Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The Story I'd Never Tell

My first "Love"
Give of your heart, and taketh of nothing till it is given back to you.


It was 2005 I had finally come into mine own skin (or so I thought), and all because I had experienced love for the first time. I remember when I first met Fernando (his name is changed for privacy purposes), it was in our choir class in 8th grade. He was very popular and all the ladies loved him. I didn't take much liking to him, at first, because he wasn't my type--as everyone called it.

I was dedicated to one thing and that was singing. So, I didn't pay much attention to anyone else other than the choir director: she was crazy. There's really no other sufficient descriptors other than she was crazy, which I found to be a normality among all choir teachers. Perhaps it's a requirement before one can receive their degree. Something like Crazy Tactics 1010, and you progressivly get crazier so you have to take Weird 2010, and Supercalifragiwhatothewhawhawho 3000 until you finally can graduate with Insanity 4052 which is obviously a thesis class in which you actually are insane, in a classroom.

Anyways, Fernando was my first love, and I knew he was my first love because he's the first boy to ever utter those three lovely short-breath phrases. Sigh.

It was a Saturday afternoon, late fall, very close to winter. Probably October. We had exchanged numbers, and he had called me fairly early in the morning, and we chatted all day. It was really quite cute, because I would have to go do something and then call him back. We would talk. Then, he would have to go do something, and then call me back. It went on like this until at least 11 at night. Which when I was in eighth grade was considered rebellious. I'm wild. I know.

Finally I said "Hey, Fernando I've got to get some sleep."

To which he replied, "oh okay. I love you."

I'm not sure what happened at that moment, but I did not catch "I Love You." All I heard was a mumble. So I asked him to repeat himself. To which he got embarrassed, and refused to repeat it. I egged him on to PLEASE repeat what he had said, to which he finally succumbed...

"I Love You." He said.

To which my first reaction was crusty, because I had been talking to him for A DAY? How could one fall in love with someone in a day, but I couldn't resist but to return the sentiment, and I went to sleep with the admonition that he and I were to be married the next day.

This happened Saturday, on Monday Fernando ignored me at every corner in the hallway. He refused to speak to me in class, and I virtually never saw him again. I had no idea what to do with myself. I was confused. I was taken aback, I was pretty much everything, but hurt, because being the 15 year old that I was I still believed in every fiber of my being Fernando loved me, and why? Because he said so...

In March of that same year, I decided enough was enough. He told me he loved me so why was he not constantly at my side? Also, I found out in January of that same year he had been romantically "involved" with my best friend. So, I said enough was enough. I confronted him via text message and I said, "FERNANDO how are you?"

He said, "Fine."
I said, "Do you like me, still?"
He said, "No."
I said, "Did you ever like me?"
He said, "No."

This is the point where my heart shattered to pieces, and I cried, and I died, and I fell apart.
I was as many would call a hawt mess. I remember specifically crawling under my bed, covering up in  blankets, and crying, hard.

Looking back at it all. I find it was ridiculous. I mean, "love" at 15? That wasn't love. It wasn't until many years later that I was reflecting on that moment in life that I found that I was never in love, or maybe I was in love, but I was "in love with being in love." I found out soon enough that this is not true love.

I mock myself at the silly things I thought when I was younger and this was one of those things, but although it was something that has become somewhat of a joke in the storybook of my past. It has forever changed the way I view myself, the way I view love, and how I view the world. That may seem a bit expansive, but it's true.

Fernando was the first man who said he loved me, and although he took it back faster than an Olympic track athlete could run the short-distance long jump. He still said it. He was my first, and sometimes I wish he were my last...

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