First Love

We fancied ourselves in love. Her, with the dark-haired, full-lipped, thick-lashed giant, and I with the light-haired, green-eyed, pale-skinned faerie.

Album cover art for SKOE

And really, they looked the part. Chan, with his bulk and brawn and length of thick, curly hair that reached past his shoulders at one point. Matt, with his thin, lithe build and natural grace, his light brown hair once long, too, though it was much thinner and just barely curled at the ends. He looked like the literal manifestation of heaven on Earth, in my personal opinion. As poetic as it sounds, Emilie and I found their hair disgusting. (But we loved them anyway.)

We spent countless hours holed up in her room, rehashing and dissecting every single detail of our encounters with them, speculating as to their thoughts on us and sighing in longing. All the while, Taylor Swift’s 1989 album played in the background, her lyrics about love and loss only stoking the fires of our passion and angst. Most of those details will probably pass with time, but I will never forget how Matt made me feel. The awful, yet somehow pleasant, harmony of excitement, butterflies, and toe-curling euphoria. The way he brushed his too-long hair out of his eyes.

And, oh… those eyes. Light green and clear as the sea on a cloudless day. It always felt like he could see right through me. He could pin me to the wall with the power of one of his glances. I came within a few inches of those eyes when I square danced with him in student council on one occasion. I called Emilie immediately after to tell her the news. This was actually one of the only interactions I had with him. I was painfully shy around him. I would flush and drop things and trip over my own feet. I was obnoxious; I was loud. I had trouble being myself. I couldn't hold eye contact with him. Those clear green eyes were too beautiful to look at for long.

Chan, Emilie’s crush, had blue eyes that were intense in both color and depth. You could drown in those eyes. She had blue eyes that rivaled his and blond hair that went on for miles (something I always enviously compared to my straight, boring hair). Chan’s tan skin, thanks to his Puerto Rican heritage, was a stark contrast to Matt’s pale English complexion.

They were almost all we talked about when we were together. We developed a mutual obsession with them. A friendship can't survive if it is centered around a shared interest in a pair of best friends and everything else revolves around it. Boys were what brought us together, but they were also part of the reason we tore apart. We fancied ourselves in love, but how could we be if it fell to pieces with our friendship? How could I be if I never really talked to him, and was unable to work up the courage to do so? How could I be if I was more in love with the idea of love than I was with him? How could it be if, all along, he didn't love me back?

And as a twist, I loved her as more than friends all along...but she didn't love me back in the end. How could she, because girls aren't supposed to love girls, right?

---

If you learned something or just appreciate my writing, you can tip me at paypal.me/zoeadunning or cash.app/$zoeadunnin.