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A lot of truth or dare gets played while they wait to be rescued. It’s a bit childish, and doing dares probably isn’t the safest right now, but they’ve quickly run out of entertainment and Van only knows so many tv shows and movies.
So they play truth or dare. Endlessly, for hours, around their firepit and in the cabin, even in the attic as time passes. Of course other games get played as well, would you rather is never a loss, never have I ever comes up a few times, but they always go back to truth or dare. It’s just simple, and it brings them closer, and always gives them a chance to laugh and tease each other.
It’s during one of these truth or dare sessions that it happens.
Eventually as the group of prospective victims grows smaller, Misty turns her eyes to Shauna, and says the dreaded words, “Shauna, truth or dare?”
Shauna had been trying to avoid being picked, hiding behind Jackie in the most natural way she could possibly manage, but apparently it hadn’t worked this time. Misty had it out for her. “Truth,” Shauna says, reluctantly, because she never does dare, but she doesn’t really love truth either.
Misty thinks for a second, her face constricting in the way it does whenever she tries to say the right thing, before, “who was your first kiss?”
It wasn’t the question Shauna had been expecting, and it seems everyone else had been looking for something juicier. Other questions certainly had been a bit more revealing, but Shauna would be glad it wasn’t too revealing if the question had an easy answer for her.
The first person that graces her mind is Jackie.
The summer before freshman year, neither of them had had their first kiss. Jackie had complained profusely, feeling truly behind, she had ranted about how even Laura Lee had kissed someone, and Shauna just provided a shoulder to cry on, until Jackie had an idea that Shauna swears will haunt her till the end of time.
“We should kiss,” she had said, “just like to practice, just so we know what we’re doing in high school, and we’re not as nervous and stuff.”
Shauna had looked at her, wondered if she was joking, examined the dead serious look on Jackie’s face, and realized she wasn’t. And what was Shauna going to do? She couldn’t say no to Jackie, she’d never been able to. “Okay,” Shauna said.
She just closed her eyes, and let Jackie take the lead.
Shauna remembers every second. She remembers the moment when she realized Jackie was close to her, the sweet smell of her vanilla perfume, the feeling of her breath against Shauna’s lips. She remembers the taste of Jackie’s strawberry lip gloss that she still wears to this day, even if she’s a little embarrassed about it.
Shauna tries not to remember how much she loved it.
She doesn’t think that’s the answer Misty wants, nor does she think Jackie counts it. It had been practice after all, a trial run for boys and everything that would come in high school. Shauna’s never heard the story Jackie tells of her first kiss, but she’s sure it’s Jeff, about their first date, about how he’d kissed her on the porch after he’d dropped her off. Shauna had heard the story the night of, when Jackie squealed it to her on the phone. Shauna knows that’s how Jackie tells her first kiss story.
So, Shauna says the next best thing, the person who apparently counted . “Sam Warner, in tenth grade at some party after the boys soccer team lost states.”
She remembers that kiss distinctly less well. If she thinks really hard, she remembers the smell of his overbearing cologne, the feeling of teenagers dancing all around them, the tipsy feeling in her head and the taste of liquor on his breath.
She tries not to remember the part she knows she recalls the best. The feeling of Jackie’s eyes from across the room, watching her while she finally achieved that big first kiss, months after Jackie had.
The answer doesn’t stir much drama, and Shauna uses her turn to get Tai to shovel snow down Van’s shirt, which is far more entertaining than the story of her first kiss. The only thing that differs is a cold energy that comes from Jackie, the slight space that’s been carved between the two of them that didn’t exist before. Shauna doesn’t know what her problem is, what ticked her off, but it’s the only thing she can focus on for the rest of the night. She doesn’t think she absorbs any of the truths or dares after that.
When they settle in bed together later, the charged space remains between them. Shauna doesn’t even bother trying to sleep, not when she knows she’s distracted by the feeling, not when she has a very logical hunch that now that they’re relatively alone, Jackie might start talking about whatever is bugging her. She’s never really been silent about her problems, Shauna can’t deny it’s one of the things she likes most about her. One thing she wishes she could emulate.
Sure enough, Jackie lets out a dramatic sigh so loud Shauna worries it might wake Tai. She waits for a second, happy when it doesn’t, and turns onto her side to meet Jackie’s eyes. In the light of the moon, Shauna can see Jackie’s tight frown, and the conflicted look in her eyes. Shauna hates that she has no idea what’s causing this. Jackie doesn’t give her long to wonder. “Do you really not think of me as your first kiss?” she asks, her voice twisted with insecurity, with hurt.
For a moment, Shauna has no words. Never in a million years would she have thought this was what Jackie was upset about, she’d said what she said because she didn’t think Jackie thought of her as her first kiss. She thought Jackie might be embarrassed or… upset if Shauna had shared that secret. Shauna looks at her, trying to discern the right thing to say, wondering how Jackie still has the ability to surprise her after so many years. “Honestly,” Shauna says, with a deep breath, “I thought you didn’t count me as your first kiss.”
“What?” Jackie says almost immediately, like the thought had never crossed her mind, that Shauna wasn’t her first kiss.
Jackie reaches across the gap between them, grabbing at Shauna’s hand, inching that much closer. Shauna tries not to think about how Jackie’s warm breath so close to her face reminds her of that very day. “Shauna,” Jackie says, squeezing her hand, “I have always considered you my first kiss. I wanted you to be my first kiss, because I knew I’d never regret it. I wanted my first kiss to be with someone I loved, and I knew there was no one I’d ever love more than you. I know I said all that dumb stuff about practicing and getting rid of nerves and everything, but I just… I wanted it to be you.”
“Oh,” Shauna says, a sense of peace curling into her stomach.
It feels like Jackie was meant to say something like that, when they were this close again for the first time in years. It gives Shauna a boldness she doesn’t think she would’ve had any other time. “Maybe…” she says, trying to find the courage, “maybe you don’t just have to be my first kiss.”
Jackie’s smile is so radiant, even in the dark. “Shauna Shipman,” she says, “I thought you’d never ask.”
Then she leans in, not giving Shauna a second to regret it.
And of course, she doesn’t. She never could, just like she didn’t that summer before anything else got in the way of them. It feels just as miraculously right as that day too. It has Shauna wondering if maybe Jackie would be the last person she kissed too. She knows it’s crazy, they’re teenagers, in the middle of the wilderness, just hoping not to die, but Shauna feels like everything is falling right into place. Like her whole future is right here in this kiss, and somehow, it still tastes like strawberry lip gloss.