* * *
A year prior, Mitchell and Charlie sat next to one another at a party that Erin Burkower was throwing while her parents were out. Every classmate was invited, including the two outcasts Mitchell and Charlie were just becoming. They were the only two in the room, however, that were not completely trashed. Mitchell had been on a nice buzz for the better part of an hour, while Charlie was still perfectly sober, because one of them needed to drive.
In their inebriation, the sophomore class of Adkins High elected to play a game of spin-the-bottle, in which everyone seemed more than happy to participate. The rules were simple: boys on kissed girls, and girls only kissed boys. Erin spun her bottle, which landed on Aaron Wilcox. Though they didn’t know it yet, it would be the beginning of a relationship that would span at least into the next year. Soon it was Mitchell’s turn to spin the bottle, which made him incredibly nervous considering he barely knew any of the girls in his class. He’d never kissed a girl he didn’t know; and really had only kissed on in the past at all. It was his first girlfriend, whom he dated freshman year for roughly one month. Mitchell was not confident in anything about the game, from his kissing ability to his liquor-coated breath.
The bottle spun quickly, and then came to a slow, steady stop. Mitchell’s eyes followed the neck of the bottle right back next to him. He looked up at Charlie—who had only been out of the closet for a month or so at the time—and let out a roar of laughter. Charlie could not help it, either. He laughed, as well.
“Spin again!” Erin yelled.
“Yeah! No fag kisses!” Aaron chastised.
“Don’t call him a fag, asshole,” Mitchell spat back at the two most deplorable human beings he’d ever encountered.
“Oh, maybe he wants to kiss his boyfriend,” Erin mocked.
“Maybe I do!” Mitchell shouted back, a unified gasp echoing off the walls in the room. Mitchell turned his attention back to Charlie, who sat there smiling at him like a kid who’d just found his presents under the Christmas tree.
“Do you?” Charlie asked, his teeth clenching his bottom lip.
“Yeah,” Mitchell chuckled, his face turning red, as he looked away.
Charlie took his hand and lifted Mitchell’s gaze back to him so that they could look in one another’s eyes.
“Show me.”
Thus, if for nothing more than to agitate everyone else in the room, Mitchell leaned forward and kissed Charlie right on his lips for what felt like a very long time. The feeling in his stomach wouldn’t return to him again for another year, ‘til he kissed Charlie again in ICU. Still, Mitchell could sometimes conjure up fragments of it—shards of something he didn’t even know he missed.