it was during the last few weeks of my fall semester of my second year in college when i had my most memorable kiss.
in a scandalous turn of events, i had somehow ended up in a short relationship with a boy six years my senior with whom my roommate was infatuated; that did nothing for roommate relations at the time, but i was 19 and finally found myself in the crosshairs of a guy’s attention.
he invited me to play cards at his friends’ apartment which was in the same complex as mine, just in a different building across the courtyard. we walked over on the snow-compacted sidewalk in early december cold.
after a couple hours of cards, and after a couple of drinks, his friends said they had to call it a night, so we bundled up in our winter coats, said goodbye, and started back across the courtyard to my building.
i don’t remember if it was actually snowing or if there was just snow on the ground, but it was white on the ground and dark skies overhead, and the lampposts’ light pooled in small, glowing circles that lighted the path back.
we were both a little tipsy, slipping and sliding across the sidewalk, and, laughing in the punctuated dark, he leaned down from his 6’3″ frame and kissed me. it was warm, wet, and boozy, and the cold fled.