The Lesson
The night of my first real kiss was also the night of the worst fight I have ever had with my mother. I was a 16-year-old girl and considered myself pretty mature for my age. I did well at school, was good looking and had always been good at sports. I wouldn’t have called myself popular, but I had friends. Now that I think about it I was one of the luckier ones, unlucky however in love. I had had my eye on John Wilkinson forever, and my chance finally came when I spied him at the party that my best friend, Caroline, and I had finally gathered the courage to go to. The guy throwing the party lived in a red brick house in a privately owned close in San Francisco. His house was dark, and crowded, the light from the kitchen not quite reaching the corner of the garden where John stood. I was wearing my new vintage denim mini-skirt, my black jimmy choo kitten heels and a jimmy joolz t-shirt. My hair was straight and I new I looked good, but I was still petrified. Caroline gave me a wink of encouragement and pushed me out the kitchen into the garden. The next thing I new me and John, were talking, and soon we were the only ones left in the garden, in next to no time we were kissing and soon were walking hand in hand away from the party. I felt better than I had in my whole life. I felt as If I was seeing the whole world for the first time. I mean before John had just been this guy, ok a very nice guy with the most amazing deep blue eyes, a smile that could brighten you’re whole day and who it seemed was born to play basketball, but now he was sitting next to me in a park, picking me flowers and telling me about how he’d always liked me. Of course I lost track of time, and only when John finally walked me home did I realise that the sky had turned a tinge of pink, and that it was nearly dawn. That’s when the fight started, no sooner had I opened the gate when my mother was standing there hands on hips, her face contorted in anger. “Where have you been?” She screamed, her voice filled with rage, “ you are irresponsible, untrustworthy and immature”. I had never seen her like this before I guess all the worry, tiredness and the relief that her little girl was home safely caught up with her and she exploded at me. I was so shocked by her harsh reaction, after all I was home wasn’t I so what was the big deal, couldn’t she be happy that her only girl no longer had to cope with the shame of never having kissed a boy. I found myself screaming back at her, and once I was let into the house I ran upstairs, slammed my door shut and cried at the grand injustice that was my life.
