Tattered Paper Heart

The First One

The First One.

Most thirteen/fourteen year olds these days seem like (or want to seem like) they're much older than what they actually are. Nowadays, they're drinking, partying, doing drugs, having sex... when i was fourteen, kissing a boy was considered big news; if you kissed a boy, your friends was astounded. I remember once at school, a girl my age was caught touching her boyfriend on the penis and news travelled around the school about how "naughty" she was... my best friend at the time and I were so in shock that we talked about it for hours. We were mortified. In our world, sleep-overs and Hanson were the most important things. We didn't even consider getting THAT intimate with a boy. So it was kind of a shock when I was fourteen and a half, and I told my friend that I had met a guy while I was up visiting my half-sister (who lived 7 hours away mind you) and we were now 'going out'. He was a long distance relationship which formed from a minor friendship, and with the internet beginning to be big news I found it easy to communicate with him. I remember when he came down to visit in the school holidays and we would hold hands. I would be so nervous that my hands would sweat, and so embarrassed that my parents and brother could see what was going on that i covered our joint hands with the couch cushion. I was young and naive, and he was my first real boyfriend. He was my first kiss, and I remember being so scared that we would only peck each other on the lips to start with; using our tongues was out of the question. When we got more experienced at kissing and the more we progressed in the relationship it was a bit different, but to start with holding hands and quick pecks on the lips were as far as we went. SMS text messaging was starting to evolve as well, and I would borrow my parent's brick of a phone to text him. We would rate our feelings on a scale from one to ten - one being hate and ten being love - and i remember the night when our relationship moved to a 'ten'... we were texting each other and he said he liked me '9.99999999999' because he was too scared to say '10' in case i didn't feel the same, but with puppy-love fluttering inside my chest i SMS texted him and said 'i think 10' and he was overjoyed. I'm not sure the words 'i love you' were even uttered until we broke up. The First One was a complete sweetheart. He bought me a bracelet for my birthday which i still have to this day, and i will never, ever get rid of. It's silver with blue topaz hearts and it's absolutely adorable. It was a cute, sweet relationship with the naive, innocent qualities that a child's 'relationship' should have, and i shake my head nowadays at the girls who go head first into a sexual interaction without even thinking about the loss of their innocence.

When our relationship neared the one year mark, things started to get a bit more grown-up. We were fifteen then, and we started to progress and experiment in the way that most kids would at that age, although i do think we were still too young. I remember seeing him naked for the first time, being so curious about what i was seeing, and all the things that went along with experimenting with nakedness. I astounded myself at how grown-up i thought i had become. We never had sex, but we came pretty close a few times. We were 'in love', in the way most teenagers believe they're in love, and we thought that we would spend our lives together, therefore we explored each others bodies and progressed appropriately. It was the first time experimenting for both of us, which i still think is kind of sweet, and we had the kind of relationship where you could fully trust the other person. It was nice. There was no pressure from either side, we were both on equal footing, and we were going forward together at the same pace.

However, after the year mark, that is when i started to get restless.

I was bored, stagnant, starting to get sick of the fact that he and i were so far apart and never saw each other. Then the little things started to annoy me. We would argue over nothing and everything, or i would inadvertantly start an argument because subconsciously i was so bored of the relationship. We would chat online for hours, at scheduled times during the day, but i started wanting to do things away from the computer. I remember i was in a school play, and i started developing a little crush on the lead actor. I felt horrible, but i think that was the sign that the relationship was over. I broke up with The First One a few days after i realised my crush, via email (or was it text? No matter; any way you slice it, it was gutless) and he was absolutely devestated. Me on the other hand, was over it within a few hours and feeling the delightful sensation of freedom. However, i didn't get to feel the delight for long because he was incessantly calling me, texting me, emailing me; trying, fighting, pleading to have me back. He would send me letters (back when snail-mail was still 'in') begging me to take him back, covered in his deoderant - my favourite one that he used to wear just for me - in a desperate attempt to win me back. But i would have none of it. To begin with, i would take his calls and reply to his emails, and try to explain to him why i was breaking up with him to make him see sense, but after awhile i didn't want to hear it anymore. I suppose i was a bit of a bitch, but i was young and i had my life stretching out in front of me and i could do what i pleased with it. For a relationship that stretched across a 7 hour distance, he made me feel incredibly suffocated, and i did not appreciate it. So, when i started ignoring him, he went to the next option. He started calling my mother, in tears, begging her to make me see sense and take him back and my poor mother didn't know what to do with herself. He would threaten to physically harm himself because he was so devestated that he couldn't take the emotional pain anymore, and when i found this out i contacted his mother.

This went on for several weeks until the calls, emails, and text messages slowly stopped. Defeated, he cut me completely out of his life. I was sad in a way, because he was a good friend and i didn't want to completely lose him, which was selfish of me. He was my first for alot of things, and i felt like a piece of my heart had been ripped off and wouldn't be replaced.

After about a year and a half though, I found him on a messenger program and began to talk to him again. Slowly, we started to build a friendship. It was tedious at first, because he was so damaged by me, but i wanted him in my life and worked my butt off to repair the damage to the friendship that i had caused. We're now the best of friends, and while i cannot fathom being in a relationship again because i don't feel that way about him, i also cannot imagine not having him in my life. We catch up on a regular basis, and talk all the time. He asks me advice about his girl problems and i ask him questions about my boy problems. We have the kind of relationship now which i think i actually really wanted from the start - a close friendship. It's been over ten years now that i've known him, and he's one of my closest and dearest friends.