Day 02 – Your first love, in great detail

This is easy.

My first love was Christopher Michael Page. He's dead now. He killed himself two years ago and tomorrow would've been his 32nd birthday.

Pause...

I met Chris when I was 14. Fourteen. I turned fifteen about two weeks after started dating. Chris was one of those magic people that like... change everything. He had so much inside of him, so much art and poetry and creativity and laughter. I can still hear his laugh like... wow.

It was really innocent, the way we loved each other. Innocent and fast. One day we were just boyfriend and girlfriend, we did the whole holding hands and kissing and giggling. One day we were just having four hour phone calls every night and one night I remember him finally telling me he loved me and I didn't even know I had wanted to hear those words from this wonderful boy who made me mix tapes, drove a funky little car and never took anything seriously. But I did and it was awesome.

We were suburban innocent teens. We were cooler than the room at all times. We were a people of our own language. And we were happy. Incredibly happy and in this first rush of love that lasted almost the entire time we were together.

And then we weren't together. Stupid high school stuff. We might have even gotten back together if I had tried. But we slipped easily into the friends mode, a place we stayed for the rest of his life. When shit broke, I ran to him, just like that. And he was always ready to listen. To take me for a slice of pie at Lyons. To meet me for a drink at the Padre. To be my Christmas at the Mint pseudo date... Chris always kept a piece of my heart, he took some of it with him when he left.

The last time I saw him was at the Mint over a Christmas. Maybe even Christmas Eve. I can't remember. I remember being embarrassed a little bit because we were all so ridiculously drunk and he and I ended up kissing in this really silly drunk sloppy way out on the back patio. OH EM GEE, how could I? And in hindsight I'm glad I did. And now in light of things, I'm glad I told him I loved him and held that last hug a little longer than is normal with old friends. I can still remember what he smelled like, the way it sounded when he laughed and how that hug felt.

This boy has gone from the world for two years now... his number is still in my cell phone.

I miss him every single day. But I couldn't have asked for a better first love if I'd gone to some movie script writer and said make me a rom/com.

So there you go.