“Wait, you went out with her? She’s basically royalty,” said an old schoolmate of my first love when we realized our connection to each other. It had been almost a year since the breakup, but even hearing his name made my heart skip a beat.
I was a sophomore at Scripps College in Claremont when our paths crossed for the first time. Trump's inauguration and an accompanying air of pessimism hung in the air, so I fought my own doom by volunteering for our university consortium's refugee advocacy network. During my first tutoring assignment, I couldn't have seemed more out of place. I had never met a Muslim person before going to college, and here I was, walking into the mosque in my tight jeans with a small silver cross hanging from my neck.
It didn't take long to notice one of the other volunteers, with her dark, curly, tie-dyed hair. She seemed very comfortable, and she was, joking with the moms in their native language and letting the kids strum their guitar.
I was very anxious that day as I approached her, emboldened by her direct eye contact and easy smile. I was too shy and inexperienced to really make my interest known (plus, we were in a mosque after all). Still, we struck up a conversation about psychology, the subject in which we were both majoring. She saw past my nervousness (and my silver cross) and asked if I wanted to have lunch together sometime.
What started as a casual invitation turned into a month of text flirtation over winter break across the ocean (me in my hometown on the East Coast, her on the other side of the world). When we returned to California, our mutual infatuation was in full force. We fell in love quickly, with the guy who led us to spend all our free time together. Within a few weeks, many of my clothes were in her closet and she was teaching me how to ride her longboard. She told me: “I know I like you a lot because sometimes I forget to speak English with you.”
That spring semester was one of my all-important firsts. First love, first relationship, first time exploring Southern California as an adult. From time to time, we braved traffic from the Inland Empire to West Hollywood in his Porsche SUV. It was with her that I first saw the bright lights of downtown Los Angeles from her family's home in the Bird Streets neighborhood. Who wouldn't be in love?
Recreational marijuana had just been legalized, so we were going to get ramen to go and warm up her room after she turned off all the cameras inside the house (a security she assured me was to protect her and her family, but that worried me anyway).
Adding to the emotion of first love was the fact that it was a somewhat hidden relationship. But secrets are only sexy until they're not. The prominence of his family in his home country, the illegality of his sexuality there, my own status as a recluse: they created invisible walls around and between us. I remember the night he gave me a lift behind his car on the way to a sushi restaurant, his face pale with fear at the sight of men who might know his father.
Despite the obstacles, at the end of the academic year we were still in love. She graduated and we drove to Los Angeles to spend our last days together before she flew back home to her parents. We took a walk around Venice Beach in the morning and had lunch on the Santa Monica Pier. The Pacific stretched before us, vast and indifferent. I wonder if he knew he was witnessing our penultimate act. When it was finally time to leave, she dropped me off at Los Angeles International Airport, and as I watched her disappear into traffic, I felt like part of me disappeared too.
The end, when it came, was catastrophic and painfully mundane. Stuck in her home country with no way to return once her student visa expired, she decided long distance just wouldn't work. For months I cried so much that strangers came up to me to say they would pray for me.
Finally, our planets crossed paths again in each other's orbit, two years later. She was in Los Angeles for work and I had just graduated. Time had passed but little had changed. We hiked through Runyon Canyon and our flirty conversation was as easy as breathing. Ex-lover, lover (the labels blurred and changed) and I felt like I hadn't grown up at all, still the same girl standing at the airport, watching her walk away. I knew then that this was no way to live, always chasing the same first spark.
For years after our breakup, I refused to move on, and that was precisely why I had to. The time had come to cut the threads that united us. I texted him, “I think I realized I was still using you as a source of validation because I still feel insecure about a lot of things and until I can stop doing that I don't think it's healthy to keep you around.” in my life.” A few lines on a screen, insufficient to express the complexity of what I felt, but true nonetheless.
Since then I have fallen in love and experienced heartbreak several times. But nothing compares to the innocence of first love, that raw, unprotected vulnerability that comes before you learn to protect yourself. There is something beautiful about it, almost mythical in nature. Long after love ends, its echoes remain, a reminder of who we once were and how far we have come.
The author is a writer and journalist who lives in Paris (although her heart is still in Los Angeles). she is on instagram @alien_angelbaby and substack @postalesdedreamland.
Los Angeles Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the Los Angeles area, and we want to hear your true story. We paid $400 for a published essay. Email [email protected]. You can find shipping guidelines. here. Editor's note: LA Affairs will not be published on December 13. You can find previous columns. here.
