Here's what Drew Barrymore has to say about Breckin:
His name was Brecken, and we'd been friends for about a year, since third grade. I thought he was pretty cute, my type. Nothing really happened between us for a long time. We definitely liked each other, but I think we were embarrassed to admit it was anything more than friendship. It was Gigi who began noticing that I liked Brecken.
"How much do you like him?" she asked.
"We're just friends," I said.
"Would you like to kiss him?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah, right," I scoffed, refusing to admit that kissing Brecken didn't seem like a bad idea at all.
At the same time, Brecken started hanging around me more than usual. We became better friends. Then one night he telephoned and said that he had a problem he wanted to discuss with me. There was this girl, Tracy, he explained, who really liked him a lot. I mean, a lot. She wouldn't leave him alone and kept pestering him to go steady. At that age, everyone was really into going steady. Except Brecken didn't like Tracy that much and he was too scared to tell her that. Also, he didn't know how to get rid of her.
"What should I do?" he asked.
I offered a few suggestions, but he didn't go for them.
"Maybe you could pretend to be my girlfriend?" he said. "You know? And then she'd leave me alone."
"You mean, like go steady?" I hedged.
There was silence. The biggest question a guy could ask a girl then was "Do you want to go with me?" I'd never been asked, but I'd begun hoping Brecken might. The situation was perfect. Only he was too embarrassed to come right out and say the words. So I made a suggestion.
"What if we ask each other?" I said. "We'll trade words."
"Okay," he agreed.
"But you go first," I added.
So Brecken said, "Do," and I said, "you," and so on until he finished with the word "me," after which I quickly said, "Yes."
Less than a week later Brecken and I, a steady couple, were at Gigi's house. The three of us were sitting on the floor in her bedroom. She wanted to know if we'd kissed yet. We shook our heads. When she asked why not, both of us shrugged.
"Well, why don't you," he said.
Tentatively, we turned toward each other, puckered tightly, and bumped lips. Or so it seemed. It was so quick.
"How was it?" asked Gigi, who, when I think back on it, was incredible nosy. "I think you need to practice."
That sounded good to us, I suppose, because Brecken and I sat there, smiling, ready and waiting for Gigi's expert instructions. I have no idea where she picked up her expertise. Nevertheless, Gigi had a plan. She hastily stenciled a set of signs that said, ROUND ONE, ROUND TWO, and so on, all the way up to ROUND SIX. Then she held up the first card and said, "Okay, Drew and Brecken kiss, round one."
We kissed. A little longer this time, but still quick.
Okay, now talk about it," said Gigi, "and then we'll try the next round."
By round six Brecken and I were smooching like mad, passionate lovers. Thanks to Gigi's coaching, we spent nearly an hour instructing each other exactly how we preferred to be kissed. We trained each other, and it was great.
From then on, we kissed all the time. In class, Brecken and I would always pretend to dro pencils or books. Then both of us would bend down to pick it up and we'd sneak in some heavy kisses. One time my mother was driving a carload of my friends to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. The car was packed. I was sitting on Brecken's lap. Someone tossed a jacket over us and we made out the whole way there without my mom knowing.
To this day-I swear-I can't kiss a guy without, at some point, thinking of Brecken. Really. He was the best kisser. Why? Because I trained him.
More important, though, was the feeling I got from kissing Brecken. It was like a big "wow!" that made me feel great. Becoming intimate with a boy seemed to satisfy my craving for affection. I was always searching for father figures in older men, particularly the ones I worked with. But kissing boys gave me a way to get closer than I'd ever dreamed. It made me feel so good. I became guy crazy, and addiction in which I used boys to find love, affirmation, and self-worth. I was like that song, "searching for love in all the wrong places."
