They are lying tangled together on the living room floor, her legs across his, recording their conversation on a cassette tape recorder. His voice, then hers.
You are so cute.
Shut up. I am not.
They are near the attic fan, as there is no central air, only two window units, one on each floor, in this 60 year-old bungalow. They are here because they are sixteen and in love and it is hot outside and all they want is to be near each other. They are listening to the same part, over and over again: Rewind. Play. Rewind. Play.
You are. All of you is cute. You have cute hands…cute elbows…cute shoulders…..
He continues his inventory, his claim deflected by her at every step except when he does something that makes it hard for her to breathe or talk or think straight. Her parents are home, so those moments are few and brief, and eventually he arrives at her feet.
You even have cute little sausage toes.
What are you doing? Get away from my feet!
Rewind. Play.
He is not her first lover, though she told him he is. The first holds the distinction of being so forgettable that she will never forget him in his utter forgettableness. She IS his first, though he told her she is not.
On Fridays she sits cross-legged on his portable amplifier and he wheels them both down the school hall from the band room to the parking lot and her car. They pass notes between classes and fight over stupid, childish things and make up with the kind of fierce intensity that comes with first love.
They share a locker and when they are lucky enough to be there at the same time she pushes against him and they breathe each other in and she pulls up both of their shirts, just a little, enough so that they are skin on skin. It is not long, then, before they are being marched down the hallway to the office, her with her fingers laced behind her neck like a prisoner. Not good with authority, this one, but he doesn’t mind.
She is lectured sternly on promiscuity and self-respect by the vice principal while the boy’s presence is barely noted, except by a vague reference that he can’t be expected to control himself. This only enrages her further and will pay off well for him later, in the music storage room behind the stage during an assembly.
The first time she is home sick from school, he brings her homework by without being asked. Her mother doesn’t wake her to tell her and she will never make that mistake again because the girl, her pajamas and her fever bolt out the front door after him as he walks toward home. He turns to see her and laughs because she is barefoot and crying a little, and he carries her piggy-back to the house and makes her promise to go back to bed.
This boy, this sixteen year-old bass player and die-hard fan of John Entwistle, is the best thing that could have happened to this sixteen year-old girl. This girl who thinks she is ugly and unlovable, and who has never, before him, believed anyone who said she was neither.
You, fathers and mothers of teenage daughters, I know the hairs on the back of your neck are standing up and you have already decided that no, he is not what she needs, she needs discipline and to lose her car keys and maybe she needs Jesus, but she most certainly does not need some punk kid bass player.
But she did. All the trouble, it came later, after he was gone. Then, he was everything.
He wants to marry her as soon as they graduate and move to a town where he has chance of making it as a musician. She does not want to go.
Mostly, she doesn’t like being told what to do.
It is terrible, when it ends.
Tell me you don’t love me anymore, and I’ll leave, she says but she doesn’t mean it. He has had enough, enough of her, and he walks up to her and his face touches hers, and he says it, softly but with conviction. I don’t love you anymore. And he walks away so he doesn’t have to look at her face as it crumbles and she grabs every Precious Moments figurine from his mother’s curio and hurls them at his back, one by one until he picks her up and puts her outside and locks the door.
She has trouble moving on, but when she does it is for a man far outside her peer group. The boy comes to see her where she works, in her tiny office in the local Cineplex and sees the much older man who waits for her.
Now the boy has long musician hair and ripped jeans and snakeskin cowboy boots and an attitude. The girl is different. Jaded. Unimpressed by his insistence that she shouldn’t be with someone so much older, that there is something wrong with a grown man who would date a seventeen year-old girl. This conversation, over and over, as the rest of the band wanders in the lobby and pantomimes comic suicide:
Why do you care?
I just do. I don’t know why. (he is lying.)
If you tell me why you care, I’ll tell him to leave right now. (she is lying.)
I just do.
You don’t love me anymore, remember?
Please don’t leave with him.
Why do you care?
The older man quickly grows tired of the teenage drama. He kisses the girl in front of everyone and tells her to call him when she’s free. As he leaves, the boy shouts Bye, grandpa! Tell gramma hi! but the man doesn’t miss a step.
They grow up and move on, with and without each other. Their orbits sometimes brush against one another, but never connect again. Drunk 3am phone calls, he scares her when he talks of suicide and sometimes she drives across town to make sure he is alright.
She tries to go to every one of his gigs. She sits in the back of smoky bars where she can’t be seen and when the crowd rushes the stage she moves out the door. She writes for a local paper, and he reads everything she writes. Neither of them know.
He walks his dog by the bank where she works and comes in to see her weekly, for a long time, then just once in awhile. Later he drives through with the mother of his infant son. Then, just with his son.
