This Is How My Childhood Ended
I didn’t notice the moment it happened, but suddenly I couldn’t go back
The ending began, as these things so often do, with a beginning. That beginning was the start of my relationship with my first husband.
We were both young — so very, very young — when we met. Children, really. Not old enough legally to drink in bars; I wasn’t old enough at that point even to drive. But this boy liked me, and he made it clear that he liked me, and so because he liked me, I was smitten.
I really believe that my interest was piqued, right at the start, by the simple fact that he liked me. He wasn’t looking past my shoulder to see if my better-looking friend had noticed him. He wasn’t asking me if it was true that my sister was the hot girl in the year below. He looked at my soft moony features, my straggly ponytail, my curious clothes and he said “You. You, I like.”
That was all it took. I was hooked. When three dates later he failed even to show up for our next meeting and I didn’t hear from him again at all for several months, I was heartbroken to the point of being unable to eat. Life felt pointless, stained dark at all its edges. I vowed with every superstitious fiber of my being that if I could just win him back, I’d do anything, for anyone, ever. All I wanted was him and I would…
