It’s always a bit awkward the first time, isn’t it? Like, you go over this moment in your head a thousand times over and then when it happens, well, it’s unremarkable, bit of a let down. Chances are it’s with a girl that you haven’t even talked to in decades, her face a memory by now. It’s just part of life.
Well, I wish I could forget mine, believe me. It’s been nearly ten years since this happened back in my childhood town, that place is a distant memory to me by now, I could only vaguely tell you the road I used to take from my home to school and back that I walked probably thousands of times. All the petty, nearly imaginary problems of childhood have all been turned into hazy memories, aside from the few friends I keep in contact with to this day I’ve probably merged a few dozen people from my school into one person instead.
But this thing, I still remember this incident clearly. When I do, it keeps me up at night. As much as I’d like to brush it off as some dumb childish thing, perhaps an over-reactive imagination, it’s burned into my memory forever. My entire mediocre life keeps pivoting back to this moment. I might as well tell someone about it, even if it’s to anonymous strangers that don’t believe me.
I think this happened when I was around fifteen to sixteen. To clarify something, as a child I’d had what my parents referred to as “developmental problems”, which I eventually remedied but it meant that for most of my childhood into my early teens I was kind of a loner so I going into my teens I didn’t have a lot of experience with other people. You can imagine how difficult it is for a teen with limited experience to try and get his first kiss then.
It all started with that asshole Ryan, his smug smile when he told us, my group of friends, that he’d kissed Julie in the park that day. I remember being so jealous of him, as you would at that age when you have no other problems.
“I wish someone would kiss me too.” I remember Anissa saying longingly, one of the girls in the group that I hanged out with. She looked at me after she said it too for extra awkwardness. I knew she’d always had a thing for me but I hadn’t reciprocated at the time. She was a weird girl with some clear problems up there but I would’ve asked her if I wasn’t so socially awkward.
After a few more months passed and more of my friends having their first kisses I finally decided that this was summer I was going to finally do it. I was gonna ask Anissa out to come with me to the baseball game and then I was gonna do it, I had it all planned out in my head. Then of course, that asshole Ryan had to be involved again. I was sitting down with him and an older boy Alex out in my front yard during a warm night as I explained to him my plan.
“Dude, come on, don’t do that.” Ryan laughed with that smug smirk on his face.
“Why not? What’s wrong with that?” I asked, quite offended that I told him something so personal.
“Because you know how she is like, she’s like, fucked in the head, my man.” he says, laughing as he says that too. “That autism scrambled up her brain, dude.”
“You’re such an asshole.” I tell him and he smirks and shrugs. “But even if you’re right, who else would I have to ask out, school doesn’t start until like, two months, and I want it this summer.” I continue, Ryan thinks about it for a bit.
“I know a girl.” Alex says, almost startling me. I never liked hanging out with Alex, there was nothing wrong with the guy, but his laid back demeanor just ticked me off in the wrong way, the way her wore that stupid bucket hat that always covered his eyes. “She’s like… right in your neighborhood, dude. Her name’s Sarah.”
“Bullshit.” I tell him and Ryan laughs, patting me on the back.
“It’s true, I’m pen-pals with her. She’s sick so she never leaves her house so I haven’t met her in person but like the way she writes is like… really sweet.” he explains to me. “She’s been telling me about these fantasy stories she’s been reading with knights and princesses and won’t stop telling me about how badly she wants to be in love.”
“If she’s like, so sweet, why don’t you like, date her yourself, dude?” Ryan asks him.
“I’m too old, she’s around the same age as you guys. She wants a boyfriend, your friend wants a girlfriend, you can write her and if you don’t like her then it’s fine.” he continues. He seems genuine when talking about her, unusual from his usual emotionless tone.
Obviously there was something odd about all this, but I trusted him. Even if it went badly I’d just get some more experience talking to girls because I could fall back on Annise, as cold as it may seem, I knew she wasn’t going to get a boyfriend anytime soon.
So I started writing to this Sarah girl, first introducing myself briefly in what must have been cringe inducing prose coming from a boy of my age. I didn’t even need to send it through mail since she lived so close, I just dropped it off at her house.