Later still, he comes to tell her he is moving away – that there’s a chance he’ll be signed by a label and it’s only two hours from here but he’s moving, he has to, he’ll never do anything if he doesn’t, and she smiles and holds him for a minute and tells him to have a good life.
I’m sure you’ll see me again, he says and rolls his eyes at her.
She will.
It will be twenty-five years.
He is still only two hours away, but for some reason she never made the drive before. He was the first person to find her on Facebook, and the first time they talk there is this feeling of shouting across a great distance. So she goes, because he asks. They meet for breakfast and they excitedly trade stories and pictures of their loves and their families in a little diner full of old men drinking black coffee. He says his wife’s name with charming reverence, as if the very moon hangs from the word, and she talks about how her husband is the perfect counter to her flighty nature. How he keeps her grounded. She accidentally calls him “honey” and they both sit smiling in embarrassed silence for a moment.
He’s a session musician and plays in three different bands. He’s met John Entwistle and toured parts of Europe just as grunge was moving on to the next thing. She never left the town where they grew up, and her story is not as interesting, but they are lost for a few hours in their shared and unique experiences. They hold hands, just for a moment, as they walk to their cars.
Late one night his chat icon appears and they talk a little more, and she says I remember that you once spent the better part of an evening trying to talk me out of leaving with that “old” man. You know he was ten years younger than you are now, right?
I remember, he says. He was too old for you.
She is typing Fine, but I never did quite figure out what all that was about, and she has gotten as far as “quite” when the chat notification pops in again.
Because I loved you. Stupid.
And a tiny little scar, still there after all this time, finally disappears.
I know, she says, I loved you back, and they both laugh.
She still goes to watch him play, once in a great while. He still reads everything she writes.
(Photo credit to Hastywords, where this post was also featured)
Sometimes people say to me, 14 y/o teenager to get out of the way and let the adults do what they do. Then I see WordPress and it all proves to be wrong, there’s so much potential in you! And yeah, I can tell that its from the heart, even I was at your place a little time ago. And yes, it still hurts as I have to see her everyday in school. You wrote what had to be written. Even I wrote a poem a week ago while talking to myself and decided to post it to get the word out to see if anyone feels like it too. So, shameless hussy, keep up the good work and check my poem once. It’ll be an honour for me.
good job :))
Thank you!
Wow, that was beautiful. Oddly enough, reminds me of my last relationship.
🙂 thank you! I hope the memory was pleasant….
I wish… that would be nice. But he ended our relationship because he wasn’t ready to commit to being in a relationship apparently. So, more sad than happy, I’d say. But also hopeful because things could still work out. It’s only been almost two months, so just have to see. Still painful to think about after everything that’s happened between us. But I know things will work out in the end, one way or the other.
that was just beautiful and amazing keep writing i want to read more thank you for sharing and yeah if you can check out my blog maybe give me a few pointers im an army man so im trying a new hobby figured id start a blog.. https://airageorge.wordpress.com/
Great writer, great post
Check out my new blog http://www.minamonaeblog.wordpress.com
I will! Thank you! 🙂
Woww incredible this is😍
Thank you very much!
Such a beautiful and heart warming story it was! I am 16 and I all agree to that life of teenage! 🙂 Loved the way you have drawn the story into your words, very well written! Loved it! 🙂
Thank you!
This is something I really loved.. Thankyou for this amazing art.. 🙂
Thank you for reading! 🙂
Awesome piece!👍👍
Thanks!
Keep up the good work…..keep the literary fire burning!
So grasping ! Damn good !
Thank you!
Oki.it is very good
its one amazing story…you write really well ……
Thank you for the kind words!
checkout my blog as well ?
Absolutely! 🙂
Good Job..!!
great story my friend… 🙂
Thank you!
This can be read in so many ways and can lead to various after tastes once you finish. Mine was bittersweet! all of us have been there once, as one of the three! Playing, sneaking, lying, coaxing, loving and leaving…Amazing still..
Beautiful… So realistic!
Thank you!
My friend told me that people never fall out of love. The kind of love that they felt in the beginning changes into a different one. This story is light but sad, sparkling yet tear jerking. Thank you for a wonderful piece! 😀
Thank you for reading! 🙂
This is beautiful.
Thank you! 🙂
Yes, it is!
Reblogged this on wheremabelgo and commented:
A short story on teen love.
Right in the feels
🙂
You’ve captured a story of a teenage life so well, painting a vivid image of what goes on in a teenager’s mind at that age. Excellent post! I look forward to reading more of your work. 🙂
Thank you for reading and for the kind words!
Wow… I definitely felt this.
BEAUTIFUL.
