that happy look on her daughter's face was the best lenitive she had, to wipe away the anxiety and anguish she had been feeling in the last two years.
And it was all happening thanks to Adam Gramell. By his sweetness and sensitivity, that boy had been able to find his way into Kira's heart, helping her to forget Lucas Scott, that boy in Princeton.
Elizabeth hadn't certainly appreciated very much the fact that he was two years older than Kira, but her daughter's smile had been enough to dispel her fears.
Besides, Adam was the kindest and most harmless boy in the world and Kira didn't seem to worry about all the love letters he got from his classmates.
“I trust him, mum! I know Adam very well, and I'm sure he would never deceive me!” Kira had told her two weeks before.
“Deceive you? Oh, Kira, have you already gone so far? You told me you were just friends! You're still so young and...” her mother had got scared.
“Keep calm, mum! And then, I'm fifteen years old, nearly sixteen! I'm not a child any more and we haven't gone so far yet, even if Adam is seventeen!”
“Really? Haven't you? Would you tell me, if it was...”
“Mum, just trust me. Adam and I are just friends, even if I can't deny that we have been thinking about pairing off lately.”
“Please, Kira...”
“I know: I must take it easy. I mustn't hurry up. As you always say, make love and not sex with a stranger. Blah, blah, blah,” Kira kept saying like a robot, as she had memorized her mother's advice. Elizabeth had panicked five months before, when Kira had told her that her classmate Misaki wasn't a virgin any more.
“That's perfect.”
“However, Adam knows I'm not ready yet and that's okay for him. He told me that our friendship is the most important thing.”
“I hope so,” her mother sighed, surrendering.
Luckily the door bell rang at that moment, putting an end to a conversation which always made Kira uneasy, also because of her sense of guilt for all the lies she kept telling about Adam and herself.
“It must be Adam! Can you go and open the door? I'm still choosing the shoes I'm going to wear,” Kira asked her, trying to tidy up the clothes she had thrown on her bed.
She saw her mother hesitating for a moment, before she walked away.
“I'm really happy, do you know it?” she told Kira, then she went out of the room.
“So am I, mum. But please, hurry up now, or Adam will believe that I'm going to keep him outside in the cold. You know he feels it so much!”
“I didn't believe you could start smiling again, after we left Princeton and... Lucas,” Elizabeth mumbled cautiously. She hadn't spoken about that for some months, because she didn't want to make her daughter cry, but she felt that something was changing at that moment.
Kira suddenly stopped when she heard her friend's name, then, without raising her eyes from her clothes, she succeeded in answering after a long while, without surrendering to sadness.
“I'm going back to him, mum. I promised.”
Elizabeth started shaking because of her daughter's words and she understood she was wrong: nothing had changed.
***
Princeton, Kentucky, January 15 th 2017
As soon as the girl's mouth brushed his lower lip, he couldn't avoid moaning with pain.
“Couldn't you wait one more day, before letting Kurt split your lip?” the blonde girl said in a flute-like voice, making her tongue slip down his neck till his naked chest.
“Come on, get dressed. My lesson is starting in twenty minutes,” Lucas suddenly got nervous, trying to get free from that leech.
“Since when have you cared about school?” the girl laughed amused, putting her bra on with a theatrical gesture, trying to turn Lucas's attention on herself, but he didn't reply and without even casting a glance at her, he put his trousers on and walked away.
“Are you going to call me tomorrow? There's a party...” she tried again.
“No, I'm busy” Lucas said quickly in an irritated voice, making the girl's nerves jump.
“Are you ditching me, filthy bastard?”
“Just think as you wish. I'm going.”
“Is that all? We've just made love and you're leaving me like that now!” the young woman sobbed, on the verge of tears.
Lucas cast a quick glance at her and felt like breaking something, when he saw her tears. His hands were still hurting after his fight with Kurt, so he had hoped he could calm his fiery temper with the help of Jennifer's fabulous body, but, as it had happened to him four times before, he hadn't felt anything for her, excepted an overwhelming orgasm.
He avoided reminding her that what they had just done was mere sex, since he didn't know anything about her, just her bra's size.
“That's true,” he just answered, then he shut the door behind himself and rushed to his classroom, ready to start a mess and to annoy professor Kleyton.
***
Tokyo, Japan, January 23 rd 2017
“Are you ready?” Adam whispered to her, approaching his lips to hers.
Kira swallowed hard and nodded slightly. She felt like a coiled spring and her heart was beating fast, while she kept wondering if she was doing the right thing.
“Listen, if you've changed your mind about it...” Adam got worried and moved away from her.
“Of course I haven't!” Kira got nervous. She had had that idea as she wanted to help her friend, so she couldn't back off now. “I'm ready.”
She could see Adam's face approaching hers once more, till she felt his lips on her own. She started, at a loss, opening her lips slightly and getting closer to him, just like Misaki had told her.
“What are you doing? It's disgusting!” Adam exclaimed shocked, wiping his mouth by the palm of his hand.
“Thanks,” Kira replied sarcastically. “I'm trying to help you and you're paying me back this way! Sorry, but I have never kissed any boy before! I was just following Misaki's advice.”
“Kira, please! Misaki's boyfriend is Tsutomu, he's just a heap of testosterone and rudeness.”
“That's right!”
“Kira, you know what we are up to, aren't you?”
“Of course I do.”
“We are never going to pair off like them.”
“I know it. That's why I thought that, to make our story more realistic, we should try to kiss each other in public at least, so we wouldn't look like strangers from that point of view,” Kira reminded him. She had spent three weeks studying all the details of their absurd plan, which would finally help his dear friend to get free from all the advances of the girls trying to seduce him (since Youra had left him) and from his father's searching and accusing eyes, as he wanted to see him with a girl.
“That's right, but please, close your mouth! I don't want to get your tongue stuck into my throat,” Adam begged her, feeling slightly disgusted, then he tried to kiss her once more.
Kira kept her lips shut this time, but they were soft and the kiss was successful, even if the magical atmosphere she had imagined had vanished some moments before.
“Your lips are wonderful, Kira-chan. But unfortunately you aren't the right one for me,” Adam sighed, moved by his only true friend's