A letter arrived back to me the next day, it was from her. It might sound embarrassing now, but the way she wrote, so sweet and innocently, it made me feel in ways that I hadn’t felt at the time, despite only just starting to talk to her. “Looking forward to hearing from you again! :) - Love (not in the mushy way), Sarah” was the signature.
So we traded letters back and forward the entire summer, getting increasingly personal with each other as it went on, sharing with her intimate feelings and insecurities that I hadn’t, and still haven’t since, shared with anyone else. It was childish to claim I was in love after only a few brief months of letters, text on a piece of paper, but it was what I felt at the time.
At the same time, I was also sad reading some of the letters she sent me. The ones where she told me how sick she was, how much she wanted to leave her house and live out her dreams on going on a date with a boy. Sometimes she’d attach little Polaroids of her hands making different gestures and I could see that they were so pale and skinny, it made me feel bad.
It all came back to the kiss eventually, that stupid obsession that led me to this. I didn’t just want a simple kiss anymore, I wanted it to be with her, I really wanted to date her because I’d never felt like this for someone before.
I asked her if I could come over to her house, it was late August at this point. She didn’t know if it was a good idea, she like the idea of seeing someone in the state that she was in, thinking I would think she’s gross. I promised her I wouldn’t, I’d fallen in love with just her words on some paper after all, I would give her the kiss no matter what. I swore I would, even.
The day eventually came. She said that she still wasn’t sure about it but that she trusted me. She told me to come over that night. In the basement of the house, she said, she didn’t want her parents to know she was bringing boys over. “Looking forward to hearing from you again! :) - Love (not in the mushy way), Sarah”
So I did. I snuck out of my house when it became dark, she never specified an hour, but I assumed it had to be pretty late so her parents wouldn’t be awake. I made my way over to her home, only two streets away, as fortune would have it, couldn’t believe how lucky I was.
I made my way to her backyard and to the basement door. The anxiety that I had about kissing her turned into something a bit more chilling when I opened it to almost pitch darkness though. This wasn’t right, even to my young love-struck brain I knew that it wasn’t right in the slightest. From the outside the house looked abandoned, decrepit even.
“A-are you there…?” a timid voice asked from far in the dark of the basement. It was so soft and sweet.
“Y-yeah, I’m here, Sarah.” I told her, trying to pretend like I was brave. I wasn’t a scared boy, I told myself, I had to man up.
“S-so you want to.. t-to do it?” she asked again. “I h-haven’t done this… like, ever, so I’m kinda.. s-scared.”
“It’s alright, I’ll be gentle.” I told her as I walked into that fucking hellish dark place, I was so stupid to do that, I knew I shouldn’t have done it. My legs kept moving forward, trying not to hit or trip over anything, it was so dark in there that I could only make up faint shapes from the moonlight that shone through the window.
I could also faintly make out a girly figure in one of the corners, those pale sickly hands sticking out towards me affectionately. It was the only thing keeping me from running the other away around which is what I should have done.
I held her hand, so cold and stiff, the hands that had made me feel so much sadness before. I was bracing myself, preparing to lean in and kiss her lips, I must’ve been a few inches from her face, I couldn’t tell. A funny thought ran through my mind as I felt her hands, who lived in this house? She’d never given me a last name, had she?
As hesitated the only thing II could her was her breathing, she wasn’t talking anymore. That’s when I knew something was really wrong. The breathing was guttural, not the soft space you’d expect from a girl, it was just a continuous rasp grating against my ears. It sounded like a backed up sewer. This was not human breathing.
“S-sarah?” I asked her, still not quite realizing what I’d gotten myself into.
“W-what’s wrong… y-you don’t to… kiss?” she asked, sounding like she wanted to cry
“What’s your last name?” I asked her. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking, what, that she was gonna reveal it and it would make sense to me, that I’d lived there for my entire life and somehow I’d never met the people that lived in that house?
