Everyone’s got their own romance stories. Everyone’s got first kisses, first loves, first heartbreaks and all the ones following. There’s the one that got away, the one that stole your heart, and the one you count as the biggest mistake of your LIFE. I’m young. I’ve still got a few to find… But sometimes when the world is only 17 years new the littlest things seem like the world and you can’t help but cling on to something because really now… it IS your world. But ask anyone… High school love is a joke. It’s like biting a plastic apple or walking into a glass door or choking on your own spit or… or… or losing your first tooth and the fascination it brings… like getting to the top of a tree for the first time, getting your license, moving to a new city, or maybe… maybe and just maybe… it’s a drop. A leap. A half jumphope that things will turn out ok. Now, my story? It wasn’t love. But sometimes I think it might have been. And I’d tell you how it all began but I really don’t remember. Apparently it was at the changing of the guards. London, this past summer. I remember the heat and I remember the goofy pictures. I remember the tourguide that held the stick that *he* talked about. But I don’t remember him… I remember the moments that matter. The way he told me I was beautiful while he looked me in the eye and for the first time in my life it didn’t feel like a lie. I remember most everything… dear god I remember…

I remember bus rides and lollipops and open windows and night skies and the Eiffel tower… Do you think *he* remembers the Eiffel tower? He was so confused. So oblivious. It was almost cute. The way I placed my arm against his chest, the way I pushed him against that wall, the way I kissed him as passionately as I knew how to kiss. We made eye contact for a moment, for half a moment, for a second, for barely a second. It was like fire. It was like hell. It was like being thrown into the pool at 7 to learn how to swim and the stingburn of taking half a breath underwater. A whisper, “sorry… I just figured it was my last chance to kiss someone on the Eiffel tower…” and I walked away. I walked away from half moment passion and half moment fire. I wonder if he remembers that…

Most present in my mind is that collapse. That feeling when I realized that yes, I DID have feelings for him. That maybe he COULD be something special. My head rested in his lap and the sun streamed in through windows. It was warm and I was half asleep. He looked down and smiled at me. I smiled back. And at that moment something inside me clicked. Something inside me fell. It was like my heart stopped and the world stopped and everything was crashing down. All the walls and fortresses built smashed down. It was like a breaking inside. And with that… I knew he’d gotten through. I knew that I’d never forget his smile or his eyes or that eyebrow ring that still hurt it was so newly pierced.

There are so many memories there, so many little things that made it all worth it. So much sweetness and tenderness, the kind that you lose after your first betrayal and never gain again. He had it. I was angry at the world and wanted nothing to do with trust or attachment or any of the emotions that come right before love… Thinking back now… If I’d been given a couple more days with him it probably would have been love… Maybe it was love… Maybe love was that night in Amsterdam when he refused to go out with his friends because if he spent the night with me it’d be more meaningful. Maybe love was trusting him enough to fall asleep in his arms with European winds blowing over us. Maybe it was when we tried to pull each other as close as possible and even when every last one of our body parts were held against each other it wasn’t close enough. Maybe that was love…

But it wasn’t, couldn’t have been. No, it wasn’t love. It was teen lust at its best. Hormones running wild with the chemicals in our overactive brains. It was a simple list of events… Like the notes thrown down from my window while he sat outside legally sipping beer. Like when he held my hands to warm them or the way he had the most sincere eyes I’ve ever seen. Like when we kissed and I couldn’t stop smiling or when we drank and couldn’t stop me from giggling… Yes… Just a simple list of events. Just a collection of meaningless happenings. It wasn’t love…

It was really early the day we all had to go home. We stood hugging in front of that elevator for what I wish had been forever. But all things have to end. And so I pulled away and he walked away and an hour later at the airport trying to muster “goodbye” was one of the hardest things I’ve ever been forced to do… I kissed him on the cheek and told him to drink and smoke less and I let him hold me. HOLD me. Hold me as tight as he could until the very second we had to go. Pennsylvania is an awful long way from California. Philadelphia to San Francisco. Long distance things don’t work and we knew going in that 10 days later it would have to be over. So I walked away and he pulled me back and I didn’t want him to ever let me go. But like I said, he had to…

To kill a mockingbird is rated third in most inspiring books right after the bible and the book of Mormon. Well, in that book Scout learned that courage is fighting a fight you know you’ll lose and fighting it anyways. But I’ll tell you one thing… Love is a fight you fight knowing you’ll lose but it’s not out of courage. No, not courage. It’s done out of stupidity and blinding hope. Out of want and yearning. Out of loneliness and need.

Now, I didn’t *LOVE* that 18 year old from the east coast. People my age don’t know how to love let alone what love really is… But we threw caution to the wind, and jumped in head first with the knowledge of the goodbye to come. It wasn’t love but I can easily say…. That I’ll never forget him. That when I’m old and gray and have a million baby grandchildren they’ll see the young girl I once was sparkle in my eye when I talk about my first summer romance. that I will be forever grateful to that one Kevin from Pennsylvania that showed me that I didn’t have to be angry at love, showed me how to just “go with it” and for giving me the greatest ten days of my life. For giving me that half moment passion.