I’m so glad I found this! So, I guess it’s safe to say that we have all experienced this at least once in our lives. Great story! Look forward to reading more.
Thank you so much for the read and the kind words! 🙂
Beautiful piece. True and raw emotions. Thank you for this 🙂
Thank you!! 🙂
My pleasure 🙂
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
I loved this. Instantly kindled memories for me.
Thank you! 🙂
Wow this is amazing!!! I wish I could write like that!
Thank you for reading!! 🙂
I cried. Really. And I do every time I read it. Sort of like when I watch the Notebook. Ugh Love so much.
Thank you Hasty!!! ❤
❤️
This was so beautiful! Glad I read this today 🙂
Thank you so much! 🙂
Reblogged this on CHI's blog.
Sadly not always the case
This…this is fantastic!
Thank you! 🙂
Really nice story! Really nice writing! Thanks!
Thank you for reading!! 🙂
I often wonder about “that one”. Over years and years of coming back together and falling apart again…why is it we can never truly let them go? Agony. Thanks for sharing .
Thank you! First love dies the hardest, and it’s always a part of who you are. 🙂
Best piece I’ve read all week. Despite the undeniable lingering sadness in it, it made me smile. So I’d like to say, thank you 🙂
Thank you for your kind words. It’s nice to hear it resonated with someone. 🙂
That was a really moving piece! I felt this nostalgia but it was bittersweet. The strucutre of your work compliments the content so much
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment! 🙂
This was so so good. Being a teenager, I can relate to this so well. Beautiful.
Thank you so much!
I almost always read non-fiction in the pursuit of understanding some thing. About the only fiction I read now is John Grisham. I guess my point would be that I now read with a purpose that isn’t only the pursuit of pleasure. It wasn’t always so. Now though, I have lived more time than I have left to live and that time left is so much more precious. I was just ambushed into spending more than a few of those precious moments reading something that brought me great pleasure and I want to thank you for sharing it with me.
This is so exquisitely executed. But then, I’m a sucker for anything that resounds with the crystal ringing of poignant truth and is layered with sentimental melancholy. I sit here now in bittersweet agony. I hope you’re happy. I know I am.
Made me laugh. At your agony, yes, but I laughed at mine too. Thank you for reading.
I was enraptured. Had trouble scooping the next bite of salad into my mouth. It left a sob sort of feeling in my throat, but in a way that I don’t mind.
Thank you my friend! I appreciate anyone who humored my moment of sentimental folly. 🙂 I know, I got done writing and was all sad and I was like “why did I write this???”
This makes my heart hurt for “all the things that might’ve been”💗
Oh, nice…so much like many first loves that never quite get extinguished.
Reblogged this on Her Headache and commented:
Still taking a bit of a blogging break while I write. This story I’m sharing this week is sweetness.
Thank you for the reblog! I appreciate the support so much. 🙂
After reading this, I realized it took me 40 years to fall in love like a 16-year-old. It was worth the wait, and this beautifully written piece explains why. Loved this so very much.
Thanks, Ned! Yes, I value his friendship very much. How lucky are you to have found something like that at any point in your life. 🙂 I appreciate the kind words!
I was also a rebel at school – I hated (and still do) self-imposed authority figures trying to tell me what to do. Unfortunately, I never had a teenage love — come to think of it, I’ve NEVER had a great love. I hope that changes!
It will come. All advice on the subject is both absolutely true and equally useless. You just keep being wonderful you. 🙂 thank you for the read and the comment.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you. 😉 I appreciate the support!
I love this. It gave me truth-shivers. I didn’t live this story in real time. (I was with the older guys until I up-n-married a young one. 😉 ) but I feel like I’ve lived it now. Beautiful writing.
Thank you, Rara! I’ve heard so much good about you that I’m very flattered that you came by. My point, which I failed to make because I was so sentimental and now I have to write another post – is that our love we have to give us not finite, and isn’t diminished by what came before or after. I like to play this memory like a favorite record, and it has nothing to do with the love I have now. Anyway. Thank you.
I fucking love this. It it’s beautiful and true — reads so very true — and something I can personally relate to.
Thank you, my friend. I like it when something I write resonates. So glad I finally met you!! 🙂
Me too! I keep saying this, but I made a good decision when I decided to go. Hugs.
We all had that one, didn’t we? Mine posts shirtless pictures on Facebook because he can. And I’m okay with that.
Ha! I bet you are. And yeah. You are always so supportive and kind. I’m so glad I got to meet you! 🙂
Damn, this brings me back to my teen years. Puppy love, falling in love, fun times, intimacy, heartbreak, angst, losing lovers, finding them again, moving on, maturing. Memories….
I know! And I get all done and I’m like why did I write this? Thank you. 🙂