I shrugged my shoulders and told him, “Okay”. I leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. He grinned from ear to ear. 

Then he asked me if I wanted to kiss him on the lips. I thought it was going to be no big deal, so I nodded my head. Again, I leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on his lips. 

He looked into my eyes and asked me if he could kiss my lips. I responded, “Okay” since that was basically what we just did. I guess he wanted another kiss? This time, he grabbed my face and passionately kissed me on my lips, pushing his tongue through my closed lips. At that moment, my chinky eyes turned as big as saucers because I did not know what was going on. I froze. E-U.  Why did he stick is slimy ass tongue into my mouth? He noticed that I was uncomfortable and that I had a grimace on my face. 

He quickly apologized and asked me not to tell Ally, my parents, or anyone at church. I nodded. He put his pinky finger out towards me.I knew what he was asking for, a pinky promise – symbolic gesture that signifies trust and commitment between us. I stuck out my pinky and intertwined it with his, at that moment a silent vow was exchanged. To seal the deal, we pressed our thumbs together. That small gesture made us believe that this was now an unbreakable promise.

He quietly led me back to Ally’s room in the dark before anyone in the house woke up. It felt like I was in a covert mission as I tried to control my breathing and not make any noise while going up the stairs. 

When I went to lie down in between the blankets, I stared out into the darkness to process what happened. Part of me was euphoric that I had my first kiss while the other side of me felt extremely guilty because this was my best friend’s brother. Everything was so secretive… and it felt very wrong.

When I returned home, I felt like my hormones were raging and I had a immense internal stress that I put upon myself… to the point where I developed three canker sores in my mouth for the first time. I was only ten, I had no business getting these whatsoever, despite having a stressful home life with my parents. Every time I drank or ate something, I felt sharp pain in my mouth and I immediately thought that I was dying—that I contracted AIDS from kissing Benny. All I could do was blame myself for what happened and because I made that solemn oath to him, I couldn’t tell anyone about what happened. I began to spiral. Round and round I went. I was crashing out. Hard.

By catastrophizing the whole incident, I only made things worse for myself. I couldn’t sleep nor could I eat. I was a ball of stress. I lived in that state of mind that for nearly two weeks until the canker sores faded away and at my annual physical, the doctor declared me healthy… aside from my usual anemia.