She didn’t respond. My eyes had began adjusting to the pitch black and I could sort of make out a bit of her upper body but there was still no sign of the face. The breathing got louder as I saws something shift in the darkness right in front of me. I could feel something damp in front of me, nearly touching me. I’d had enough.
I was going to get out of that basement, my flight instinct finally kicking in. But before, I had to see her face, I didn’t have to and I shouldn’t have had, and I wish I hadn’t but in the moment for some stupid reason I wanted to her, see what the girl I’d fallen in love with actually was. I pulled her by her hands forward, out of the corner and to where the light through the window was a bit more prominent. So stupid.
I’m not sure how I should write this. For a very long time I promised myself that I would never, underneath any circumstances, ever, tell anyone or describe anywhere what her face looked like. I saw it perfectly, it’s imprinted into my fucking skull like it was shot with a camera, a perfect replay for me to look back on during dark lonely nights. I didn’t want to ever describe it because I felt like the world was already shitty enough, like the least I could contribute through my life was to not bring that thing into anyone else’s mind. I said I’d take it with me until the day I die straight to my grave but… well, we’ll discuss that aspect later.
Her “face” if you want to call it that was only comprised of her jaws, nothing more than a wide open maw with a long black slimy tongue hanging out the side of it. It was just pure darkness, an abyss of teeth going all throughout the wide open mouth. The worst fucking thing I’ve ever seen on this planet and it was right there in front of me, ready to devour me in that vile thing.
I ran, I never looked back at that thing, though even the few seconds I saw it were enough to stick with me for the rest of my life, got out of that cursed basement, ran out of her backyard and into the street and I didn’t stop running for a single moment until I just collapsed in my front yard, scratching myself all over. I only stayed on the ground long enough to catch a single breath then I got up and entered through the back door that I left and locked it shut.
I went to my room and sat with my back against the door, I think I was in shock. I don’t remember falling asleep or most of the next few days, but I remember that the day right after that I checked the mailbox. I was preparing myself to throw up if there was another letter there but there was none. I checked like that for months but none ever came.
Life just went on after that, like it always does. I avoided ever even walking down the same street as that house, which as it turns out had been abandoned for 17 years, and I just focused on my energy on school instead, trying my hardest to repress the memory into the dark recesses of my mind. Even then I still checked the mailbox every couple of months, dreading the day there would be a letter there. But there never was one.
When Alex disappeared 9 months later I said nothing. I knew where he was. I didn’t care to reignite that memory again, I just let it go, I don’t even remember what his face looked like. When Ryan disappeared 3 months later I still couldn’t care less, I thought he could go fuck himself for getting me involved in that mess to begin with, and I still do to this day. His face was washed by time. I had my first kiss in 11th grade with Anissa, for all it was worth. I never talked to her again after that school year ended, her face is blank in my head. I guess there’s only space for one face in my head.
By the time I left the city for college I think about six other boys had went missing. I never even checked another headline about that place after I left, I wish someone could just raze that entire hellhole to the ground and all the memories that have ever happened there.
I’m in my mid twenties now, I work a boring job in IT, I’ve been through several relationships and so many worthless kisses now but none have seem to stick. My girlfriend of 8 months left me just last week because I was too cold apparently. Her face already starting to wash out of my mind and merge with all the other useless girlfriends I’ve had.
I feel sick writing this but none of them have ever manager to make me feel the same way that Sarah did during those few months I knew her. All the secrets we’d shared, all the meticulously added hearts over ever single “I”, every promise I made to her. I never followed through with my last one.
I’m writing this today because this morning I got a letter in the mail again, still checking for one all these years later. I knew what it was instantly, I let it sit on my desk for a little bit. I had sort of a smile on my face as I thought about it, I think I’m sick in the head or something. But I know I’m not that same scared boy I was all those years ago, I’m a man now.
The letter says that she missed me and she knows that I miss her too. She says that she tried meeting other boys but none of them were like me. Obviously we were meant for each other, she says. She ends it by reminding me that I never kept my promise to her and that I still owed her that kiss but it’s alright because tonight we’re going to have our second date, ten years later. It’s signed “Looking forward to hearing from you again! :) - Love (not in the mushy way), Sarah”.