My First Love

I blame him and my step-father for leading me to believe every man was a hopeless romantic. My step-father has always treated my mother like a queen, and then he came along and followed suit. Damn that smile and the heart of a stupid young girl.
When he first asked me out I thought I was hallucinating. He was absolutely beautiful, too beautiful. I was a junior and he was a senior and I felt like we were from two different worlds. I immediately said yes, but of course I needed to get the okay from the parental units. My brother and I were super close, so we decided it would be less of a big deal if he chaperoned and brought along his own date. The parentals were fine with everything and I was all fired up and ready to go on my very first real date.
When the day finally came, I spent a million hours I’m sure on my hair, I used to blow it out all the time back then. I threw together an outfit that made my high school butt look cute and I was ready to go. Sitting in the back seat with him while my brother drove was so exciting. I knew we were being “chaperoned” and all, but I felt so grown-up. Like I was living out a scene from a High School movie. We talked to each other the whole time, both couldn’t stop smiling and flirting. We were quite adorable. We happened to get to the theater somewhat early so I stood outside with him while my brother and his date got snacks. It was early in November, the sun was already down, and it felt like the movie theater lights were giving us our own spot light.
As people were ushering themselves into the theater, and the cars flew by on the highway the wind picked up and it was blowing my hair into my face. I kept fidgeting with it, when he reached up to help me put a strand behind my ear. His touch sent the butterflies in my stomach a sign to take flight. We both stopped talking and were now just looking into each others eyes. The wind seemed to die down at the perfect moment, and he asked me if he could kiss me.
We hadn’t even made it inside the theater and hadn’t even been on our date for more than thirty minutes and he looked me in the eye and asked for our first kiss. Uh, how polite was he? My response, though now looking back is absolutely horrifying, but I said, “You can do whatever you want…” I mean, who the hell did I think I was? I wasn’t that type of girl, I didn’t have a bunch of boyfriends, but obviously just your basic ass horny teenager.
“You can do whatever you want…” I could absolutely slap the shit out of that kid. Oy, whats done is done.
He kissed me and I thought I was going to pass out. From that moment on we were completely inseparable. After a while I feel like we even looked like we belonged together, we kind of matched. Black, thick, shiny hair, tan skin, almond eyes. Our names were even similar. It was so strange, but for our tiny little High School hearts we thought we would be together until death did us part.
He was the best first boyfriend and High School sweetheart I could’ve ever asked for. If you ask my parents they would have a completely different opinion, but to this day I stand firm on the fact that he was meant for me for that period in my life.
He would put notes, little presents, chocolates and such in my locker all the time. He’d send flowers to my classroom even after he graduated. He’d have such elaborate and romantic schemes and dates. We would go on picnics at our favorite park and even had our initials carved into our favorite tree. On our one year anniversary he blind folded me and drove me – then walked me to the very same spot we had our first kiss. I mean, who the hell does that? We were embarrassingly in love, in lust and complete idiots for one another. For one of the Valentine’s Days we were together he had secretly interviewed my family, friends, orchestra ensemble members and coaches to make a mini little movie for me. Everyone I assume was instructed to give a short statement about how they felt about me, it was so sweet. I still have the VHS tape somewhere, but certain I will never have a VHS player to ever see it again. We were our first everything to one another and I’m grateful to him for that.
I felt like my life was a rom-com, and he was my first real boyfriend. He completely set me up for disappointment and countless arguments in my early college years. With the way he was and how my step-father and then my brother treated his exploits I just assumed all men were like that. I was heart broken that my life wasn’t going to be a never ending Hallmark movie. I was so glad that I did get to enjoy being so spoiled and so loved in those early, tumultuous teenage years though.
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Towards the end of our second year together we were as passionate about fighting as we were about making up with one another. He was in college and working, and I was just a kid in High School. Our fragile little hearts could only take so much. At the end of my senior year we were on again/off again so much I didn’t even ask him to my prom. I truly believe that we loved each other deeply, but we were just babies and I was getting ready to move to North Carolina for college. So, we tried to maintain a friendship, but it was difficult and we lost touch when I was a freshman. I still smile at how silly we both were with one another, and laugh at the countless arguments I had with my parents about him, breaking curfew and just being a teenager in love. Young love is ridiculous and exciting and scary and completely necessary. I wonder if he ever looks back at our time together fondly or if he even thinks of me at all. Either way, I hope he’s well.