My First Love

I had been a bright student all my life. Without much need for supervision or instruction. Hence, I never needed any tuition outside school. Nevertheless, someone put it in my mother’s head that children need tuition from the 10th standard onwards, no matter what, or a dearth of it will “spoil their future”. Therefore, to humour my mother, I joined tuition in my locality. I was late, as I always am, and hence practising my apology on my way to the door. However, when I opened it, I didn’t see the teacher I was planning to address, the whiteboard, or anyone or anything else in the classroom.

My eyes fell on the most beautiful girl I had ever seen sitting on the front bench in the column furthest from the door. I stood there, transfixed, staring, the greeting asking permission lodged somewhere in my throat died down. I used to be immensely talkative. Nothing could shut me up. Except for this one moment that had rendered me speechless for the first time in my life. The teacher asked me to take a seat quickly and not disturb the class. I hastily grabbed the empty seat on the front bench two columns from her, utterly mortified at my behaviour, but also annoyed at the person sitting between her and me. I instinctively wanted to be as close to her as possible. In every way. There was this inexplicable urge to be near and dear to her. I couldn’t articulate it back then, but I think I believed that if I failed to become indispensable to her life, I’d die. With my limited understanding of human relationships based on popular media, as a teenager, I concluded that I really really wanted to be her best friend.

When you enter a classroom late, everyone in it turns to look at you. You’re the most recent change in their field of vision. I’m quite used to this phenomenon. That meant that the ENTIRE CLASS, INCLUDING HER, had watched me stare at her, mute. My ears began to heat up thinking about this. I have always been one of the most attentive and interactive students in my classes. That day, however, preoccupied with this new experience of self-consciousness, I wasn’t paying attention. It took quite a while for my nerves to calm down. Meanwhile, she had been raising her hand to answer all the teacher’s questions. I had finally found another student like me! A lot of firsts that day. She was growing more attractive by the minute.

We had a ten-minute break at the end of the hour. A bunch of students immediately flocked to her desk. She was a popular kid. All my plans to approach her started to seem foolish to me now. I tried to turn my panic into disappointment. That was easier to handle. By the time I finished packing my textbooks and stationery back into my bag and looked up, she has risen from her seat and was making her way toward me! She introduced herself and me, belying the ‘Queen of eloquence’ my inflated ego used to believe myself to be, was a stammering sputtering mess who barely got my own name out. I had never been this flustered just talking to someone before. I had judged the popular teenagers on TV as shallow and swore that I would never be awed by their charisma like the other ‘sheep’ at their school apart from the protagonists. Here I was, I felt, my hypocrisy exposed. Serves me right for being judgemental, I thought. I didn’t realise that I wasn’t awed by her popularity, I was experiencing my first crush.

After that embarrassment of a day, we hit it off really well. We got along famously. Neither her other friends nor I could understand her interest in me but I was happy that we grew so close so fast. My wish was coming true! I was her best friend! I also noticed a quiet shy boy, nose perpetually in some book or another, sitting behind her who only talked to her and no one else but hung around our friends’ group. By the by, I learned they were brother and sister. A year and a half difference. He was my age. She was one of those prodigies who are the youngest to do many things in their exceptional careers. All three of us were Potterheads. Who knew Harry could be such a good wingman?

I shopped online for the first time with great apprehension for her birthday gift. I had only started having a so-called “social life” and meeting friends outside the school after having met her. Not a single one of our entire friends group lasted longer than a month at the tuition. it was not very good, but it had done us a great service by bringing us in contact. The gift arrived a day before her birthday. They were a pair of Hedwig earrings. Fandom merchandise. In a fancy jewellery box that looked like a ring box but had two slits for the hooks.

I was underdressed for the party. Thankfully, on my way there, it had rained and I had been drenched riding pillion on her brother’s scooty so she lent me one of her dresses. It was a little too big around my chest and reached my ankles instead of ending just at the knees like it did on her. I rocked the sneakers with a dress look before it was cool. After the cutting of the cake, she was opening her presents. She had really extravagant expensive ones. Not just from her relatives but also from the apparently more affluent friends in our group. I wished she had opened my present first. Now that tiny box would look too small in comparison. She finally got to it. I loved how she carefully unwrapped the paper instead of tearing it. There was something very calming about that. Later in life, I would learn that it was the effect of the early signs of OCD in me.

