i think you can fall in love by yourself.
i did.
once upon a time i loved a boy. a man.
and much as i'm loath to admit it, a part of me will always love him.
but yesterday as i was sitting on a toilet, halfway across the world, with my pants pooled around my ankles and i looked up to see a film advert with his name on it, two thoughts crossed my mind:
1. if only i'd never met him
and
2. the world is much, much too small
I saunter into coffee shops now. My heels click-click-clicking against the cold, tiled floors. Breezily I approach the counter, toss my long, dark hair behind my shoulder, and order a coffee.
Black. With room for milk and sugar.
Then, with cup in hand, I walk slowly giving careful weight and time to each step. Generously I tick-tick-tock my hips from side to side. I want to make sure the eyes of every man in the room is upon me. I want each man to see what I’ll do next. I reach for the milk.
Pour, pour, drip.
And then, with deliberate care and a quite uncommon flare, I reach for…the sugar.
Real Sugar.
I lift the unassuming brown packet into the air. And then I shake.
Vigorously.
Shake, shake, rip.
Pour.
Shake, shake, rip.
Pour.
Into the coffee it falls.
My adventures in seltzer water and late night lemon runs has signaled the end of diet coke, and in turn the end of splenda.
I am now a girl who eats raw sugar.
Yes, that girl.
And never have I felt sexier.
She sat on her haunches, her tiny legs folded beneath her, feet splayed against the grainy wood floor.
She had instigated this.
This was her doing.
“I know how to French kiss,” she had said. “Wanna try?”
So there they were. Boy and girl. On hands and knees, hidden behind the couch.
“Okay. Stick your tongue out,” she commanded.
He obeyed, enthralled by her assuredness. He slipped his tongue out, an action not unusual for a four-year-old boy, but somewhat peculiar given the circumstances.
And she met him. Halfway. She leaned forward on her small fingers and pressed the very tip of her tongue to his. Just for a second. It was all very fast.
That’s how it happened, her first kiss. And a French kiss at that. She had heard stories—stories of its power and pull—and had decided to try.
She pulled her tongue away. And leaving it out, shifted her weight allowing her bottom to rest neatly on her heels. She considered the feel. Bumpy? The taste. Much like the cherry-red lolli-pop she had recently consumed.
She pondered all this sandwiched between the couch and the wood paneled wall. Across from a boy. The boy. The boy who had just given her her first kiss.
And it was there hidden behind the couch, still perched on her heels that she noticed something above. Above and to the right. Throught the window. He must have noticed it too, her partner-in-crime, for his face was awash in terror.
They had three older brothers between the pair of them. Three brothers from which the kiss was meant to be hidden. Three brothers who now peered down at them from outside the window.
Ah, of course, the window. Security, foiled! The couch provided only limited protection when the window was taken into consideration. Had they considered the window? Of course they had. Hadn’t they?
The three older brothers transformed at lightning speed (superman himself would have been done for) into the most potent of all villains: the tattle tale.
She and her partner were lead by the hand to the outside patio. To the parents. She didn’t hear what was said. Instead she studied the plush, plastic patio furniture. It was yellow—yellow as only the late eighties could produce.
