PROLOGUE
I had my first kiss at age seven, right next to the mailbox at the edge of his parents’ driveway, crickets chirping and the smell of sweet zinnias dotting the edges of my memory of this momentous occasion.
This had happened just two years after he’d hugged me, leaving me with crushed animal crackers in my hand and a stuttering goodbye.
By age 10, I had a name for what was happening — a crush.
By age 12, he knew it, too.
And by 14, that crush was demonstrably reciprocated, proven by a real kiss. The smell of lilacs and rain drifted in the air from the flowers I’d dropped on the coffee table, and our laughter turned into something serious on his mom’s floral-patterned couch, his mouth over mine, so very different from that time at the mailbox.
By 15, we’d kissed so many times that I could describe every flower on his mom’s couch — how silk brocades mingled with tulips, carnations, roses, and daisies — studied under my close inspection as I pretended to be interested in whatever movie we were all supposedly watching until his parents finally retired to the kitchen and his brother finally went outside or upstairs.
The clink of dishes and the door shutting a signal we would finally be alone, so we’d slip down to a somewhat laying position, kissing and kissing until his dad would clear his throat, a subtle announcement that we had three seconds until they walked back in the living room.
That summer, our kisses turned more passionate. My parents had finally divorced. My mom had moved across town, and my dad, who’d kept the house in the bitter fight just to spite her, was gone too much to care or notice if my bedroom door was shut.
It was there I was introduced to The Cranberries and The Cure as his fingers undid my jeans’ button, our shirts already cast off, the crescendo in “Dreams” forever the soundtrack of the first time I’d understand another person’s hand worked way better than mine and my imagination.
Weeks later, I built up the courage to reciprocate as “Just Like Heaven” spun in the background. After, the slightest twinge of embarrassment washed over me, not having a decade of playing the piano under my belt to replicate the skilled dexterity of his hands that had made “Dreams” so sweet for me. He laughed, his smile achingly bright, making a joke about how that was heaven, all unsureness I’d had disappearing.
We played those songs over and over again that whole summer until my brother started to bang on the wall, saying he was so sick of hearing that sappy shit.
So we moved to his car, debating music between making out. Dashboard Confessional was one of my favorite bands which led to teasing eye rolls from him. But, just as good as the song, our firsts moved closer and closer to what Chris Carrabba had been describing in “Hands Down.” And suddenly, Dashboard became one of his favorites, too.
By 16, after his first real show, his first drum solo, the crowd having gone wild, I surprised him with a bouquet of fresh-cut roses. When his face brightened and his smile lit up the room, not even thinking it was cliche, I kissed him, bold and daring, and took my kisses lower and lower in the venue’s dressing room.
After, he said that was the best part of his night, that he may now have forgotten how to play drums. I laughed, asking if I could keep the roses. He responded by putting his arm around me, brushing his lips against my neck, his messy curly hair tickling my skin, and said I could have anything I wanted as long as he got to keep me forever.
We’d always joke about being each other’s firsts, forever and always.
He’d always been there, his presence in my life before I even could recall when he’d entered it. It was as if he’d been waiting for me to catch up, sitting at the baby grand piano in my living room where he took lessons from my mom, starting when he was five and I was three.
We couldn’t recall who said “I love you” first. I was convinced it was me — in his mother’s garden, adamant I remembered the lilies, the same color of the moonlight, the color of his brilliant smile when I’d said it.
He disagreed, thinking it was when he’d played the first song he’d written for me, the one that would make it on the local radio. He said he remembered the moment clearly because I’d been exuberant, cheering so loudly that I’d barely heard it when he’d blurted it out.
It was a source of constant debate, both of us wanting to claim the title of Who Loves Who The Most, until his brother would roll his eyes at the breakfast table, bleary and annoyed over corn flakes, and ask us if we could, please, kindly shut the hell up.
His friends would snicker, amused that he’d fallen for the neighborhood tagalong. I was more annoyance than pack member since I was two years younger and the only girl — given the unoriginal moniker “Lil Eliza.” But he didn’t care, saying they were just jealous because he was with the coolest girl.
My friends were jealous. Jealous that the rowdy neighborhood kid with a mop of messy curls had morphed into one of the hottest guys in our town with dark eyes that promised adventure and mischief. That he was one of the most popular kids at his private school, only second to his brother and his brother’s best friend. That he was a drummer in a band that was blowing up faster than they’d imagined. And that he was totally and completely in love with me, Eli Wilde.
And so, months later, we were finally ready for our final first.
He had a record player in his bedroom — wildly expensive for a senior, his biggest source of pride, bought with the first dollars he’d earned from a concert — and his parents would be out on a date, so we’d thought that would be the best place to do the deed.
But his brother would be home, his bedroom just next door, hanging out with his best friend where they were planning to stream a soccer game that would no doubt result in too many “oohs” and loud curses. No amount of blackmail or bribery would convince his brother to be bothered to leave or quiet down.
So it was in my room — hours after we’d planned since he and his brother had gotten into an argument — and we’d almost decided not.
But then laughter turned into kissing which turned into fumbling hands, discarded clothes, trailing kisses, and then, we didn’t want to wait anymore, protection safety tucked under my bed in a lockbox where I’d kept notes he’d written me over the years, scraps of future song lyrics, and my diary, where I’d detailed our history, flowers pressed against the pages.
I only had an old CD player since my brother had swiped my Bluetooth speaker. And somehow, either by distraction or nerves, he accidentally hit replay on just one song — Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You.” Her soft crooning was quiet, the music low and sensual. We lost count of how many times the CD would pause, whir, and play again and again until we were breathless and sated.
And then, yet another first for us, less than a week after that moment, he’d dump me, rip me out of his life harder and faster than we’d fallen for each other.
“Leave me alone,” he’d yelled, slamming his bedroom door shut, the only loud sound he’d made in the week that followed that night. “And stay the hell away from me forever, Eli.”
And so, forever and always, I fucking hated Derek Jude Smyth.
Summer
CHAPTER ONE