The Second Hand Unwinds

play for the mood.

We were in fourth grade. I was still tomboyish, but the transition to being a full-fledged female was in the works. He was a kid with a streak of blond in his black hair and a streak of a freak on him. The first time I ever saw him, he was trying to walk through a wall to get to the classroom. I thought that was crazy, because the door was a few inches to his right.  I didn't pay heed to him after that. After all, there's nothing special about a transferee from Japan who, when asked what his three wishes were, said that Mars ought to be clean.

Well, that time, I didn't know what would happen in the next six years involving this boy. 

Fifth grade. He wrote this funny series called Star Mars, and he even drew the characters for each story. For some reason, he chose me to be Lizette The Warrior Princess. That was weird, because I didn't remember saying more than a handful of words to him to deserve a spot in his story. But he wrote about me! And I had to know what happened to me in every series. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, far, far, far…far, away…I always peeked over his shoulder. He got tired of me being Lizette The Warrior Princess and thus my evolution into Queen Know-It-All (yay says a lot about my attitude when I was in fifth grade hurnh?). That was how we became friends, after a fashion. Then he fell in love with me, and although he'd deny it right now, it was there at that time and I'm pretty sure it wasn't my imagination. It was probably just infatuation, but we wouldn't know what such a big word meant then, would we?

I didn't like it. I had a big crush on another boy and I didn't know how to deal with it. Adolescence has never been a simple thing for anyone to deal with, really. I had my menarche,  I was starting to hate how I looked like with curly hair and dark skin, and I wanted to belong. Through all that, I believed there was only one boy who really cared. When that boy, after a serious consideration and a long second look, realized that I didn't deserve his juvenile affections, he moved on to plummet hard for the perfect girl. That's his history. One girl after another, rejecting him and then resenting the fact that they rejected him—more or less.

I knew that because while it was all happening, I was standing beside him and listening to all his girl trouble. It was a solid six years. There was the girl with the pretty hair in second year—she chose his bestfriend over him. In third year, his first (and so far only) girlfriend left for New Zealand shortly after he had her 'yes'. They lasted for a year or so until he couldn't take it anymore. There was another girl with a pretty smile and a sharp wit in fourth year—she was in love with another boy. Then there was another, and another one. I was there. There was a point when he wished I wasn't, but I was there. That's what bestfriends are for anyway.

What bestfriends aren't for, however, is falling in love with their bestfriends. It makes them possessive and blind to everything else. It hurts everyone concerned because bestfriendship is a bond that when messed with, messes with everyone in turn. It's so easy to say it right now, but it was the hardest thing I had to go through. I made a lot of mistakes at that time. It's only honest to say that I'm still paying for some of them until now. 

He was my first love, have you guessed? It's the best and worst feeling in the world, falling in love for the first time. It made me realize how much I can change for a person. A lot of who I am now can be credited to him, you know. It's overwhelming to think of it that way. From the moment he tried to walk through that wall, to the moment I fell in love with him, up to the time he rejected me—it was one fast fall. At the bottom of it, ironically, you learn to let go of what's weighing you down. That's the most important, albeit cliche lesson: letting go. 

We're still friends, if you have to know. I saw him last Saturday and he seems to be doing fine. I'm doing fine too, with a new love and a whole new radical way of looking at the world. We're so different no one would've guessed there was something for a while there.