First and foremost,
It was the first of everything. First time I moved overseas, first time I went to an international school, and the first time I was in love. Everything was new to me, and the idea of love was a farfetched concept that I thought only exists in movies and books.
I was sixteen, entering a new school, knowing nothing about what was bound to happen to my life. He welcomed me with the biggest smile I’ve seen, and it was not the kind of smile that you’re forced to give when you try to welcome the new kid at school — it was genuine. Before I had the time to think of ways to make friend and find my seat in class, he invited me to sit with him and his friends, be it for classes or lunch in the first week.
Over time, we became close friends. As I try to navigate myself in the new city, he’d invite me over for barbeques, parties, and picnics with his friends. He would voluntarily take me to different spots in the city — just him alone. Sometimes during the weekend, if it is not spent with the Indonesian diaspora families, it is spent with him, and our other friends as well. We’d develop a habit of running an errand to the grocery store near our school together every Wednesday afternoon because both our little siblings had after school activities, and we’d wait for them together. If it’s sunny enough, we’ll take our lunch to eat on the field together with our friends, and if it’s on Thursday — it’s usually followed by our English class where we’d spend the first hour of the session reading outside.
That so-called “label” of friendship road finally led to an intersection when we let feelings get in the way between us — but let’s be real, a friendship between a boy and girl could never be purely friendship. One day he’d ask who I liked, and so I made a little white lie of telling him I had interest in one of his friends. But that question arises again as things got a little bit complicated. During humanities class, he’d slip a note (cliché, I know) to my desk asking who I liked. And I, impulsively, wrote down his name and ran away avoiding him at all costs.
That feeling reciprocated though, as he gave me a small note during Math class, which is also a confession. I couldn’t help but smile as he came over to my locker after class offering to walk with me to the parking lot. It was a little too much, but he gave me his bracelet as a token of this new start of a ‘relationship.’
It was the innocent kind of love. The feeling that you get when you lock eyes with him when you’re sitting across from each other, or when you pass a small paper back and forth to play tic tac toe to save you from boredom in class, or maybe when you sit on the floor of the hallway waiting for class to start. This is the kind of love that is romantic at first, but it is filled with all the excitement that a friendship has to offer. Like going to the ice-skating rink and laugh when either one of you falls or going to the boulevard to go on the different ride and him forcing you to walk through the haunted house. But at the same time, it is also the kind of love where he holds your hand when you’re scared of going through the haunted house or laying your head on his thigh and him twirling your hair when you’re having a little picnic in the backyard of his house and the sound of the leaves rustling and birds chirping in the background as a white noise.
But as first love goes, there must be an end to all this euphoria. Both of us had to leave. It wasn’t moving to a new school, but we had to go back to our home country, and that leaves you with no choice but breaking up. You both decide to leave the relationship, back to friendship — what could go wrong? A lot, apparently. We still talk to each other and sometimes call, despite the time zone differences.
However, as years go by, we stray further away from each other — leaving the relationship only at that phase where you check in with each other during birthdays or for saying congratulations for entering a new step in life. I sometimes still secretly check his social media to see how he is and his new life. At night you wonder what it would be like to have your first love come back to you, to hold his hands and hug him again.
I guess the universe is funny that way as I received my letter of acceptance to a university in the Netherlands. At this time, I had stopped talking to him completely, having no idea where he is now. And there he was, the figure looked familiar as he walked in front of me going to orientation. It took both of us by surprised as he looked back and saw my face.
“Hi, again. It’s been so long,” he said as he puts on the biggest smile on his face, the same that I witnessed years ago as he welcomed me in his life for the first time.