When she saw the box, she turned to me, her beautiful brown eyes slightly wide with apprehension mingled with amusement. I smiled too. “Just open it.”, I said with a reassuring nod. She did, and time stopped the next moment. The world stopped spinning. No one else existed apart from the two of us. Her whole face lit up, she jumped up in excitement, and hugged me, hopping with joy.

“Oh my God, Sammy, I love you! This is amazing! I love you! I love you! I love you!”

The first time she had told me those three divine words, ladies and gentlefolks. I was too overwhelmed to move. Granted that they were uttered in excitement, probably as a superlative for “like”, and completely meant in a platonic way, but still. It counts. For me. For the second time, I stood transfixed. Tearing up. My arms were raised in a hug but unable to close around her. That was one of the most, probably the most beautiful moment of my life. Yes, peaked at 15. I know. I wished that moment would stretch and go on for eternity. If only I could live in it forever… I could welcome death with open arms and no complaints after having experienced that kind of relief and contentment and real happiness. I don’t come from a normal functional loving family. This wasn’t just the first time I had experienced romantic love. It was my first time experiencing any kind of real affection that wasn’t defined by how much abuse I could take.

I started feeling like I was Harry and I had found my Weasleys in her family. I thought she was my Ron. Didn’t realise she was Ginny. A few months passed by. I was on top of the world. At my best. Thriving due to real support from the two BEST best friends in the world who taught me the real meaning of love and friendship and even family. That “unconditional” didn’t mean loving someone who doesn’t love you back, trying to win their affection just because they’re blood.

There was an instance of violence on my part. This guy in our group we addressed using a mild expletive that we thought fit his behaviour and shenanigans, and never by his actual name, once confessed to me that he liked her and wanted my help getting in her good graces. Back then I believed that it was the implied disrespect in “Setting kara de na, please”, that set me off. She wasn’t a thing to manipulate and possess, she was a person! My best friend! How dare he! I felt like a volcano that was about to erupt hoping to spill all my lava on him and burn him to the ground. My entire body physically heated up. I could feel it and my friends who had to pry me off of him that day second this. I don’t know why I wasn’t satisfied with just, “Have you seen yourself, your personality, your behaviour, you’re not worthy of even STANDING beside her! She’s SO out of your league! ALL GIRLS are way out of your league, scum like you…” I don’t know how it happened but witnesses tell me I ended up sitting on his torso pinned to the ground, both hands on his goose-like neck, shaking it back n forth. I do remember my scalp aching as if my hair had been pulled afterwards. You know that protective impulse you have for your best friend when you want to shield her from all creeps n fight them off if you have to? Not that she would ever need it, she’s (cue bournvita ad:) “taller, stronger, smarter!” than I am but I wanted to save her even the disgust and inconvenience. Had she been there, I’m not sure whether she’d have stopped me or joined me. I thought it was just that girl-code protective impulse at work. I never questioned why that would drive me to physical violence. Yeah. Talk about clueless.

One evening, she called me downstairs to the parking lot in my building. She said she had something big to tell me. That it couldn’t be told over the phone, only in person. She said I needed to be sitting down to hear this. The anticipation in me rose, as did my heartbeat. She said that if I agree with what she was about to propose, it would make her the happiest girl on the planet…

“Anything for you, then!”, I interrupted.

“No, I want you to listen first, really think about this seriously, take your time, and then get back to me with a yes or no.”

I gulped.

“Look, this isn’t easy to say, so I’ll just come right out and say it. You’re my best friend. You’re already family to me. I love you. But I want us to be even closer.”

My eyes grew wide but I resisted jerking my head up to meet hers.

“I know a relationship isn’t something that suits either of our personalities, single life is amazing, but I think it’s worth the risk with the right person. This is awkward. Generally, girls don’t talk about such things so frankly, it’s not considered appropriate, but I really do believe this would make all of us very happy.”

ReLaTiOnShIp?! WHAT?! She’d said she was nervous. Why was I the one pouring sweat, then?

