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ocean even though I know it’s nearby. It always seems to be a touristy thing to do, to go down to the waterfront, and I just never bothered. He told me he was kind of a tourist, though he’s been to Seattle before, and he loves coming here.
    He asked me about myself, and I told him all about swimming and how I used to love it but how it had gotten complicated recently, tied up with competition, so it just wasn’t fun anymore. I almost slipped up and told him about how Itried to make a pass at a boy on the swim team, but I stopped myself. It occurred to me that that maybe wasn’t appropriate first-date conversation.
    Anyway, we talked and talked, and he was just really nice. So much nicer than Tyler. Ada was right about that. And I couldn’t believe it, but he seemed really interested in me. No one has ever been that interested in me other than my mom. Mom always has to know every single little detail of my day, and I think she would dig into my brain to know every thought I have too, if she could. But she has her own reasons for that. It’s more about control than caring.
    So we were walking and talking about being tourists in our hometown, and I happened to mention that I’d never even been to the Space Needle. There was a class trip there when I was in first grade, but Mom kept me home that day because she didn’t see the point in me wasting time on something “nonacademic.” I’d always regretted it. I mean, it seems like a silly thing, but every time I see it, it’s just another reminder of how I’m never allowed to do anything for fun.
    And then Damon was like, “Let’s go.” I was like, what, to the Space Needle? He said yeah; he was getting hungry, and they have a restaurant up there. So he took me to dinner in the Space Needle! How cool is that? Wait, no, it gets better. Did you know that the restaurant spins around? So you can seeviews of the whole city while you eat dinner. Basically, it was the most perfect, most romantic thing ever.
    We walked around some more after dinner, and the moon was so pretty and the weather was just perfect, and we sat on a bench and just talked and talked. Or rather, I talked and talked. Damon was mostly listening. I started to feel really awkward about the fact that I was talking so much, so I shut up. I wanted to give him a chance to talk, but he didn’t. So I looked at him and he was looking at me and . . . This is a terrible analogy, but it was like a car crash, or how people talk about them, anyway. How time slows down and you see your life flash before your eyes. Because I just had this moment of, Oh my God, he’s going to kiss me , and then he did!
    It was sweet. Honestly, the only time I’ve kissed anyone before was in seventh grade at a birthday party, and it was awful, really awful. Really wet, and the boy was basically choking me with his tongue. I remember thinking at the time, I don’t ever want to do that again . But this wasn’t like that at all. He was really gentle and slow, and he just held me there like that until all I could think was that I wanted more. So I put my arms around his neck and pulled him closer.
    After a while I felt his hand on my knee. It shocked me. Literally. It felt like a shock of electricity, and I pulled away from him. He immediately pulled back.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said, and he looked really guilty. “I shouldn’t have done that. I can take you home now.”
    But I realized that wasn’t what I wanted at all. I didn’t want to leave and go back to my boring, awful, normal life. More than anything, I wanted to keep kissing Damon.
    So I said, “Don’t stop.” And I moved closer to him again and pulled him in for another kiss. We kissed for what felt like ages, and it was fantastic, but after a while this feeling came over me and I wanted more again. So I reached out and took his hand, which was nice but not quite