I’m almost embarrassed to title a chapter “The First Kiss.” As if you haven’t read a thousand first kisses before. As if mine is somehow different.

But I need to tell you why it was different — not because the kiss itself was unique, but because of what came before it, and what it meant about being seen.

At that Carolina Beach event, I had stood at a microphone before the largest crowd I could have imagined — fifty people, maybe more - and shared my poetry. The decision I had made on the phone back in April was still holding. And it was practice, whether I named it that or not, for every room full of people a therapist would one day have to face..

After that fourth of July weekend, something shifted in me. I wanted to see Lynn every day — as much as possible. At work, I’d find myself thinking about what we might do that afternoon. It wasn’t hard to imagine because she lived across the street from the beach, in a house her mother and stepfather owned as their eventual retirement home.

Our work schedules were different, so I would meet her after her workday ended. If I arrived early — and I usually did — I would not knock early. We had agreed on a time, and I respected it.

So I waited down the street in my car, reading. That summer it was Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. There was something fitting about that, though I didn’t think of it then: a man reading about a world where everything familiar had turned strange and wonderful, waiting to see a woman who was making the world feel that way.

We found our places. PT’s for burgers and fries. The beach across from her house. The Art Center, where I’d pick her up when she finished with her pottery.

And the poetry readings were still the thread that kept drawing us together. I can still see Lynn reading a few of her own poems and, as she often did, reciting The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock with a voice that drew you in — not for performance’s sake, but with a sincerity that made each line feel personal.

Sitting in that room, hearing her, I knew I wanted to keep finding reasons to be wherever she was.

Hands

One evening we walked by the ocean, after a day together that I couldn’t have sworn was a date. The light was going soft. We walked close, not touching.

Then I noticed our hands. They were moving together — swinging near each other with each step, closer than they needed to be. I hadn’t planned anything. Neither of us reached, exactly.

And then I was holding her hand.

It wasn’t like the jetty, where I had offered my hand to steady her across slippery rocks and then let go. There was no reason for this. No rocks. No task. Just her hand in mine because we both let it happen.

Some time later - that walk or another, they blur — our clasped hands shifted, and our fingers interlaced. I noticed that too. A clasp can be brief, polite, and practical. Interlaced fingers are none of those things. They are a more comfortable hold, made to last longer.

I remember thinking that the change meant something, the way I believed the small things always meant something.

What I Couldn’t Read

But I have to be honest: for those first several weeks, I carried doubts I couldn’t quite name.

When Lynn had told her coworker “No, we’re just friends” after our first date, I was confused — as if I hadn’t asked her out on a date. Looking back, I know that would be a natural reaction at the end of one date.

And now we’d been holding hands on the beach. Sitting close together. Looking at each other in ways that felt like more than friendship. The nature of our relationship was undefined. We were letting it develop, letting something unfold between us without forcing it into words.

Still, insecurities surfaced — ones I thought I’d left behind.

I noticed, for instance, that I reached for her hand more often than she reached for mine. Most men, I think, would never tally such a thing. I did. Each time, a small question came with it: How much does she want this to happen? Is she taking my hand, or just agreeing to it?

I couldn’t know what she was thinking. I still can’t, looking back. All I can do is tell you what I was thinking — and I was thinking about it all the time.

Celta had helped me believe that I was special, that I mattered, that I was someone another person would want to be close to. The years in my parents’ house had chipped away at exactly those beliefs, in ways I’ve already described. By the time I moved to Wilmington I had regained some ground — the microphone, the courage to ask Lynn out.

But the negative self-talk hadn’t fully healed. I felt comfortable with Lynn, and still I wondered: Was I someone she could see as a romantic partner? Was I someone this beautiful woman would choose to spend time with, day after day?

I’d call and suggest things I thought she might enjoy — things I’d learned about from our conversations. “Want to go to the beach?” “I could pick you up at the Art Center when you’re done with your pottery.” “Feel like grabbing burgers at PT’s?”

She’d say yes. We’d go. And it would be good — quiet, easy, the kind of time that doesn’t need performing.

But I couldn’t read her. Was she excited to see me the way I was excited to see her? Was something developing in her like it was in me? Could it develop?

She didn’t seem to need to be in a relationship; that’s probably why she was available in the first place. And she was beautiful.

I didn’t want to push. But I felt something strong, and I wanted it to develop. I was looking for reciprocity: You are someone I want to get close to, as much as you want to be close to me. This relationship is special.

But I couldn’t quite read it yet. She kept saying yes. She held my hand. She sat close. Those were signs — real signs — that made being with her feel good, that suggested this could grow into something romantic. But her enthusiasm seemed lukewarm. Not cold. Not disinterested. Just… measured. Reserved.

Maybe I was holding onto those signs because of how being with Lynn made me feel. Or maybe I was confused — seeing genuine interest on her part while carrying vague doubts that whispered that I wasn’t special or someone that another person would want to call their own.

That persistence — Lynn would later say she was glad I had it.

Something Shifts

The uncertainty lived entirely in my head. But at some point — I’m not sure exactly when — things shifted.

Maybe it was a phone call that started with her asking, “What are we going to do today?”

Maybe it was a day at the beach when she said, “I’ll be at the Art Center working on my pottery later. Why don’t you meet me there? I’ll show you what I’ve been working on.”

Small things. But they told me something had changed. She was making space for me. Expecting me. Welcoming the rhythm we’d found. She was happy to see me. She enjoyed my company.

It just happened. Closeness, desire, connection.

And somewhere in there, I stopped wondering whether something was developing between us.

Because it already had.

Meanwhile, the Corning contract showed no sign of being extended. It should have worried me more than it did. Instead I found myself brainstorming about work in human services — direct care for people with mental health conditions, physical disabilities, developmental disabilities. It wasn’t the destination, but it pointed the same direction I was already heading.

