kissing at midnight

10

The scraps of conversation fade away as the countdown begins. All eyes stay glued to the seconds ticking down on the TV screen, as if we aren’t capable of remembering which number comes next. I glance around at the empty champagne flutes and limbs tangled on couches and against walls. Perhaps some of them can’t remember the numbers. But we can, because I am only drinking sparkling cider, and so are you.

9

I’ve always thought it was silly, counting down to the new year. Unless you live on the tiny islands that get there first, the new year is like five o’clock—it’s already somewhere. Who really cares about the arrival of a new year in suburban Pennsylvania? Not me. I rarely make it to midnight; I ring in the new year at 10 PM, with some other time zone, and I put in my earplugs and fall into dreamless sleep before the illegal fireworks begin. But you invited me to this party, and I came because it seemed important to you. If you care about the arrival of a new year, I can too.

8

Here’s a secret: I’ve never kissed anyone at the stroke of midnight. Not even on the years I have stayed up to see it. Well, maybe that’s a lie. Maybe I kissed my friend, once, in middle school, as a joke. Maybe we snuck out of my bedroom and onto the stairs, invisible to my parents, able to hear the countdown crackling from the TV. And maybe when it reached zero, my underdeveloped brain short-circuited and so did hers, and we kissed. Or maybe I made that up. And as I watch everyone here shouting the numbers, their eyes drifting to their targets, I slowly realize that this year, you will kiss me at midnight. You, with your wide dark eyes and slightly chapped lips you’ve tried to moisturize with an organic lip balm.

7

I’m nervous now, as you wrap my hand in yours, our cold fingers braiding together, and I stare at your fingernails. They are dotted with little white spots, tiny injuries that will, with time, grow out and be forgotten. Do you know how you hurt your nails? I never know I hurt them until the white spots appear. They are fragile things, nails. We spend a lot of time tending to already dead things. Nails, hair. You didn’t bother to fix your hair for this party, and the curls fall into your eyes. They will brush my forehead when you kiss me. I don’t know why I’m nervous. You have kissed me before. At midnight, probably. But never at this midnight, this midnight that means so much more than the others.

6

I would not have let anyone else drag me to a party. I came with you because I knew you didn’t really want to go, either. I think you would have rather stayed in with me. But all your friends are here, and some of mine too, and what would they think of you if you didn’t show up? They are accustomed to me flaking and disappearing for months at a time. You, though, you always make a point of appearing. You are a good friend to them, to these people who drink too much champagne and talk too loudly and make flimsy New Year’s resolutions that make me itchy just thinking about them.

5

My mouth forms the shape of the number five, but my mind is elsewhere. Without me, what would you have done at this party? Would you have mingled, and poured the champagne? Would you have danced on the table, or would you have sung at the top of your lungs to a song from 2005? You are still looking at me, but I am looking at everyone else, at all the people you should talk to instead of me. All the people you should kiss at midnight instead of me.

4

Now you place your hand on my shoulder, and you say ‘four’ but I think you are telling me to stop staring at the couple making out in the corner of the room, to look at you instead. So I do. I turn my head and you grin at me and your smile makes me fizzier than an entire bottle of champagne.

3

You do not break eye contact when we get to three, and that feels significant. Most countdowns don’t bother starting all the way at 10. Ten whole seconds is way too much time to overthink, to give up. A three-two-one countdown is the one we use when the thing we’re counting down to is terrifying or at least unpleasant. Jumping from a high diving board. Sending a risky email. Scolding a child. Three seconds to decide and follow through. I am very familiar with three-two-one countdowns because I am afraid of everything. There are only three seconds until you will kiss me at midnight, and you do not look afraid.

2

Eleven months ago, when I saw you again, after so many years apart, I thought my nerves would spring out of me like broken coils in an old couch. When you folded me into your arms in an awkward, but warm, hug, I did not know what it would mean. I did not know if it was the beginning of something new, or the end of something old. Now I think it may have been both. Is that too vague? You are better with specifics. I cannot name feelings the way you can.

1

You know how I like to edit photos with vignette? Darken the background until everything except the subject disappears? That is how I feel right now. We are a vignette in the middle of a party full of them. The two men over there, in their matching ugly sweaters, clinking their glasses in an early toast. The woman over there, dancing by herself and paying no attention to the countdown because this was a good year for her, and she doesn’t want it to end. The group by the door, tugging on hats and coats and gloves so they can leave as soon as the year changes, either going to another, more exciting party, or perhaps just home to bed. We are all living separate stories in this same place, but I think that ours burns brightest.

0 (Happy New Year)

You press your lips to mine and clasp your free hand on the back of my head. Sparkling cider splashes from the flute in your other hand, carelessly tipped as you focus on me instead. And I remember—I have kissed someone at midnight on New Year’s Eve before. It wasn’t something I made up. We really did sneak down to listen in, and I really did kiss you, right there on the staircase, fingers curled around the banister, holding on for what felt like dear life. And it wasn’t a joke, but you did laugh, and I did too. We were deliriously tired, and we had eaten too much cake, drunk too much soda. In the morning, I thought it had been a dream, and you didn’t say anything. But it wasn’t a dream, was it? It was—no, why dwell on the past? I am here now, and so are you, and it is a new year, and we are kissing at midnight.