This isn’t the first time that Pep and I kissed. The first time happened 9 years ago on the day that Milo was born.
Pep’s parents renewed their vows and threw the fancy wedding they always wanted, according to Pep obviously. We had decided to sing a song together for her parents; of all things it was a love song. We didn’t think much of it until we were actually on that stage, doing the one thing that brought us together all those years ago: sing.
Something came over us, and at the end of the song I kissed Pep. I kissed her first. It was everything I imagined it being; she was wearing a pretty, green dress with little heels because she didn’t know how to properly walk in them yet. She had straightened her usual curly hair, and she wore contacts. I was looking at a version of Pep that looked different, yet still felt like my Pep.
The only thing that made the moment disastrous was that I forgot Gwen was my date that night. My pregnant girlfriend sat in the audience and watched her boyfriend kiss his girl best friend; the one that told her many times she didn’t need to worry about.
Pep and I never spoke about that night ever again. We acted like it never even happened. I only remembered it once I kissed Pep on the lips this time.
I immediately opened my eyes once I felt Pep pull away from me. She looked panicked.
“Fuck,” she said, getting up from her chair. I followed behind her. “Fuck, we shouldn’t have–” I didn’t even allow Pep to have the thought. Was she right? Possibly; why would two platonic best friends find themselves kissing each other in the middle of one’s apartment?
I didn’t care. I instantly grabbed Pep by the arm, twirling her in my arms before kissing her again; this time deepening it. She never pulled away.
It was now me pulling away from it, coming up for some air. I could tell she needed it too the way she was breathing.
“Milo,” she finally said. Pep has said my name a million times in the years we’ve known each other, yet it never sound the way it did just now. She touched her lip in disbelief. “I-uhm…”
“I know; it’s okay,” I quickly intervened, hoping she wasn’t regretting this. I didn’t know what else to say besides everything I’ve wanted to tell her. “Your lips taste like warm vanilla sugar.” Nice one, Milo; just scare the poor woman away.
“Oh my god,” Pep said as she started to laugh, watching her face turn red. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her blush as much as she was right now, and I didn’t realize just how much it complimented her milky skin tone. She looked at me and smiled before continuing. “Why would you even say it like that–“
“I don’t know, it was the first thing to came to mind,” I nervously explained, starting to think maybe it was weird to say something like that. Pep didn’t seem to be weirded out by it, which genuinely shocked me. Am I living inside of a dream right now? Am I in the fucking twilight zone? “I’m sorry–“
“It’s fine,” Pep said as she looked at me. I couldn’t stop looking at her; I didn’t want to stop. Teenage Milo would’ve went to cardiac arrest for sure. “Why aren’t we freaking out right now?”
I was confused by her question. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… didn’t we just break like the number one rule of friendship?” she asked. I immediately felt the pit in my stomach hollow out. Fuck, did she regret it after all? Did I read too much into the situation?
“We were never the conventional type, Pep,” I admitted, replaying the last 20 years of our friendship. Pep had been my best friend since we were 4 years old. Since we were kids, she fascinated me in ways I didn’t think were possible. She was fearless, outgoing, and always the life of the party. I never understood how we became best friends; why would someone like Pep want to be friends with someone like me? I was always timid, shy, quiet; invisible. Maybe that’s why all of these years I’d fought myself with this feeling; someone like Pep made me feel seen in life. “You were never conventional to me.”
She looked up at my eyes as if she was trying to look for something behind them. Was she also questioning everything between us from the last 20 years? What was holding her back in this moment?
Her smile gradually fading; it was like reality was finally settling in for her. “Oh my god, I’m a horrible person.”
“What?” I asked. I was genuinely confused at the sudden shift. Pep began to get up from her seat, looking for her belongings.
“This was a bad idea,” she kept repeating out loud. “I’m such a horrible person–“
“Whoa, let’s take a couple of steps back, shall we?” I grabbed Pep by the shoulders, keeping her grounded. I knew it would work; it helped out during every freak-out session Pep’s had since we’ve known each other. “Why all of a sudden do you think you’re a bad person?”
“I–” Pep began to say out loud, stopping herself in the process. It was like she couldn’t say what she was thinking out loud. “Cullen died only a couple of months ago and I’m already kissing another man–“
“It’s me, Pep.” I looked at her in the eyes. I could see the sheer panic behind her blue eyes, looking at me seeking for answers.
She didn’t take her eyes off of me. “That makes it even worse,” she finally said, breaking eye contact. I watched her trying to find her things as if she was getting ready to leave. Every now and then she would stop to look back at me and speak. “The fact that it was with you makes it ten times worse.”
“Well that’s reassuring to hear,” I sarcastically said, beginning to feel stupid that this would be our moment.
