Plastered Kisses (Roses)

Rose

         The playground looms before her, a girl taller than most her age and she soaks in the sunlight like she has a Vitamin D deficiency. Her hair is long and curly, brown too, the same color as her mother's. The girls are reenacting last night episode of Saved by the Bell, and giggling at the boys who show their strength on the tether ball courts. They aren't playing it right, stepping over boundaries and making up rules as they go, but they are having fun. There are older kids, jumping off the giant red rocket, pretending there are the baddest ones in this whole yard. The older girls are sitting in the grass under the shady trees by the swings, doodling in notebooks about their big-kid lives.
                         The girl's red cheeks match her brown hair even if she's all awkward looking for being tall. Her best guy friend is playing tag, with all the other boys who had gotten bored with four-square and tether ball. He had been “tagged” or otherwise known as rudely pushed, scrapping his hands and knees. She had run over and pushed the older boy who had did it, and looked towards her fallen comrade. He had gotten up, shaking his blond haired head, and smiled. He kissed the roses sprouting on her cheek, and ran back to play tag. She hoped kisses always meant thank yous for pushing down a big bully.
                         The girl sprouted up, even taller, and as the years passed became the leader of the school, a fifth grader. Fifth graders got the best everything. They got the nicest teachers, except for Ms. Liz, the scaly lizard, who's own science experiment made her hate children, they got the best seats at lunch by the windows. Fifth graders also got the shady grass under the swings, the red rocket and basketball courts at recess. They got more homework, and more drama to contend with. They had to worry about what to get their best friends for Christmas and who to pick for a valentine when February 14th came around. They had to worry about how they looked, which little kids they befriended, and how to embarrass their substitute math teacher. Fifth graders were the leaders of the school, yet only about 2 percent acted like it.
                         The girl's hair got longer and curlier from the perms her mother forced her to get. She hated the ill smelling liquid that some kid's could smell days after her mother performed the chemical operation. Her cheeks had grown paler, and her eyes a wilder, liquid blue. She didn't care about appearances, so the girl's didn't consider her a girl. If she sat by the swings only one girl talked to her, and that was because she was alone too. She insisted to be called Marilyn, even though that wasn't her real name. Her best guy friend, the one who was tagged, hung out with the two of them, everyday at recess.
                         He invited them to the rocket, and dared them to climb to the tippy top. Marilyn was scared, but the girl with the perm and pale cheeks with flecks of fire in them, climbed to the very top. She climbed so high, she could see the mean girls by the swings and the younger third graders by the castle and tether ball courts. She was so proud of herself. She thought she would be the boy's hero. His bright shinning star on top of the rocket ship. She looked down. And suddenly, became afraid of heights. She looked down and saw Marilyn cowering in his arms, afraid for her, but hugging the boy with such intensity. She may not have been mad if Marilyn hadn't told her how much she liked the boy. She may not have been mad if her best friend, the boy who she have done everything for, told her that he liked Marilyn back. At the top of the rocket, she watched with sad, blue crystal eyes, how he kissed her on the forehead. She jumped off the rocked, landing on her butt and walked away. She hoped kisses always meant being protected when someone was scared.
                       The girl grew like a weed from being a fifth grader to two years later being that pretty seventh grader. The roses in her cheeks faded completely when both of her best friends left her. Marilyn left in sixth with a shaky hug going into her parent's divorce like a scared little girl that she was. She left her with letters in a hurried hand, explaining the situation and the good times she said she'd never forget. She lied. When they saw each other again when they were sixteen, she acted like the tall awkward girl was someone she had never met. Her boy best friend, left at the end of sixth grade after rumors started to form about them being “boyfriend and girlfriend” She denied it until the day he left, that she never had feelings for him. He didn't bother to say his goodbyes, because he left in the summer and she didn't want to say goodbye to him. She spent her days with the roses sucked from her cheeks, her lips in a constant frown instead of a smile when she got an award for not missing a day of school, and her eyes the saddest ones for a seventh grader.
                         In eighth grade, a new boy moved to town. He was shy, which countered her outgoing attitude, and was an outcast in their lunch period. She made him talk, worked hard to become his friend, because in reality, she didn't want to be alone. It was weird at first, him talking about his pets, old friends, and past experiences. He talked when she was around, and after, he began to talk to other girls, which made it weirder for her because he wanted nothing more than friendship. He called her a cute, nickname and she called him one in return: Lukey-Bug. Throughout eighth grade year, she watched as Lukey-Bug got his heart crushed by the mean girls who now spent their time in the bathroom, rather than by the swings. She watched as one girl kissed him under the bleachers, at a soccer game. The rain poured down, soaking him with light, and soaking the silent observer with misery. The next day, he told her, claiming that he hoped kisses always tasted like rain drops, for they were the sweetest.