Wilmington was becoming a place I did not intend to leave.

And around that time, I began to notice something else — something I wouldn’t have a name for until years later. There were moments with Lynn when my mind simply stopped running ahead of itself. No tallying, no reading of signs, no rehearsing. Just the sound of the water, the warmth beside me, the present moment holding still long enough to live in it.

One late afternoon in early August, we sat down on the sand, and I sat right next to her. Not at a polite distance — right next to her, our legs stretched out side by side, our arms touching or nearly touching.

She didn’t move away. She didn’t ask, in any of the wordless ways people ask, for space.

We had not named what we were. Not dating, not boyfriend and girlfriend — no words at all. But sitting there, I was likely thinking those words, and letting them stay unsaid.

Our First Kiss

It was that late afternoon in early August. Serene. Peace would be paired with excitement. The sun shone behind us as we faced the ocean. We sat close — shoulders touching, legs stretched out side by side. I was on her right.

I remember every fraction of a second of what happened next. And I need you to understand why I’m going to tell you about it this way — in such granular detail that it might seem strange.

I once read about the neuroscience of hitting a baseball. A pitch traveling ninety miles per hour from the mound gives a batter only a few hundred milliseconds to decide whether to swing. It should be impossible. The conscious mind can’t process information that fast. But the body knows. The body starts moving before thought catches up — sending signals to swing, then adjusting in microseconds based on information the conscious mind hasn’t fully registered yet. Does the pitch drop outside the zone? The body corrects. Does it stay in? The swing continues.

It’s not one decision. It’s dozens of tiny adjustments happening faster than conscious thought.

That kiss was like that.

Except a batter adjusts alone, to a pitch that has no say in the matter. There were two of us. Every adjustment I made was answered by an adjustment she was making to mine — both of us moving faster than conscious thought, each body responding to the other's before either mind could catch up. The momentum didn't belong to either of us. It lived between us.

What I’m about to describe — the approach, the moment our lips first met — happened in maybe three or four seconds total. But within those seconds were countless tiny movements — each one a question, each one an answer. Each one confirming: Yes, keep going. This is mutual. We both want this.

Our eyes met. The awareness of others on the beach faded away.

Our heads began to tilt — mine to the right, hers to the left. Small movements. Testing.

We started moving toward each other. Slowly. My body adjusting with each fraction of a second. I shifted my weight forward slightly. She didn’t pull back. She moved closer too.

I brought my hand across, reaching over to the sand on her left side for balance as I leaned in. I looked at her — a question in that look. She kept moving closer. An answer.

Our faces were inches apart now. Neither of us hesitating. Neither of us stopping. Both of us continuing the motion we’d started together.

Our lips met.

In that same instant, her arms wrapped around me. I didn’t need my hand on the sand for balance anymore. I let it rise and pulled her closer. She leaned in.

The kiss itself lasted. Mouths opening. Arms tightening. It might have been a minute or more. It might have just felt that way.

When we finally parted, our faces stayed close. Mouths less than an inch apart. Breathing the same air. The look we shared seemed to say what we couldn’t speak aloud: We should find somewhere more comfortable for this.

This wasn’t one person kissing the other. This wasn’t one person initiating and the other responding. This was something we did together — synchronized movements in fractions of a second, each tiny motion confirming the other’s.

I loved that no one could say who kissed who. Because we kissed.

I knew, even then, that I did not want to lead it. Not because I couldn't have — some part of me could have made the first motion a claim instead of a question. But I didn't want that kind of certainty. I wanted Lynn's wanting in the room too, visible, equal — hers to give, not mine to take. It felt like respect for what was hers to decide. It also felt, oddly, like proof. If she was moving too, this was not happening to her. It was something she wanted. At the time, that was simply the only way I knew to trust that I was truly wanted and not just allowed.

Years later, I'd hear people talk about consent — how we should ask for what we want, use our words, make intentions clear. And they're not wrong. Words matter. Clarity matters. But I was still overcoming my shyness then. Saying "I would like to kiss you" would have been impossibly hard.

Years later still, I would hear a different kind of talk — about men leading, about claiming a moment before it's given to you, the whole vocabulary of the chase. No one had ever taught me that vocabulary directly. My father had not modeled pursuit any more than he had modeled tenderness, so there was no script in me to perform even if I had wanted one. It would take other men's stories, other people's easy assumptions about who "must have" made the first move, a conversation after an open mic where I found myself explaining all of this out loud, before I understood how rare what happened on that beach actually was.

I'm glad it happened the way it did. Glad that our bodies could speak a language neither of us had to name aloud. Glad that consent could exist in those tiny movements — the tilting of heads, the moving closer, the not pulling back. Each movement, each moment communicated desire and consent on both our parts. Not just mine. Not just hers. Ours.

And just like that batter adjusting to a pitch, either of us could have stopped at any moment. The momentum wasn't unstoppable. It was made of dozens of tiny confirmations. Yes. Yes. Keep going. This is right.

That’s how I knew. Not because someone told me. Not because I had it all figured out. But because my body knew before my mind did: This person matters. This is different.

And I wanted more.

“Maybe next time—” I started, then stopped, hearing how much it sounded like a decision instead of a question.

“Do you want to stay in at your place next time?” I tried again. “If you want.”

“Okay,” she said. Just that. Like it had already been decided somewhere I hadn’t been listening.

The beach had been enough for a first kiss. It would not be enough for whatever came next. I did not know, yet, what that would be. I only knew that I wanted somewhere we could remain close without an audience of strangers walking their dogs.

Even this small decision followed the pattern the afternoon had already set. I asked. She answered. Neither of us claimed the moment alone.