The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from All Out – The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages. It is an anthology of short stories, and page 56 lands in the story And They Don’t Kiss At The End by Nilah Magruder.

She liked that there was no kissing.

She had never seen the appeal of kissing, not after Mary-Ann had kissed her first boyfriend at the end of sixth grade and told half the block about it, not when Dee had had her first kiss freshman year, at one of Nadia Boone’s weekend basement parties full of beer and disco.

That had been a whole year before Vince moved to town. Kevin Campbell was sweet, but the kiss had been messy and wet and Dee had been very miserably aware of every second of it. It had gone on forever, and not in a good way.