Carried your books from school
Frankie Valli, “My Eyes Adored You”
Playin’ make believe you’re married to me
You were fifth grade, I was sixth when we came to be
To the extent that I bloomed at all, I bloomed late.
In some respects, I’m still blooming.
My first kiss was with my first love. I was just shy of my sixteenth birthday. She was two years younger than me.
She also went to boarding school, 2,000 miles away. That created an added complication in some respects, and inserted some meaningful pauses and exploration in others.
It was 1985. The year of Live Aid, New Coke, the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and the year that Michael Jordan was named “Rookie of the Year.”
It was the first time that I was overtly pursued.
It started at Easter break. She showed up on my radar. Which means she inserted herself ON my radar. And kept on showing up, with a surprising level of consistency. If stalking was a thing in the 1980s, then she was doing it, and I was her target.
Even to my oblivious, hormone-addled brain, it was obvious that she was seeking me out. That she liked me. That she liked me, liked me. And that she wanted more than to be just passing acquaintances.
She had a friend flying wingman. I was alone, a deer in the headlights. I stood no chance.
It would be another three months, at the onset of summer, before we would actually kiss. But the wheels were in motion, and that outcome was inevitable.
What drew me to her was her confidence and her focus. She was beautiful to me. Perhaps not classically pretty, but striking. Short straight dark hair, just grazing her shoulders. Clear and piercing blue eyes. A confident gaze. A more confident voice, an octave below what you would expect. No wavering, no uncertainty, no hesitation. Clarity in who she was, and confidence in what she wanted.
By the end of that Easter break, she had claimed me as her own. Several months of letters, in carefully folded airmail aerograms, allowed us to learn about each other. Our interests, our obsessions, out desires and our dislikes. Our compatibilities were many, our differences were few.
While she was passionate about me, she was also logical, reasoned, clear-headed and objective. She knew what she wanted, she knew why she wanted it, and she was very clear that I was a part of that.
There was no question that I was hers by the time she flew back to boarding school. Not kissed, but claimed. Not inamorato, but enamoured. I was still hers, the evening of that first kiss, the air redolent with hibiscus and sea air and sandalwood.
We wouldn’t last the summer. But that first spring, and that first kiss… the memory of that would last a lifetime.
Prompt: Write a character description about the first person you ever kissed.
