By

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I was fourteen, I think, when my sister had this brilliant idea to tour Europe in five days. I was against the idea from the very beginning, but it wasn't like I could do anything.

We signed up with a tour group that would take us around the whole place—Italy, Belgium, France, Switzerland—within a week and we'd see the sights and explore and do things and just be tourists, in general. I hated tourists and I hated that I was going to be a tourist and it was just awful, really.

We landed in Paris, first, and the tour group met at some hotel. Most of them were all middle-aged parents on vacation and the only person anywhere near my age was this girl. You can already see where this is going, ha. She was maybe a year older than me, maybe two. She looked nothing like me. Blonde hair, green eyes, freckles all over her face, and a smile to die for.

So, I try to chat her up. Try and make some friends, you know. She chats me up, too. We took to each other like ducks to water. We made fun of our family, and we'd frequently wander off, holding hands so we wouldn't get lost. I didn't think much of it, at the time. Only that my heart felt like it was going to burst every time she held my hand, that I could feel myself getting lighter whenever she laughed at what I had to say.

Apparently, the tour group was going to split up or something. We were going to go on separate tours or something, but I didn't really care, not until I found that—whoopsie!—she was going to go with the other group.

I panicked. I had no idea what to do. As a tour group, we had one last day together, and we were supposed to go to the Louvre. See the Mona Lisa, some sculptures, admire artifacts—the whole shebang. I didn't care, really. My head was all in a haze.

But the girl must've felt the same way because she took my hand and she led me into some empty section of the museum and she told me how much she was going to miss me and she really wanted to stay in touch with me and she kissed me.

I was shocked. I was also oddly touched. And I didn't really realize until much later that I never really felt like this around boys.

So I kissed her back.

We didn't really have a full make out session or anything, but we kissed a little. It was awesome. When she left, she hugged me so hard I thought I was going to choke and I made her promise that we'd stay in touch.

Except, we didn't. I don't really mind, I guess. I think of her, sometimes, and wondered what would've happened if we never met.

But hey, I'm gay so it's okay.