FIRST LOVE
Before I met Kit, I loved him very much. I didn't know who he was, but I had a longing inside me for someone I knew existed. We were teenagers, staying in a villa owned by his grandmother. It was the sort of house that appeared to have risen from the earth. Ivy curled across the stone walls in thick vines, and rosebuds sang their way as high as the upstairs window. My parents were old friends of his aunt who had gathered us there to celebrate her fiftieth birthday. She had worn a dress with white lace that reminded me of moth wings.
He was so beautiful. I remember, trying not to look at him for long, as if he would burn me like the sun, and yet, like the sun, I saw him without looking. I was aware of Kit as he was a boy my age and thus a receptacle to all of my half-formed fantasies. I liked the idea of meeting someone in the summer. It seemed very romantic to me. I don’t remember our first conversation, only it must have taken place on my first day when he was asked to show me the house and surrounding area. He took me to the beach and kept lifting handfuls of fine sand before letting it pour through his fingers. For a boy, he had lovely hands. I noticed that despite the light tan he’d acquired, the palms of his hands were as pale as the skin on his neck and forearms, places which hadn’t been exposed to the sun as much.
That summer, I liked to read and found a space in the back garden where the grass lay mostly flat. I threw a wide sheet over it and lay on my back, watching the clouds break apart. I remained largely undisturbed until after lunch when he would come out of the house with what he referred to as his “things”: sunglasses, coffee, a newspaper, yellow notepad, colored pens, and music, which he listened to with headphones so it was impossible to speak to him unless he was speaking to me first. He played cards with my mother, took the younger kids swimming and he came into the habit of joining me because he always needed company. I didn’t mind so much because he asked me about the books I was reading and liked when I answered him. Kit made me feel like everything I did and said was interesting. He told me about his family and the girl back home he loved. Kit said he loved her even though she had left him before the summer. He told me she hangs photographs on her walls and drinks orange juice. I said I didn’t like orange juice. He laughed and said he didn’t either.
One afternoon, Kit’s younger brother handed me an envelope that had already been clumsily opened. The envelope had a hastily drawn stamp in the corner and it was addressed to my room on the first floor. I pulled a folded yellow paper from inside. In large scrolling letters it read,
NINA,
HI! OH WHAT A DAY IT IS TODAY! THE SUN!
ADORABLY, KIT
It was the first of many notes he would write me. I found pieces of him in my jean pocket, slipped between the pages of a book, or folded into a swan on my dresser. They were always vague and hyperbolic. Their uselessness made them beautiful.
We left our parents at the villa and ran away to the beach. Beside the velvet slowness of the water, we found a meadow and spread a blanket between fists of wildflowers. I remember talking a great deal about when I was a girl. He listened. I explained how when I was very young, I believed if I stepped in a puddle, a wish was granted. On our way back, I let the tips of my fingers brush against his.
Sometimes when I came downstairs in the morning, he was already in the garden, sitting, cross-legged at the table with all his “things” sprawled out around him. When he saw me, a smile would break apart his face, and it felt like I was gazing directly into the sun. He let me ask a few questions before he started interrogating me. Kit wanted to know everything and I gave him what I had. While I talked, I could feel him staring at me and smiling. When he spoke, his words had a swinging cadence to them, and his syllables rose and fell like waves. It was like listening to a song. Sometimes we would hold hands for no reason.
I saw him dancing later, with his mother and aunt. I wondered if there were other girls here, pretty ones with long lashes who kept secrets, if he would still look at me the way he did then. I wondered if he would still let me run my hands through his hair or if he would still kiss the nape of my neck.
The thrill of seeing him, the anxiety of trying to anticipate his thoughts, the promise of so much bliss hovering a fingertip away, the fumbling sentences, the urge to simultaneously hide and be seen- all started then. Those giddy, romantic feelings are embossed onto every song I heard that summer, onto every novel I read during and after, on everything from the smell of rain to the sound of crinkled paper. Every sensation now held an inflection forever colored by him and everything we did.
I would cry while reading poetry.
The night before my family left the villa, I was woken up by someone coming down the stairs. I pulled on a pair of socks before creeping out of my room to find him. I knew he was a restless sleeper even then. I wanted to ask if he could still love me a year from now, even though we would be far apart. I thought he might say yes, but I wasn’t sure because sometimes he feels far away from me and I find it hard to tell him my true feelings. Out of everyone in the whole world, I believe he is the most important person.
He was sitting on a bench facing the horizon and was illuminated by an arm of sunlight rising from the surface of the sea. He looked at me in the same glorious way he always looked at me. He patted the cushion next to him. The seat took on the weight of my body, and we both began to laugh uncontrollably—as if simultaneously realizing it was love.
Ruby G.S, 19, USA ✯ rubyred4145@gmail.com