At the same time as Jon and Mikey's class was letting out in the middle school, Gina and Karyn were meeting up in the hallway of the high school. And with a giddy bounce, Gina wrapped her arms around Karyn and kissed her full on the lips, initiating a make-out session that, from her perspective, was years in the making. It felt warm and it felt right and Karyn was responding exactly in the way that Gina had hoped she would.
And right in that moment, a version of Jon who was younger than he'd been a day before, thinner than he'd been that morning, exiting his classroom in a My Little Pony T-shirt and a corduroy skirt, experienced a feeling of warmth and rightness that seemed to come out of nowhere, and which she didn't understand, just as she and Mikey were trying to squeeze out the classroom door at the same time. And without being fully aware of his own movements, he found himself kissing the boy on the cheek.
It wasn't for very long, but the moment that Jon's lips touched Mikey's skin, he felt the strange sensation of eating a chocolate. No, not quite eating, it wasn't like he tasted chocolate, or felt like he was chewing. It felt as though an entire, wrapped candy had just dropped itself down his throat and into his stomach.
It was almost ironic. When Gina had been a sixth grader, sitting on Karyn's lap, the younger girl had a sexual awakening when she had taken on Jon's attraction to Karyn as a result of the proximity. And now that Gina was the older one she acting on that very attraction that had originally been Jon's, but embracing it fully in a way that Jon never had. And Jon found his younger self going through its own sexual awakening as he took on Gina's raw need to make out in the hallway.
But, of course, the shy sixth grader only limited himself to a peck on the cheek, even if deep down he wanted to do more. It would have been embarrassing to do more.
Mikey, for his part, felt something awaken in himself as well. He'd never been kissed by a girl before. Well, Jon wasn't really a girl. But Mikey felt like he was being kissed by a girl, somehow. His cheeks flushed red and he took a step backwards towards the hallway wall, turning to look at Jon as he did. His mind raced looking for words to say, but they eventually landed on something that wasn't too bad.
"Do you want to sit with me in study hall?"
Now it was Jon's turn for his cheeks to flush red. And the two walked to the library hand-in-hand.
