30-Day Writing Challenge — Day 3
April 3rd, 2016
First Love and First Kiss
Well the actual first kiss happened when I was about 18 months or so. We were at some event for kids. While I was sitting with some other kids my age, I stood up and started shouting some incoherent baby-talk, attracting as much attention to myself as possible. Some little girl gets up and runs over to me and plants a kiss right on my lips… And I start crying like a baby. In my defense, I was a baby.
As for my first “love”… I was 4, and fell in love with an older girl. Her name was Chantel. She was 5. She was my best friend. We played together at daycare everyday. We were almost inseparable. She was the first girl I remember actually having strong feelings for that I could not be explained by mere friendship. Then one day… She didn’t show up to day-care and I found out that she had been sent to Kindergarten. I was devastated and completely inconsolable… until a young boy who became my best friend for the next 2 years came over and shared his toys with me. But I don’t really think those count. The Kiss wasn’t really mutual. And I was too young for those feelings to be more than completely innocent. So we’re going to fast-forward about a decade to what I consider was my real first kiss and my real first love.
So my real first kiss, being the one I wanted, was with a girl named Ashlee. I was 15? 16? 17? I don’t really remember, I’ve been kicked in the head a lot since then. We met through our friends who were dating at the time. We lived in different cities, but she came to mine to visit friends and family. So we had a mini-date at a mall where we talked, did some shopping, got lunch. While we had lunch we talked and I was awkwardly babbling as I do when I’m nervous. Then in the middle of my babbling, she just plants one on me. I was not expecting it. At all… and I just kinda sat there stunned for what must have been about 3 minutes. Then asker her for another one. She happily consented. We broke up about a month or two later… the day after her birthday.
My first love was a girl named Amber. This I remember clearly since the relationship was truly my first real experience with Love. I cared deeply for Ashlee. She and I had gotten to know each other really well for about a year before we actually became a couple. But looking back… it wasn’t love. With Amber it was different. It was so much more intense, so much more passionate, and so much more profound.
Amber and I met, officially, through mutual friends. She was a freshman at my high-school while I was a senior. She was strong willed and stronger bodied. About 5’6–5’7, an inch or two shorter than myself. See to understand the attraction you have to understand who I was in highschool. I was bullied a lot before highschool. And then in my first year of highschool, the Columbine shooting happened. The “Black Trenchcoat Mafia” happened. And to rid myself of the bullies, I dawned the black trench coat and waged a war of psychological terror on the bullies that had tormented me since the 4th grade. Naturally, I became infamous in my highschool. Since I had actually done nothing, and made no threats, the administration could do nothing. But the student body, especially my bullies, revered me with fear. Everyone except my tiny circle of about 7 friends and the faculty. Even to the point that on the one year anniversary of the massacre the only people that showed up to school that day were the faculty and my friends. Largely due to a rumour that I was going to recreate the massacre. That rumour may or may not have been started by me. Anyway… the point is… I was feared… by almost everyone. And it didn’t take long for the freshmen to learn to stay out of my way every year. Except this one crazy bitch that was feared by her entire year.
Now when anyone else walked through the halls, it was a struggle to get through the sea of people and to your locker. When I walked through the halls, people made a path for me so as not to “incur my wrath” by accidentally touching me. Everyone…
Everyone except… Her. I walked through the hall, and she stood toe-to-toe against me. People literally stopped and watched the stare down. In the end, neither of us actually backed down, we simply circled each other until we were on the side we needed to be on to continue on our ways. It was impressive to see someone without fear of the rumours, and impressive learn I had what I thought was going to be my heir to the fear I induced.
A few weeks or months later, there was this school dance. Now by then, she had worked her way into being friends with a few members of my circle of friends. And at this dance she managed to work her way into hanging out with us. Now we danced a few times. But to the rock-pop music of the time so there wasn’t any real touching. At some point in the 4 hours of the dance, I sprained my ankle and had to stop dancing. Towards the end of the night things were slowing down as was the music. But then someone went and told me that they were playing Queen in the gym (where the dancing was happening). I loved Queen. So I wanted to go in and at least listen. But Amber… She took me by the hand and said: “No, you have to dance.” So with a sprained ankle, I danced to a Queen song that I cannot remember. However right after that song ended, they played “I don’t want to miss a thing” by Aerosmith. And as I tied to leave, again, she took me by the hand and insisted I slow dance with her.
Now she’ll tell you that I kissed her, and I’ll say that she kissed me… but the point is, in the middle of the dance floor for everyone to see, we kissed. That’s where it began.
We dated from May 17th of 2002 to February 13th 2004. Yeah, she dumped me the day before Valentines-Day… OVER THE PHONE. She got me involved in martial arts. She took me from 270lbs to 230lbs. She was my best friend. She was my first love. She was my first lover. She was the first woman to devastate me. And she was the first woman to let me know I could feel something other than hatred and anger.
She was my first love, and my first REAL girlfriend cause she saw exactly who I was and never even flinched. Did it hurt when it ended? Damn rights it did. Would I change anything about it? Not a damned thing. Cause it was the greatest time of my life at that point in my life.
Here endith the tale of Jon Leo’s first love.
