First Kiss After the Storm

The rain came early that year.

It soaked through the rusted leaves of September, and somewhere in the back streets of a quiet little town called Willowridge, a boy named Eliot Harper was turning seventeen with a bitter taste in his mouth and a guitar callus on every fingertip.

He was skinny, awkward, with too-long arms and a heart too big for his chest. His father—once a local jazz legend, now a broken man with beer on his breath—had barely remembered his birthday. His mother left years ago with a man who sold imported Italian wine. And Eliot, well… he was still here. Still waiting for someone to understand him.

And then came Mara Quinn .

She was nothing like the girls at school. Where they painted their nails and whispered in packs, Mara skated alone through the city square, headphones always in, her bag covered in indie band patches Harper only pretended to know. She’d just moved in from Greyhaven with her aunt after her mother’s health took a turn. There was sadness in her that matched the kind in Eliot.

They met at a pharmacy.

He was buying nicotine gum he didn’t need, she was yelling at the cashier for stocking the wrong brand of soy shampoo.

He smiled. She rolled her eyes. And the next day, they sat on opposite benches in the park, pretending not to notice each other.

But they did.

The first time Mara heard Eliot play, he was busking near the bus station. The song was clumsy and sweet, some teenage anthem about running away and kissing someone under the stars. Mara didn’t clap. She just sat nearby and lit a cigarette with hands that didn’t quite stop shaking.

"You suck at guitar," she said without looking up.

"I know," he said. "But I’m getting better."

From that moment, everything changed.

They became one of those inseparable duos that everyone talked about but no one really understood. They didn’t date in the traditional sense. No fancy restaurants. No group selfies. Just long walks with shared earbuds, writing poems on napkins, climbing fences into empty swimming pools at night to scream away their fears.

Mara taught Noel how to smoke without coughing. Eliot taught Mara how to play three chords. They laughed a lot. They cried more.

They made each other feel less lonely.

But the thing about being seventeen is that your emotions hit like hurricanes—and neither of them had ever learned to swim.

Eliot’s father had a stroke one night while watching football, and for the first time in months, Eliot didn’t call Mara. He locked himself in the bathroom with his guitar and cried until he couldn't feel his face.

When she finally showed up—furious, worried, crying too—he told her to go away.

“I’m poison,” he whispered. “I ruin everything I touch.”

She left. Slamming the door so hard it cracked the frame.

They didn’t speak for two weeks.

And then came the accident.

Mara, still raw and reckless, jumped onto the back of a stranger’s motorbike after a house party and lost control near the viaduct. She survived. Barely. Broken wrist. Concussion. Eight stitches along her hairline.

Eliot found out from a schoolmate who thought he already knew.

He didn’t.

He sat outside the hospital room all night, knees shaking, flowers dying slowly in his lap. She wouldn’t let him in.

Not until morning.

“You're a coward,” she said softly from behind her oxygen mask.

“I know,” he answered. “But I’m still here.”

That was the first time they kissed.

The world didn’t magically fix itself after that.

Mara still carried sadness like a second skin. Eliot still struggled with his father's silence and the ache of abandonment. But something shifted. They learned that love isn’t always loud or poetic. Sometimes it’s just showing up, again and again, even when you’re scared.

The last scene of their summer wasn’t a goodbye, but a beginning.

Eliot stood at the open mic night, hands trembling, and dedicated his new song to “the girl who taught me that broken things can still be beautiful.”

Mara sat in the back row, cast on her arm, tears in her eyes.

The lyrics weren’t perfect.

But they were real.

And so were they.

Author’s Note:

Love at seventeen is a fragile, reckless miracle. It doesn't always last—but it always leaves a mark.

This is a story for the ones who dared to feel too much, too soon.

Don’t regret it.

Write about it.

And if you're lucky, maybe they’ll write back.