The First Time

Life is full of firsts, whether we want them or not-- An old piece.

 

When I look back on the life we’ve shared together; all the fights, the occasional breakup, all the pretty girls, the tears, the pure insecurity, I always seem to find myself sitting in  on some checked black and white floor, leaning up against some pastel painted door in some dingy backstage bathroom with unflattering fluorescent lighting. The pounding coming from the stage, pulsing through my head, ears ringing, make-up smeared- I always pull myself up off the floor, unlock the stall and rinse my face in the rusting basin. Usually, at this point, I take a long hard look at my mascara-stained face and wonder why I let myself go through this.

 

 Then I remember when we met.

~

 

I was sitting on a swing slowly swaying back and forth, my feet scuffing on the dirt patch that had formed under my seat. I remember the dirt getting into my sandals and it making me want to cry. I’ve never been fond of dirt, over the years, I’ve gotten used to it, but when I was a kid- so my mother says- I was ‘the cleanest thing you’d ever see.’ This is why, when you came along and shoved me off of the swing- because I wasn’t ‘doing it right’- I cried my body dry. I remember the taste of copper filling my mouth and I remember my mother running over to me, frantic. But the thing I remember most was that I had dirt up my nose, under my nails, in my ears, on my pretty yellow overalls with pictures of Babar sewn on. That is when the tears began and -as we have both been told time and time again- they lasted for days and days.

 

Your mean boy behaviour sparked a friendship between our mothers and in turn, sparked play dates and an ever growing hatred between us. I think it was during this time that I really became ok with the idea of dirt; I had no choice with you around. When I ponder these first few years of our life together, it makes sense that it would start with you shoving me into a pile of dirt when we were six years old. What doesn’t make sense is how it all ended. 

 

~

 

As I stand here in the cold, heavy room, looking out into a sea of faces- faces I know but can’t quite recognise, my breath catches in my airway I can’t believe I’m standing here doing this, I can’t believe that you are making me stand in front of what seems like millions of people.  You know I hate public speaking. Through the tears resting on the edge of my eyes, all the faces seem to blur into one big mass; a mass of blacks and greys and desolation.

 

~

There was this day once, the first one after you got your driver’s license, and you’d offered me a lift home that sparked millions of questions in my post-flu brain. On this one day, as you uneasily changed gears, as the afternoon sun beamed in the windows, as the wind ruffled my hair; you said ‘I’m leaving’. I didn’t hear much of anything after that, like I went deaf, numb all at once. I caught glimmers of what you were saying, words like ‘band’ and ‘tour’ and ‘record’. I told you to stop the car, I wanted to get out. You didn’t understand but pulled over anyway. I got out and walked.

 

~

 

I don’t think you ever really understood properly, that your actions had always affected me. Even without action it’s like you’re still calling the shots. It’s like you have the remote to my life, and as you’re watching someone has knocked on the door. You’ve hit pause to go and answer it and I’m frozen, still, trapped in a moment I wish would just be over. I have things I’ve written, things I need to say but I can’t make my body work. 

 

~

 

The first time I saw you, I mean, really saw you was just over five years ago, when we were seventeen. It was the last Wednesday of the school year and the air was thick with anticipation for the summer ahead. The sun seemed to shine brighter, hotter that day as you wound through the hall toward me. ‘Hey,’ you said. ‘long time no see,’ as you leant up against my locker like you did most days I saw you"only, this time, I didn’t think you looked like the world’s biggest dork. In my confusion of the absence of the dork tag, I informed you that it had only been two days since we’d seen each other because I’d had the flu. You shrugged. ‘Got my licence!’ you announced proudly. ‘Want a ride home?’ The butterflies this question electrocuted in my stomach shocked me into agreeing. You grinned your big grin and hoped I felt better as you strutted away. I remember, for the rest of that day I wondered what the hell my mind was thinking.

 

~

 

I feel sick. Physically sick as my hand shakily tries to unravel the paper I’ve been nervously folding and unfolding- like a bad tribute to origami- the piece of paper I’ve written it all down on. I can’t do it, I can’t unravel it and I can feel myself becoming flustered. I feel one of my vision blurring tears drop, it only makes it harder to see as I look down to my phone resting on the surface in front of me. 11:45 it reads, I’ve only been standing up here for three minutes, it feels like an eternity to me and probably to everyone else who has been sitting watching me fumble around silently.

 

~

 

‘Where are you going?’ you called as I stormed off against the traffic and the warm breeze. It took a couple of seconds for your footsteps to register in my mind, I think because you were making sure your car was locked. ‘What’s wrong?’ you asked, catching a hold of my arm slightly. I told you I just wanted the air and that I needed to move- all with my back facing to you because the front of me couldn’t. I wanted to cry I just couldn’t work out the reason until you walked around to find my face. The blue eyes that I’d grown up with, the almost taunting grin moulded into confusion, just you- that was the first time it clicked- that I loved you.

 

~

 

Wiping my face, I take the deepest breath I’ve ever taken and look up into the room again, catching a glimpse of my mascara stained hands on my way up. Everyone is looking at me but they don’t look miffed or put out or anxious, they just look sorry and sad for me, as if I’m the only one upset. Guilt bursts through me as I realise I’m stealing away from your moment, your final moment. I have to say this.

