My First Girlfriend.

The year we entered junior high school, everybody was getting a boyfriend or girlfriend. That was the new craze. Looking back, I don’t think we were really in love. We were just curious little kids. Personally, I didn’t really care about what everybody else was doing, but one by one, all my boys found girlfriends and stopped coming over to my house after school to hang out and play video games. When we did get a chance to hang out, all they spoke about was their girls and what new level of adolescent perversion they had unlocked with their horny little girlfriends during their make out sessions. Stupid horny boys! Kobina made the most progress on that front; each time he and Kuukua hung out, he came back an expert in another section of female anatomy. Allen didn’t make as much progress, mainly because he had a new girlfriend every few days. We didn’t know or understand why, but he seemed happy so we didn’t ask any questions. Benjamin had a girlfriend too, but came with no stories. He always said Maabena had made him agree to saving themselves for marriage. What an idiot! That made me the only one in the group without a girl and these boys made it a point to point it out every time the topic came up, so I decided it wouldn’t hurt to get myself one of these girlfriends they kept talking about. After one week of trying, I realised it wasn’t as easy to get one as these boys made it seem. When I brought it up the next time, they told me all the girls I was eyeing were out of my league. I had to settle if I really wanted a girlfriend. I didn’t see why I should, so I gave up. Until she showed up, that is.

People rarely change schools in the middle of the academic year—at least not in my school—so it was surprising to see a new person enroll with a month already gone in the second term. I made plans as soon as I saw her. I knew she would have a lot of catching up to do so I appointed myself her helper—you know, to help her settle in. Approaching her was hard because everybody wanted to see and talk to the new girl, so there was a bit of a crowd around her and I don’t like crowds. Befriending her however was easy because she was still only getting to know everybody. Apparently, she had moved into town at the beginning of the school year, but hadn’t enrolled because she had fallen seriously sick for a long time. As her self–appointed helper and tour guide, I was everywhere she was. My name might as well have been Simpson because I was simping hard for this girl. My intentions became so obvious that everybody started calling her my girlfriend before I could. One day at breaktime, after she had settled in and was thriving, I felt this was my opportunity.

“Hey Audrey, are you anybody’s girl?”

She only smiled and shook her head.

“Great! What do you think about being mine?”
She smiled again and didn’t say anything to me for the rest of the day.

I was going crazy as school closed that day when she slipped a note into my hand and said goodbye.

Hey baby, see you tomorrow.
Your new girlfriend,
Audrey.

I dreamt that night—the pleasant kind too. I dreamt of her acne ridden face, her big forehead, her little pink lips and her big eyes. I dreamt of doing all we did in school every day, but different this time because now she was my girlfriend. I even dreamt of doing all the nasty things Kobby said he did with Kuukua, and they didn’t seem so nasty when I thought about doing them with Audrey.

She wasn’t at school the next day though. Or the next. Or the one after that. I knew her house, so I went there after the third day to check on her. Her mother said she was sick, but she let me see her after I told her I was from her school and had been sent to enquire about her daughter’s absence. She was right though; Audrey was sick. She just lay in bed and smiled and replied in soft tones while I told her all about school and how much I missed her. I even told her about my dreams. She laughed at that. We had such a good time just talking and laughing that night fell while I was still there. It was her mother who had to tell me what the time was before I rushed home. I dreamt about her again that night. I contemplated going back the next day but decided against it because her mother would be suspicious. It would be better to wait till Friday. It would also be better to go with a few more friend this time so I made a mental note of that too.

She died on Friday. One of the teachers announced it at the closing assembly. Apparently, the disease that had kept her at home till the middle of the school year was a certain kidney failure and she had a surgery before she returned to school. Her body had rejected the donated kidney and she had died of the complications. The emotion I felt at that moment listening to him, I have no name for. I can explain it though, haha. I felt my heart jump, and then sink so deep it hurt my stomach, then jump again. And it kept doing that every thirty seconds, like the news was hitting me in waves. My head spun too, and all of a sudden, I wanted to take a dump. And then the world went into fast forward mode. Everything after that for the rest of the day was a blur. Nothing was ever the same after that.

I practically dragged my body through school the week prior to her funeral. I woke up every morning wishing the day would end quickly so I could go back to sleep. Nobody noticed and I didn’t tell anybody how I was feeling either. None of them would understand anyway. I hadn’t even had the time to tell my boys about us. Nobody knew about us but me and her, and now nobody would. The week passed by slowly, but at last the weekend came.

The funeral was very depressing. It made me feel even worse than I already was to see her mother cry and scream into her casket. I wouldn’t join the rest of the class to pay their respects. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. I would rather hang on to the metal image of her smiling and waving as I left her house that Wednesday.

However sad and depressed I felt at the funeral, I didn’t cry. I cried when I got home though. For a long time. And then the tears turned into laughter. I laughed so hard my sides started to hurt. And I was laughing because one recurring thought—I got my first heartbreak before I got my first kiss. What a loser!