“I recently discovered that… Well, my brother likes you. A lot. Like waise wala “like”. And generally, siblings are highly protective of their siblings regarding such matters and it’s very weird that I’m initiating this but he’s never had such a close friend and been this comfortable with anyone else apart from me. You know him, right? He’s shy. Kind of a loner. I worry about him sometimes. I know he’s older. And most of the time he’s more responsible and takes care of things and I rely on him but when it comes to this one thing… He’s eventually going to be in a relationship someday. And I’m going to HATE it if it’s anyone apart from you. You’re PERFECT for each other! I know he will never muster up the courage to talk to you about this and grow old and die in the friend zone, so I did. I know you very well by now. I feel like I’ve always known you all my life. I think you need someone like him in your life just as much as he needs you. And I ship it, okay! So please think about this. You don’t have to tell me now. Just think about it.”

She thought I was silent because I sensed that she needed to get through this without being interrupted. So she said her piece, eyed me apprehensively for a few seconds and left. I was left alone sitting there on a random scooter unable to make sense of anything. I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak or stand. I had been shell-shocked. There was this… Ache. This persistent inexplicable ache. It just wouldn’t go away. No matter what. It just dimmed a little by the next month but never went away. I didn’t know what to do. Whether I wanted to scream or cry or do neither. I was angry with myself. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t overjoyed. Why it hurt so much. I mean I wanted to be as close as possible to her, right? Her best friend and her brother’s girlfriend. What’s closer than THAT?! What more could I want?

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?! What’s wrong with you?!” I finally shouted. And started hyperventilating. Ever since I met them, I hadn’t had any suicidal thoughts. I started thinking maybe I’ll never want to be dead again as long as these two are in my life. That night I didn’t want to wake up to face the next day. The joke’s on me, I couldn’t fall asleep at all on that soggy wet pillow.

It took me three years to understand that I had suffered my first heartbreak that day. She helped me understand. When I called her after the second one describing the symptoms asking her what this was and how to stop it.

“It’s called heartbreak, Sammy. Time. Time is the only thing.”

She was my best friend. Who else would I call? I thought to myself, the last time I felt this way, you were the one who brought it on. It took me half a decade to understand what asexuality is and who I am and that it’s not something wrong with me. I finally confessed. She told me it was a relief. It finally explained my behaviour. Why I couldn’t give a proper reason for rejecting her brother even though I kept saying he was the best guy I had come across? It was a huge relief to me as well.

It was not that it never occurred to me that entire time that I might be in love with her. I wasn’t THAT clueless. The word “lesbian” had already entered my vocabulary even back then. I understood the basic concept. Or so I thought. I understood the misrepresented form of it in popular media. Just like the high school dynamics and judgment of popular kids mentioned earlier. Teenagers didn’t have any sources of information for such things outside the bigoted mainstream media at that point. I actually tried to check if I had feelings for her and came up with the answer that I didn’t. You see, in a lot of popular media, lesbian relationships are deliberately overly sexualised for the male gaze to justify homophobia against them. To help with the ridiculous narrative that an entire community’s identity and existence are not child friendly. That it’s inherently “adult”.

I checked to see whether I had romantic feelings for her by checking whether I wanted to touch her or hold her or kiss her. And I didn’t. Aces(asexual orientation) just don’t fall in love like that. We don’t experience sexual attraction from the get-go before the relationship has even started. We experience aesthetic, emotional, and intellectual attraction. But I had no idea what Ace was back then. I came to the wrong conclusion and suffered its consequences and hurt the people I love.

Even in heteronormative relationships, most teenagers are taught toxic myths like “the difference between friendship and relationship is sexual attraction and physical intimacy”. It’s damaging. And this is all you find all over pop culture even today. Heteronormative relationships are overrepresented to the point of teaching young girls that if a boy harasses them he likes them and teaching young boys to harass until the “object” of their affection says yes.

If LGBTQIA+ relationships were accurately represented in popular media at all ages and situations like heteronormative ones are, and not confined to being fetishized for the male gaze, perhaps I would have understood my feelings in time. Did I not deserve to live my first love in real time like heteronormative kids?! Did I not deserve to be equipped with better information to understand the situation, understand myself instead of being angry with myself, and make better decisions? Handle things better to minimise the pain my loved ones felt. Explain better? Did I not deserve to be happy this whole time during the precious little time I had with them instead of losing so many years to confusion and pain? Whom do I hold responsible for this? The entire media that robs kids like me of proper representation? Fight it all? Yes. That’s exactly what I intend to do. Starting with this story. I am going to tell my story and the stories I collect from my community and make sure it is plastered all over popular media with adequate accurate representation so that there aren’t more 15-year-olds who have to needlessly suffer as I did. Starting right here right now. Get ready.

~Luna