Tuesday, December 9th
9:09 P.M.
Fifteen minutes after the apoca-lips—although it felt more like fifteen years or fifteen seasons of Gossip Girl—Isaac pulled into the Blocks’ driveway, and Massie’s suspicion had solidified into fact. It was definitely over. Landon had not called or texted once. Not even to say he had Bean.
Massie’s stomach clenched, like she’d been kicked in the gut with a steel-toed stiletto. She’d never been this mortified, not even when Alicia had informed her that thong was nawt just another word for flip-flop. Within a matter of hours, it would be around the high school and the local old-age homes. Landon’s grandparents were obviously very tech-savvy. The next seventy years of her life would be plagued by this one horrible accident. She wondered how hard it was to get into witness—or in this case, kissness—protection and secure a new identity for herself.
Massie got out of the car, wiping the tears off her mascara-streaked cheeks. A warm yellow light was glowing from Claire’s bedroom window in the guesthouse. Massie felt a sudden overwhelming urge to run over there, knock on Claire’s window, and spill her guts about the kisstastrophe. Instead, she turned and trudged into her house.
The house was dark—her parents were still out—but for some reason the alarm system was down. She reactivated it, then just stood there breathing for a moment, thinking about how her anxiety cloud had just turned into a bluish-black tornado.
She ran up to her room, turned on the anxiety audiobook, and collapsed onto her white shag carpet.
“MAINTAIN PERSPECTIVE,” the voice told her. “THINGS ARE NEVER AS BAD AS THEY SEEM.”
Massie wondered if maybe, just maybe, her kiss wasn’t as bad as she thought. Maybe she had to maintain perspective, to find the good in her situation. Maybe her kiss was more similar to the famous kisses than she realized—it was, if nothing else, dramatic.
She reviewed her list mentally.
The Mys Kiss, in Spider-Man, for example, was similar because… well, Massie had been at sort of an awkward angle, which was kind of like how Spidey had been upside down. Although, it would have been more similar had Kirsten Dunst pulled Spidey’s face mask all the way down by accident during the kiss, knocking him off the wall and into a pile of cardboard crates.
The Risk Kiss in Twilight was similar because kissing in front of your crush’s grandparents was risky. Although the Risk Kiss would have been a little more similar if afterward Bella had actually died. Of embarrassment. The way Massie had.
The Diss Kiss at the VMAs was definitely similar insofar as only one of the participants in her kiss had actually been ready to kiss at that moment. Although the kisses would have been more similar if Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson had knocked foreheads and then he had run away screaming and fallen off the stage.
The Aqua-Bliss Kiss, truthfully, wasn’t similar to hers at awl, except for the fact that Massie had cried a lot afterward, so her face was just as wet as Rachel McAdams’s and Ryan Gosling’s faces after kissing in the rain.
The Hiss Kiss on Gossip Girl was similar because both kisses involved onlookers. The kiss would have been more similar, though, if when Serena kissed Nate at a party to make his cougar girlfriend jealous, it turned out that all of Nate’s family members and the family members of the cougar girlfriend were watching on video chat.
Oh gawd, who was she kidding? Her kiss belonged in a category all its own: the I’m Never Going to Get Over This Kiss. Oh gawd. The high-schoolers would laugh at her. The middle-schoolers would no longer look up to her. And the grade-schoolers would see her as a public service announcement for what nawt to do.
Massie’s iPhone buzzed loudly.
Landon?! Maybe he was telling her that he’d tucked Bean in for the night. Or that, after some thought, he’d decided he had liked the kiss and wanted to video all their kisses.
Frantically, she dumped her handbag on her bedspread. Out fell two Glossip Girl tubes, a case of peppermint Altoids, the ticket stub to Liaisons Diaboliques, a mascara-soaked tissue, and finally her iPhone. A text glowed on the screen.
Alicia: Ready to kiss and tell?
“Ugh!” Massie immediately powered down her phone and stuck it in her desk drawer. The only thing that could help now—short of a time machine—was sleep. She slipped into her lavender silk pajamas, then climbed onto her bed, and hid under the soft covers.
“Bean, is that you?” Massie called groggily an hour later, awaking to a light tickle on her leg.
“Arf?” Bean responded from her perch on her doggy bed, a clean three feet away from the tickle on Massie’s leg.
Confused, Massie sat up and snapped on her bedside light. She pulled back the purple duvet and—
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”