Once Forbidden, Twice Shy

by Carrie Aarons

The night of my college graduation party, he found me in my room and confessed that kissing me on the night of my high school graduation party had been the best and worst decision of his entire life. Because he hadn’t stopped thinking about me since because I was his best friend’s sister. Because for four years, he compared every other girl to me, just like he had when he was still in high school and couldn’t shake his feelings for me. Even though I’d been heartbroken at eighteen after he hadn’t called or followed up in any way after that kiss, I let him kiss me again. I was twenty-two, older and much wiser when it came to boys. Didn’t mean I also hadn’t compared every guy I dated or hooked up with in college to Jack because, of course, I did. I’d been doing it almost my entire life. I let him kiss me, strip off my clothes, and lay me down on the bed. I let him make love to me in the sweetest, sexiest, most intimate way a man ever had. That was the moment, or so I thought, that he’d fall in love with me despite the risk of pissing off his best friend.