“You don’t get it, Milo,” she began to shout at me. “You weren’t there when I had to convince Cullen that we were just friends and nothing else. Even after all the shit we said about each other’s relationships and after moving to NC… to even being engaged, Cullen was still worried I’d choose you over him! Now Cullen is gone and… and…”
“And what?” I desperately asked, needing to hear Pep say it. She was on the verge of tears, and all I wanted to do was tell her it was okay and that she didn’t need to think about it anymore. But, that would be putting an immense injustice to our friendship. We always talked things out, even when they didn’t turn out in our favor.
“I did exactly what I told him I wasn’t going to do.” Pep began to cry in the middle of my living room, and my immediate response was to go and hug her. I didn’t care what her and Cullen fought about in the months leading to his passing; not out of jealousy or superiority, but for the sake of our friendship.
I didn’t want to comfort her by telling her it was okay. That wasn’t like us; we were always unconventional. I looked down at her, wiping her wet face with my hands. Even through the conflicting feelings, she still never flinched.
“Me too,” I simply said.
“But you and Marielle broke up. Cullen–“
“I wasn’t talking about Mari,” I corrected her. Pep doesn’t say anything; in fact, she seemed confused. “I was talking about Gwen.”
“Gwen?” she repeated.
“Gwen,” I solidified. I sat Pep down next to me on the couch, not realizing that tonight would’ve been the night that I said everything I needed to say in the last 20 years. Here goes nothing, yet everything at the same time.
“I loved Gwen. She taught me so much about life at 15 that I still follow to this day. She’d say to ‘never go to bed angry’ or ‘make every day a much of a good day possible’ and I used to brush them off. She spoke about life in the way most people in their 60’s talked about it. I thought she was going to be here forever, and it wasn’t until she was gone that I realized she accepted her life for what it was at a young age. But, she was also a teenager herself. She got jealous, and she got insecure. She would always fight with me about you. She thought we were too close. She thought that it was impossible for us to be just friends. She thought that I would end up with you once she was gone.”
“Yet here we are,” Pep added, holding her head with her hands. I immediately took them, putting them in mine. She looked at me. Even in a time like this she was breathtaking.
“We tried,” I continued to say. “I mean, I tried. For years, I thought I was trying to find someone to be with to… ‘replace’ Gwen. I knew I wasn’t going to ever get her back, and for years I grieved her passing without even knowing.” I sighed before I continued, finally telling Pep my truth. “You were right in saying that I was dating these women to take Gwen’s place. But…” Pep looked at me, listening to the words coming out of my mouth carefully. It’s now or never, Milo. You lost her once; you can’t lose her again. “I think I was trying to find someone else like you.”
Pep didn’t say a word. She was looking at me all while trying to make sense of everything that’s happened tonight. She let out a deep breath, processing everything in the present.
“I don’t know what it is about you, but normally this would be super scary,” she began to respond, fidgeting with her fingers. “I came back to New York because nothing else out there felt like home. I tried so desperately to make all these different places a home and the time I decide to give up searching for that feeling…” Pep nervously bounced her leg as she looked down at her hands. Tears immediately started falling down her face. “I realized you were home to me.” She finally looked up at me with watery eyes, still trying to hold back her tears. “I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked as she said it. “For everything I said last year.”
I pulled her close to me, tightly hugging her as she sobbed in my chest. I rubbed small circles on her back, trying to soothe her.
“Me too,” I whispered in her ear. She pulled away to look at me again; this time she has a slight smile on her face. I return one back to her.
“God, I’m such a mess,” Pep laughed as she said, sniffing as her nose began to run. I once again wiped her wet face with my hands; this time I don’t let her go.
I kissed her softly, wanting nothing more than to taste the warm vanilla sugar lip balm on her lips. She deepened the kiss as her body relaxed, her hand caressed the back of my head as her fingers intertwined with my hair. I held her close to my body, afraid that this might just all be a dream and I would wake up any minute now.
But it wasn’t, no matter how many times I tried to convince myself. This was happening. I was making out with Jennifer Ann Castro.
The girl that I’ve known since Pre-K. The girl who I nicknamed “Pep” back in the first grade when all the other boys in our class used to be scared of her. The girl who I swore I’d protect with my entire being for as long as we were best friends. The girl who had always been there for me in ways that my own family wasn’t growing up. The girl that I was in love with all this time.
Everything changed that night. It wasn’t just Pep and I sharing our feelings for each other, or us finally talking about the things that drove us apart last year. It had changed the trajectory of everything that we knew about each other. We didn’t realize what we were getting ourselves into, but that night we didn’t care.
I held Pep in my arms, lying down in my bed with nothing but the city lights shining from the window. I looked at Pep with a million thoughts, not fully processing the extent of this situation. Her curly hair was spread along my chest as her breathing began to slow down in pace. I took in a deep breath, closing my eyes to drift to sleep. It wasn’t the first time Pep and I had a sleepover, but it was the first that she had spent sleeping in the same bed with me.
I just hope we both don’t regret this decision.