 

~

 

Our first kiss was far from romantic. It was on that busy road on that day with the warm breeze when I was still a little snotty from my flu, when I’d just decided I was beside myself about the idea-I half heard- of you leaving. But I did it anyway. I kissed you and you didn’t stop me. When you kissed me back, I thought it was the most my heart would ever beat. Cars honked as they sped by, this didn’t seem to worry you, but it brought me back to reality smidge by smidge. How would this change things? Should it be happening? You wanted it too, right? All these questions flew through my mind until- what we discovered was a pigeon- flew into my head. Ever since, we both agreed that that took the awkwardness out of the situation, out of any situation.

 

~

 

I swallowed hard and robotically read from my paper, as if that would somehow distance me from the situation.

 

“We once joked about pulling a John and Yoko and staging a bed-in- not for charity really, but because getting out of bed was never a task either of us enjoyed...”

 

I took another deep breath and looked out into the blurred crowd; they were all wearing sad smiles. 

 

“That’s why, right now, when I think of him, lying there, I feel almost comforted that he was somewhere he loved to be- in a bed- I just wish that this wasn’t the last memory...” 

 

Deep breath.

 

“I’d even be happier if the final memory was in some sterile hospital bed with white sheets and tubes and tape, at least then we could have been prepared, I could have been prepared...”

 

I made eye contact with my Mum, she nodded as if to keep me going. I blinked back the never ending tears.

 

“Waking up in New York is exhilarating; I always loved it when we got to go there. He had a free day and we were going to The Annex, I was so excited that I woke up early, I didn’t want to wake him up, so I went and found a Starbucks and had coffee, watching the world go by, unaware that my world, and your worlds were about to crash...”

 

~

 

I remember this one time in Paris we’d got into a massive fight because, as you said, I was ‘being unreasonable and insecure.’ It didn’t help that I hated Paris and the people and it didn’t help that I had some kind of food poisoning and had to stay in the hotel room while you and the others went to some party. I didn’t expect you to stay with me, I just wanted you to offer. I guess at that point, I had the whole insecure musician’s girlfriend thing down pat. I remember as you stormed out of the room just wanting to go home and be normal, like we were for that first summer.

 

~

 

Someone must have knocked at the door again, because I feel like I’ve been paused again, stuck in the memory I want most to forget. I can’t say anymore, I can’t read from the two pages I have, I can’t believe I had the audacity to think I could read more than a sentence, that I could get through this day. I scrunched up my paper.

 

~

 

That summer was the summer of my life, of your life, of our life. It wasn’t our first, our first was kicked off by you shoving me off of a swing, and we’d had many summers after that, but this one was the first of another kind. We went to the beach every day, even when it rained. We’d stay out in the thick summer air until the sun was gone and the mosquitoes had almost drained us of blood. We listened to The Beatles almost constantly- until we had the week where we listened only to Radiohead, I remember you’d said it would forever been known as ‘the lost week’. I remember everything being so easy, it was before you went away with your band, before we’d seen anything other than our world. It was perfect. 

 

~

 

I remember after I got back from having my Starbucks, I was annoyed to find you still asleep, your phone alarm going off. I waltzed on over to the bed and flicked your ear. You didn’t budge. I flicked it again and you still didn’t budge. You were on your stomach; I shook you gently and said your name.

Nothing.

I shook you harder this time, rolling you half over. You were heavy and I realised your chest wasn’t moving. Panicking, I slapped you. I remember begging you to wake up, you didn’t. I didn’t know what to do. I shook you again, I put my head to your chest, I checked your pulse,

Nothing.

The rest is a blurred memory. I called the front desk and then there were paramedics. The other guys from the band all came up, disbelieving as your covered body was wheeled out. I didn’t know where to go, what to do. I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror, liquid salt running down my cheeks splattering into the basin. I walked backwards until I got to the shower door, I watched my reflection slide down to the floor and I sat and stared. There was nothing in my head, just a buzzing and the thought that the floor should be checked black and white, and that it should smell like cigarettes and alcohol and that I should be leaning on a dingy pastel coloured door, not a glass shower door with you not coming in to get me.

I remember once thinking our first kiss was the most my heart would ever beat, I was wrong.

 

~

 

I’ve been up here on this podium for too long. It’s now 11:55; it has taken me thirteen minutes to read the first few lines from my two pages of paper and still, no one has told me to hurry up of sit down. 

You would have.

At this thought, I feel my face crack into a smile, for the first time in almost three weeks.

“Goodbye.” was all I could get out before my feet took me back to my seat.

 

~

 

Everyone else that spoke today managed to get it all out within five minutes, I think everyone was hungry and wanted to get to the food and the alcohol. I just wanted to sleep. I decided to sneak away for a few minutes. I found the bathroom and- as I have done so many times before- I looked at the state of myself in the mirror. Pale and ghostly, I have cried all my make-up off, I look around the white bathroom and wonder where I’d be sitting if I knew you were going to come in and get me. As I decide it would most likely be in one of the stalls, I sit and I think, unable to cry. Everything I ever experienced with you was a first and now, for the first time since you shoved me off a swing, I have to have firsts without you, starting with the goodbye.