I had just turned 14. It was the end of July, and I was going to spend a few days in Quata, my mom's hometown, with my family. I took my friend Anna along, since she was about to move to Sweden and we wanted to spend as much time together as possible. For city girls, one would think Quata would be incredibly boring. It was a small town built around a church, surrounded by farm lands. There was only one main avenue, where everyone hung out. There were no movie theatres, no malls, no parks, no clubs. But, perhaps most importantly, it was not dangerous like a big city, and one didn't need cars to get around, so we found ourselves independent in a way that was completely intoxicating for two teenage girls.
I had cousins who spent their vacation time there as well, and a group of friends I saw only during these trips, whom I stayed in touch with through letters. We were happy to be reunited there, in that tiny town where nothing ever happened, a couple of times throughout the year.
We went out every night and sat on the benches in front of the church, to chat and play games and flirt; the rush of freedom keeping us warm through that miserably cold July.
One night, a really handsome young man walked by and said hi to us. We giggled, unable to reply, and he kept on walking. My cousin told me he was
the cutest boy in the town. He didn't live there anymore, as he was already in college, and he only came back during the holidays. All the girls wanted to kiss him, she assured me. I agreed that he was incredibly good looking, and decided that if he said anything to us again, I'd reply.
The following night, we dressed up a little bit. We sat on the same bench we'd sat on the night before, the one closest to the street corner, in full view. As we had hoped, he walked by again, said hi, and I said hi back. My cousin elbowed me in the ribs- I had broken a rule.
Respectable girls didn't talk to strange boys, no matter how cute they were, in that small old-fashioned town. But I couldn't help myself, there was a storm inside me, a hurricane of thoughts and wants and desires that bubbled up and crushed my good girl mask mercilessly. I asked him if he'd like to sit with us. My friends were as mortified as they were excited when he smiled and sat down next to me. He told me his name- a name that would find itself scribbled all over my journals and notebooks for years to come- and I told him mine, which he immediately said was a beautiful name.
I don't remember our conversations. I think we talked about Anna being from Sweden and I think I asked him about college life (he was 21, mind you). The hours went by, and when we all said good night, he held my hand and said he hoped to see me tomorrow. My heart skipped right up to my face, which didn't know yet how to hide how happy I was that this boy, this super cute college boy, was paying attention to me. When we got home, Anna and I analyzed every possible scenario for the following evening. It was very possible that he would kiss me. I had been kissed before, but it was clear that he had more experience than I did in that department. Focused entirely on how I could hide my innocence and youth, I completely forgot to devise a plan that was mindful of keeping everything a secret from my mother. A few months earlier, she had nearly killed me when she saw a hickey on my neck, so I knew that if she saw me kissing a strange (much older) boy in public (in that little town no less), I would face disastrous consequences.
But I was 14. I had the confidence and courage that inexperience provides, plus screaming hormones. I was certain I could get away with it. The next night, after brushing my teeth eleven times, packing gum and lip gloss in my pockets, we headed out. We sat on the same bench so that he would surely find us- I didn't think to find a hidden bench somewhere, to take precautions so as not to be seen should he indeed kiss me that night. He found us, as planned, sat next to me, and once again we talked about things that didn't matter. And then, at some point, rather unexpectedly, he kissed me. My friends kept on talking and goofing around while we sat at the edge of our bench, making out. Even though he was older, it was pure adolescent bliss. We did nothing but kiss and compliment each other.
Why did it feel so good? How could it all be so perfect? I didn't know. I didn't want it to end. I wanted to remember all of his details, I wanted to memorize his face, I wanted to remember what kissing him felt like for as long as I lived.
I didn't get caught that night. We went home, my cousin and Anna wanting to know
everything- even though they had been sitting right next to us the whole time- and inspecting me for hickeys or any sign that I might have been kissed that night. I was on the clear. I had kissed a boy, an older boy, in public, and gotten away with it. I was as delirious as a child caught in a fantasy world, imagining what it might be like if we started dating, how I'd tell my friends at school that I had a boyfriend who was in college and lived in another town, and, more than anything, hoping that we would see each other the following night and kiss again.
We did. We were completely wrapped up in each other, my friends deeply entertained with their own conversations, when my mother walked by. My cousin elbowed me. But it was too late. My mother had seen it all. She didn't say anything. She just walked home. Everyone stood around me, frozen. They knew my mother was strict and that I had just done something monstrously wrong in her eyes. I didn't know what to do. For a moment, I considered never going home again. My partner-in-crime was scared that she'd come beat him up too. There was nothing to do. I had to go home and face my mother. Trembling, I walked home.
I was met with a beast. My mother was beyond furious. Anna went to our room and I sat in the kitchen with my mother. (A word to teenagers in trouble- don't pick the kitchen as the spot to get yelled at, there are weapons of all kinds in there). As I apologized over and over again, she screamed at me at the top of her lungs. She said I was not the daughter she had raised, and that she was ashamed of me. I was sent to bed after many hours of being reprimanded for my actions, which I didn't know how to justify or explain yet.
The holiday ended, we went back to the city, and life went on. I was left with the memory of those perfect kisses from that older boy, and my relationship with my mother was strained for years. Holidays came and went, the years passed and, eventually, he- and the fantasy I had attached to him- faded. I started to forget the details I had tried so hard to memorize. With time, he became a distant memory.
A few days ago, I was in my mom's hometown again. It is still where we go to celebrate Christmas. The ghosts of the past are always looming there and I am constantly distracted by my memories. I see my friends and I laughing around the ice-cream shop, I see my younger cousins and I playing by the pool, I see my mother and I going to visit her aunt in an old house, and so on.
This time, I was met with a great sadness as I walked by the church and saw that the benches around it had been removed. The bench that held my 14-year-old self's fantasies and fears was gone.
I had never considered that someone might touch that memory, that anyone could have the power to remove the place where it lived. I walked away, unable to fully accept the impermanence of life's most precious moments. I wondered, then, what might have happened to that young man. Might he have known, when he kissed a 14-year-old girl, that he was imprinting himself on her still unguarded heart? Was I just part of a collection of holiday flings? I laughed at myself for having these thoughts. I shook my head, realizing that if he walked by me now I wouldn't recognize him.
I have, after all, forgotten that face. The face of the cutest boy in town.