                       The girl grew up a little on the inside by Freshman year in high school. She colored her brown hair a light brown almost blond. She didn't smile much, for she gave up on reasons to smile. She still talked to Lukey-Bug who began treating her like dirt, but she took his attitude, telling herself the meaner the boy is the more that he likes her. She was wrong. He grew up too, and dated older girls, upperclassmen. Another boy, approached her, and somehow, saw the sadness she tried so hard to mask. He took her to the movies, and she was lost in a sea of his lies. But, she didn't find that out until the next year. He kissed her, her very first one on the lips, and told her soothing words. She felt her lips were about to crack, and moisturizer couldn't help them. She knew they weren't as plump and pink as the days of Saved by the Bell fantasies. She knew that those kisses didn't taste like bittersweet rain, but more like cotton candy. She had something sweet to write on the bathroom walls where others wrote about similar topics, yet she knew cotton candy was miserable if you didn't stop. She stopped. She broke it off before the third movie. It just wasn't meant to be.
                       Her cheeks, and skin were utterly pale by then, and she tried to find out which group of girls she belonged to. Turns out, she hated the ones she thought were her friends. She pretended dresses and dances in high school were like a fairytale ending she dreaded. When a boy didn't ask her to the dance, she told herself it was because the other girls were far prettier than she was. They had to be, she reasoned. They had pink lips and curvy hips, and wore Areopostle clothes, and just wasn't as weird as she. Lukey-Bug even told her these things, as casual as if he was talking about the weather. She believed the smooth contours of the mouth.
                         The year she was fourteen, she cut her hair shoulder length short like a super model she saw in a catalog. It looked horrible, blond and short making her paler than a ghost. She let the brown grow over the blond like weeds in a field of tulips. She had had a short relationship in the summer, when other girls were getting cars and college boyfriends, she got an awkward sixteen year old. They had kissed under fireworks on July 4th. July 9th, less than a week later when he got back from church camp, he broke up with her. It was a first because in the past, she usually broke up with guys, but even now, she didn't feel the heartbreak. She just felt empty. She felt angry when he told her how her kisses lacked to other girls. She still remained his friend. Cause that's what she wanted. Her cheeks seemed silken, her lips small, and her eyes the color of murky water. She knew kisses always meant comparison.
                       Fifteen rolls around and now there is new talk for those innocent ears to listen to. She hears talk of one night stands and of drugs, and late night parties. She hears most of it from Lukey-Bug, and a friend of his. This guy is taller than she, and the same age as her. In the beginning, she acts like he doesn't exist. But he does. And she falls hard. Flash, to a kiss between them, one of many, outside of a party, Friday night. She is thinking he is the one who will protect her. She believes his kisses mean thank yous. She thinks they mean protection when she became scared of being hurt. She thinks his kisses taste like all the good things rain and cotton candy brings. She thinks he gets her, and she gets him and his craziness. Too bad that was the last one. Before she heard that he was stringing her along like a rag doll for his own amusement.
                         Now, she's fifteen and a half. She's almost sixteen. She almost fell for another guy the other day. It was weird the way she took stock of her life when she saw him. The boy all those years ago, who first kissed her on the cheek as a sign of thanks. It was weird the way all those years had passed, and he still looked the same with his blond head of hair. She smiled at him, the first smile in ages. If she knew his first kiss would trigger so many years of kisses meaning too many things, if she knew the older you got, the weirder the relationships, the more meaning packed behind the inkling of a kiss. If she knew.. She would have wilted back in fifth grade. She thought back to how a kiss could just mean thank you or safety. But how, it evolves when you grow, from rain drops of jealousy, cotton candy sickness, and comparison of the pinkness in your lips. She could have sworn the other day when she laid eyes on him, he had also grew, knowing that kisses could mean goodbyes, could mean anger, could mean pain, and could mean sunshine as well. He had just passed her on the street, and she felt the roses blooming back in her cheeks, her lips flooding with color, her eyes lite up. But instead of risking another disappointment, they passed each other like nothing blossomed between them. The roses in her cheeks wilted, her lips began to crack and her eyes frowned. Who knew kisses always would mean everything.