A Promise to my Stepbrother

C
opyright
© 2016 by Anne Burroughs

All rights reserved.

N
o part
of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

P
ublished
by Black Velvet Press

T
he sun was going down
, so the light was dim when I first kissed my stepbrother Max—not just kissed him but
really
kissed him. We were both thirteen years old, and what was icky and gross a year before had somehow become something that our friends were bragging about at school. Kissing a boy meant you were
cool
.

I had to admit that my feelings toward Max were changing, too. As we hit puberty, my best friend in the whole world became more than that, and I had trouble making sense of my emotions and feelings. In the space of a year we went from strangers to best friends to siblings to… what?

We were in our secret place, a large bush with thick leaves at the edge of the small park near the woods behind our house. We discovered it one Saturday while hiding from Billy Orton, the local bully. It was shaped like a dome, and that’s what we called it—the Dome. When Max and I crawled in under the canopy of green, we were hidden from the world. We cut out some of the interior branches, so while it looked like thick vegetation on the outside, it actually had room for Max and I to stretch out and relax without being poked by branches.

We spent countless hours in our hideout, sometimes reading, sometimes playing card games, but most of the time we just talked. We talked about everything. Sports, TV, movies, and even the bigger things like religion and love. Ever since we met each other two years before, we were inseparable.

Neither of us had siblings, and we didn’t know what it was like to be a brother or sister. So when my mom married Bruce, and they both started introducing us as brother and sister we loved it. Max was not only my best friend, he was my
brother
. It was a connection that was deeper than friendship.

Our trust was total, and as we faced challenges in school, at home, or with friends we would retreat to our secret place and talk about it. I loved Max, and I knew he loved me. It wasn’t until we kissed, however, that I became confused about what love means. It scared me.

“So McKayla was describing kissing Wade. She said it was nice.” I looked at Max. The moment I said the words I knew that I wanted to kiss him the way that McKayla said she kissed Wade. Max was so cute, and I knew I could trust him with my curiosity. But while I was telling myself that it was just curiosity the stirrings of something else made my stomach flutter.

“She’s just saying that to sound cool.”

“No she’s not. You’ve seen them. They definitely kiss all the time.”

“Not the kissing, the nice part. Do you really think it’s nice?” Max stared at me through the deepening shadows of the branches and leaves. He was always analytical, questioning everything.

“I don’t know. It seems like it would be… soft.” By now I was staring at Max’s face and lips. All I wanted to do at that point was kiss them. It actually seemed like it would be nice.

He looked down. “Should we try it?” My heart leapt, but I was suddenly so nervous that my hands were shaking. I dropped them between my legs.

“Well, it would be good to at least know what it feels like.”

“For science!” Max looked up, smiling broadly. He then added, “We can’t tell Mom or Dad!”

“Of course not. Are you crazy? Besides, I bet it’s kind of gross,” I said, lowering expectations even as I could barely move out of anticipation. Why did I want to kiss him so badly? We were already the bestest of friends.

“Probably.” He shuffled a little closer to me. “So we may as well get this over with.” Despite his openness to us kissing I was nervous that he didn’t feel the same way about it as I did. He wasn’t shaking that I could tell, and he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about it. Maybe he wasn’t feeling what I was feeling? And with that thought I was suddenly worried that kissing him was a bad idea. What if it made things uncomfortable for us? He mentioned Mom and Dad. Was he worried about that? What if it changed our wonderful relationship?

He leaned forward with the precision of a Mythbusters experiment. He took my arms in his hands for support, which despite my nervousness made me tingle with excitement, and then leaned toward my face. It was so sudden I couldn’t stop him.

Our lips met, and all my senses except touch disappeared. I could feel his soft lips against mine, and it was like time had stopped. I pressed forward and felt him open his lips slightly and then close them. It was amazing. Was that instinct? How did he know to do that? I did the same thing to him, and I felt his hand on my cheek.

I was warm all over and feelings that I had saved for special moments when alone suddenly surged forward. This felt a little
too
good, and that thought made me think of Max. He was not brash and carefree like me. He was the type to have immediate regrets. I had seen it again and again. He would say,
What did I do? I’m your brother. That wasn’t right.

Max opened his mouth slightly, and I felt his tongue touch my lips. I pulled away, my fear defeating my desire. I wanted to French kiss him, but I was afraid of how he would react. I was panting, but I didn’t know whether it was because I was out of breath or because my body was overheating. I slid my hair behind my ears and looked over at Max. He looked devastated.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“This— This is just a bit too much.” He lowered his head, and I could see that I had betrayed him. Me, his best friend. The one whom he could trust with every secret. I was even the wild one. All that, and I couldn’t trust him to see what a French kiss was like. I felt miserable.

“Okay,” he replied, his voice almost a whisper.

I grabbed his arm. “Look, Max. I’m just kind of thinking a French kiss is maybe going too fast.” That made him look even more depressed. “Hey!” I said brightly. He looked up at me. “We wanted to see what kissing was like, right?” He nodded. “We did that.” I looked him in the eyes. “And I loved it!” He smiled a bit. “So how about this: If we get to be seniors in high school, and we still haven’t French kissed someone, we’ll French kiss each other.” Max looked at me but didn’t say anything. “For science!” I added.

He smiled. “You promise?”

“I promise.” I slid my forefinger across my chest, crossing my heart. “If we are both seniors and haven’t had some slut or douchebag stick their tongue in our mouths, we’ll teach each other this French kissing thing.”

“You make it sound kind of dirty.”

I gave him my best “are you kidding” look. “Two words: McKayla and Wade.”

“Good point!” He laughed.

We spent the rest of the night talking about our slutty and douchebaggy classmates. But even as we made fun of our classmates who were caught French kissing or feeling up our other classmates, I couldn’t stop thinking of Max. Thinking of his kiss still made me tingle. When did he become so cute? And he was tall, too. When did that happen?

In the end, as the days faded into the past, I was glad that we stopped when we did. The more I thought about that night, the more I realized that Max’s disappointment was over the failed experiment and not any kind of desire to kiss me. He thought of us as brother and sister, after all. I had nothing to compare him with, but I just
knew
he was a fantastic kisser. In fact, I started to think of him in ways that I shouldn’t have.

The fact that we were brother and sister made me feel guilty, as my soft lips kiss clearly wasn’t the same as his Mythbusters kiss. Max had the strength of character to be above the base thoughts that filled my mind about him. In the end, I doubted he saw me as anything more than his best friend, and I would never do anything to threaten that, because he was also my best friend.

So I kissed pillows and called them Max. It was the best I could hope for.