April 30^th, 2007.

His band was offered a few gigs in Sydney which they played over the last few days. He came back with a gift. It was sticker; a type from a label maker that said his name and mine, and in between our names was a red love heart. As soon as I received the gift, I think that was where I finally figured out what butterflies in the stomach felt like and what it was like to be ‘head over heels’ like in the movies. This guy was willing to sneak around to see me, and still stuck around knowing I had no experience with the opposite sex. I knew for sure he wanted me for me. This was the first night we said the words ‘I love you’.

Again, we spent all night in my room, quietly chatting and making out. It all just worked. It all just gelled so well together. My first love was perfect.

He was about to leave through my bedroom window, when he stopped to say ‘when you wake up in the morning, make sure you look outside your window. I left you a surprise.’

I smiled, and kissed him goodnight, then he added, ‘don’t look now!’

That was it. This was the one. He was making so much effort, that there was never a doubt in my mind. I found the man who was everything I ever wanted, plus more.

I let him out the window and kept my distance so I wouldn’t spoil the surprise he had for me.

May 1^st, 2007.

I had woken up at 5am and I was way too eager to wait any longer to see my surprise. I slid the window open and popped my head out. There was a bouquet of flowers just ahead of me with a trail of flower petals beside it, leading up to the pavement. I crawled out the window because from a distance, I could see the petals spreading further. I reached the pavement and my mouth dropped. I raised my hands to my face to cover my mouth, and then revealed the happiest girl you would have ever seen. He had arranged the flower petals to shape-out his initials, a love heart and then my initials. It was right there for display, for the entire world to see. There was no wind, so luckily nothing ruined this moment for me.

I texted him simply saying you’re amazing. He texted back a smiley face and told me to have a day as beautiful as me.

I went back inside, taking the bouquet of flowers with me, and sat on my bed thinking for the couple of hours I had left before school. I thought, though this guy was the most amazing thing that ever happened to me, I was starting to think ahead. What if we became officially boyfriend and girlfriend? There would be so many issues that would tear us apart. I have strict parents, and being Greek, bringing a boy home, let alone a Turkish one, is a hard thing to convince them to accept. There is also the age gap. It might not sound like much, but I was 16 and still in school, and he was 19 and working part-time, while he worked on weekends at pubs and clubs playing gigs. Despite whatever negatives there were that could potentially ruin the entire notion for us. It was from here that we had to start seeing each other a lot more, and so we did.

May 5^th, 2007.

The neighbour had had the fence rebuilt, and much to my disappointment, it was made a lot higher than the original one. This meant, when he came to see me, the fence was way too high for him to climb. So, we decided that he would show up at my extra curricular activities instead.

I had started taekwondo the month earlier with my sister. My sister was in a younger grade and her class was an hour and a half before mine. Dad decided it would just be easier if I went with them and waited for my class to begin after hers. My dad never actually came in to watch us train. Dad just sat in the car. This was perfect though, because while I waited for my class, I could sneak outside and around the corner to see him.

May 12^th, 2007.

The night before, my best friend had come over to my house. Her and her boyfriend had had a massive fight about him hanging out with one of his female friends at school during lunch. I comforted her and we spoke about the guys in our lives. Then she said something to me that made me stop in my tracks for that moment. She said, ‘wouldn’t it just be easy and so good if we were just our young selves, single and enjoying life as it was while we can?’ She was on to something, and that should have been the sign I needed to get out of what I thought was the best thing for me. But being young and dumb, all I could think of was that there was no chance I was going to let this guy slip away from me. Who cares how old I was. This was serious. He was the only thing in my life that just worked, and didn’t give me a headache.

On this night, he had visited me again at my taekwondo lesson. This time he brought a friend along, together with his girlfriend.

We hugged as usual, and I decided I would light-heartedly tell him about the situation with my best friend. I also mentioned how she said she wished we could both just be single and living our lives. I would quickly regret that decision. He turned to look at me face on, and firmly hooked on to my arms. It was like he must have been thinking about it for a while and I had just opened up the opportunity, because his decision to break up with me there and then came out of nowhere. He said, ‘you know what? Your friend is right. Maybe we shouldn’t be together.’ He was so quick to just let me go. No reason.

He kissed me on the cheek, wished me the best in life because I deserved the world, and then walked away with his friends. All I remember thinking to myself was what the fuck just happened. Why wasn’t he fighting for me? What changed and when? Why can’t we fix this? Every question possible in that situation crossed my mind.

I waited until he was fully out of my vision before I broke down, falling to my knees onto the grass in my white uniform. This happened in the first 15 minutes of him coming to see me, so I still had over an hour before I had to go inside. I cried for the entire hour, waiting last minute to go into the bathrooms and wash my face. I tried to conceal any signs of being heart broken, and any hint that showed I was remotely involved with someone romantically.

December 12^th, 2007.

‘I miss you,’ he had texted me. I was so dumb that I jumped at the opportunity and replied instantly. It was like he never broke up with me. From this day onward, we sent text upon text, and spoke every night on the phone. He would constantly say how he wanted to see me, but we were finding it difficult to come to the same routine we had before we broke up. I told him the Saturday coming was the last taekwondo lesson for the year and that it would be the only time he would be able to see me. Well, for this week at least.

I wasn’t even angry anymore. I just wanted to see him so badly.

December 15^th, 2007.

I had really high hopes that he would actually come to my last class, and it gave me tingles and goose bumps when I finally saw him again this day. He came with a CD for me.

I went home that night and listened to the CD. It was full of R&B and Hip-Hop songs about falling in love, and finding the one. It made me smile and feel warm again, knowing that there was a high chance that this was going to work out again. I thought, he must have been thinking about me for ages if he made a CD just for me full of love songs.

December 17^th, 2007.

I got home after my final exam at school. What a relief. I spread like a star fish on my bed, still in my uniform and stared up at the ceiling. I was content. Not everything in my life was perfect, but I didn’t hate on it too much as usual either. I decided I’d have a shower and then jump online.

My content mood vanished instantly when I saw his ‘ex’ girlfriend’s name pop up in my messages again. ‘Seriously, why are you still talking to my boyfriend? What are you trying to do here?’ I ignored her again, but this time, I didn’t hesitate to call him up and ask the question straight away.

‘Hello?’
‘Tell me the truth, right now, who is she?’

He took a deep breath, and soon after came the confession.

‘She’s my girlfriend.’
‘Current girlfriend?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were with her when she messaged me the first time?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay,’ is all I simply said before I hang up on him after a minute of silence. We stopped speaking from that point.

I didn’t cry this time. I was numb. My brain was bombarded with so many thoughts of what I wanted to do and say, that each of those thoughts would crash into each other and just disappear, and then the thoughts would race again.

He was affectionate, he was thoughtful, he made effort, he made me feel like there was nobody else, so where did it all go wrong? Why did I not see it coming?

to be continued…