Yes. Yes I would.

I was thirteen. That's too young, I know, for a serious kiss, especially since he was older, eighteen. And he was so sweet and beautiful. We were on the bottom bunk of a friend's bunk bed, all of us hanging out in this bedroom, right near Christmas time. We were listening to George Winston's December album, which I think was fairly new at the time. I remember thinking, this is just like a movie, with a lovely soundtrack that makes you feel wistful and wishing for something you know might never come. And he held my hand, the room was so warm, cozy, and I had on my mother's wool sweater, the one she didn't want me to borrow, but it was soft wool, not scratchy at all, in a warm, buttery color, and I had on a hippie skirt, also my mother's, and long johns underneath, because that's the type of girl I was. My boots were already taken off, and were resting on the floor beside us.

He leaned in to kiss me, and I let him, not caring that our friends were in the room, it was all just a low hum of conversation in the background, and the piano music, and maybe snow outside, though I don't remember that clearly. Then everything was still, and it was just the kiss, the gentle kiss, long but innocent, the last innocent kiss I was ever to have. He kept saying, "You are so soft. So soft." I thought he might mean the sweater, and I wanted so much for him to mean me.

But then a few days later a friend called and told me that a boy I'd been intrigued by whom I thought looked like John Lennon with his round glasses and long hair wanted to talk to me, and would I call him? And he was only a little into drugs and only a short while from jail, but I didn't know.

I called the man child who'd kissed me so perfectly and explained, and he said, "You are going to fall in love with him and be lost to me."

And of course I said No! No, not that. It's just to talk.

But he was right, and now that kiss is the best, saddest thing I own.