Affair of the Heart

I had an affair with my first love. These things happen, especially under extenuating circumstances. What were our extenuating circumstances? Our adult daughter was drinking herself to death and putting me through an emotional wood chipper in the process, so I called him.

He took my call, was delighted to hear my voice, even under the circumstances, and he was there for me like he never has been before. We talked almost daily, which was how often I needed support. And it was wonderful to be able to lean on him; I couldn’t have weathered that storm without the shelter he gave me.

We’re both married to other people, me happily. We don’t have a history appropriate for a YA love story, but it is a love story, regardless of how badly some people wish it wasn’t. Long story short, we met in high school. Fireworks, sky rockets, afternoon delight. And then we both got sick with mono, and I mean really sick, like we both almost died. I had an abcessed tonsil, and my tonsils had to come out. His mother had to bring a hospital bed into their living room because he was too weak to make it up the stairs to his bedroom.

When we got well, we had lost touch, and he started seeing someone else. I may have started seeing a few someone elses, just to take the edge off of missing him. I fell hard for him, we’re talking Mt. Everest to Marianas Trench. He’s the only man who’s ever made me swoon, just a touch or look from him put my insides on a roller coaster, and, dear God, that first kiss left me lightheaded, dizzy, and weak in the knees. Remembering it still makes my insides swoop.

We were on a youth council together, each representing our church for the convocation. The autumn after we got well, we had a youth council meeting. I took my time getting ready, long shower, shaved my legs. I did my hair on hot rollers, took excessive care applying my makeup, put Calvin Klein’s Obsession on my pulse points, and wore a blue button-down rayon shirt that made my eyes pop over a long khaki skirt with a wide black belt and black flats. My sister gave me a ride to the meeting, and she had the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack on in her car on the way. I remember singing along to Eric Carmen’s “Hungry Eyes” on the drive, looking at myself in the visor mirror, perfecting smoldering looks.

When I arrived, I asked him if he would give me a ride home, and he said yes. I have no idea what we discussed or planned at the meeting; I was sitting beside him, nearly losing my mind from the smell of his skin. I couldn’t think about anything but being alone with him. As far as I was concerned, time spent not kissing him was time wasted.

In his car, I told him how much I had missed him. He said that he missed me, too. But he had a girlfriend. I’m certain that my heart stopped beating. Light, sound, and air disappeared, and it took everything in me not to break down in tears and beg him to break up with her and come back to me. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have fought to keep my composure; I should have been honest and let him see how I felt. Instead, I lied and said I didn’t care. And then he kissed me, and light, sound, and color came back into the world, and so we began our first (of several) affair.

It ended badly, and I suppose that’s my fault. I thought that once he was back with me, he would leave that stupid substitute he’d been filling his time with. She even looked like me. But I was wrong, and like the stupid girls who came after her, she had some kind of hold on him that I’ve never had.