Gifts by Dallas Woodburn

Sam gave me my first kiss. Andrew gave me my first real kiss. Brad gave me my first hickey. Nick wrote me a love letter. Tyler wrote me an apology letter. Paul gave me that Christopher Moore book. Keith took me to the Blind Pilot concert. Alan gave me daffodils in a glass vase. Mike gave me Scrabble. Timmy gave me the flu. Steve bought me a vacuum cleaner. Jeff bought me the checkered quilt that still keeps me warm on winter nights. Peter showed me zombie movies. Stephen showed me how to pitch a tent. Matt showed me how to fall in love with a person so completely it is as if you breathe the same breaths. And also how to let love go.

You, however, are a mystery. Why did you enter my life? So brief a time, yet – there must be something.

Maybe it was that moment on our first-and-only date, when you drove me home and stopped your car in front of my lit-up apartment complex. We sat there talking and the darkness felt close and the air felt heavy with possibility. As we hugged goodnight, I almost kissed you.

Your eyes met mine, there in the gentle darkness of your car, and I knew you wanted to kiss me, too – but you didn’t.

Why didn’t you?

I got out of your car and walked up the brick path to my apartment complex. In the doorway, I turned and waved to you. You honked the horn, a quick beep beep, like a teasing wink, like a promise, and then you drove away.

Two days, three days passed, and I was angry at you for not calling. I didn’t know your car had veered off Highway 93 and crashed into a telephone pole until I saw it in the newspaper. Your small black-and-white face smiling up at me from the obituary page.

Maybe that unkissed kiss was the gift you gave me, waiting there in the space between us – not given, not taken. But almost.

Dallas Woodburn, 23, is the author of two collections of short stories and a forthcoming novel. Her short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Monkeybicycle, Arcadia Journal, and The Newport Review, among others. She is the founder of Write On! For Literacy, an organization that encourages kids and teens to discover confidence, joy, self-expression and connection through reading and writing.http://dallaswoodburn.blogspot.com/