JO Magazine

A first kiss is something we never forget. First loves are always special, in one way or another. But the story of first love alma recounts is more curious than most.

Words by Alma Khasawnih.

I WAS AT A meeting in Canada a few weeks ago, and at the end of the long working days the participants would sit around to tell stories or sing songs. One night a group was telling stories of their first kisses and first loves.

One was a Brazilian human rights lawyer, a petite woman of 26 who joined the group with the declaration: “I have a story if you’d like to hear it.” We listened.

“When I was fourteen years old, my mother took me with her to Virginia, in the US, for one year while she did postgraduate research in engineering. I was an uncertain teen, wore baggy men’s t-shirts and had an eating disorder. There was a boy in another school: handsome, blond, athletic. He was the American dream. I loved him, stalked him, and knew everything about him: what he ate, his dog’s name, everything. I thought he, Dan, was delicious. He didn’t know I existed.

“I left after the year, only to return two years later for a visit. On my first night there my friend took me to her garage band rehearsal. There behind the drum set sat Dan. We got introduced. I acted as if I knew nothing about him. He asked me out and I spent every day for two weeks with the American dream. We walked around holding hands.”

She stopped.

“Sorry, I need a cigarette,” she said. She opened her purse and took out her pack of cigarettes and a light. We were all watching her as she took a long first drag off the cigarette, then continued.

“I went back to São Paolo,” she said. “We called each other all the time—there was no Internet in my house at the time. He always said my name when he heard my voice: Gabriella.”

She said it with the nostalgia of someone whose name meant nothing when pronounced by anyone else.

“But with time, our calls became less frequent; the distance was hard. Until we lost touch.” Another draw from her shortening cigarette.

“A few years later I looked him up online and there he was on Facebook! We reconnected, chatted, updated each other on our lives. In 2006, I had a work trip to New York City, emailed him, and we agreed to meet. But he got the dates wrong. I couldn’t extend my stay.”

Cigarette ashes fell on the ground, white smoke veiled her face.

“We didn’t meet. We kept in touch online.” Another cigarette. “Then I was coming to New York for one night, emailed him that I’d like to see him. He knew I had a boyfriend I’m living with now. We agreed to meet in a café in Brooklyn at 8:30pm. I arrived 30 minutes late.”

I could hear the other participants around me start to whisper to each other: “What? Huh?”

“I was told no one with his description ever came. I left crying. When I got home I got a phone call from him: he was in the city. He’d been mugged, and was in the only large hotel in Brooklyn waiting for me. I took a taxi and went to see him.”

Those of us listening were sitting at the edge of our chairs, leaning forward, bodies at attention, wine glasses and coffee cups forgotten in our hands, looking at her. I anticipated the moment of meeting from a Hollywood movie: running slowly, hugs, twirling, legs flying in the air, names being called out, kisses, tears.

“It was awkward. This was our first meeting in ten years. We said hello. Sat in the hotel lobby talking, moved to a 24-hour café for coffee. There, we had breakfast. We talked the whole night through. The sun came up. I walked him to the subway station and on the stairs he hugged me. It was the first time our bodies touched. The hug seemed to last a whole minute. Then he disappeared underground. I took a taxi home, packed my bags and here I am now. With you.”

She sounded giddy and disappointed..

Heavy breathing was all I could hear in the room. People stared at her with wide, perplexed eyes, mouths slightly open—wanting to ask questions, but nothing would come out. Then someone breathlessly said, “You didn’t kiss.”

“No,” she replied.

She will not see him again. A ten-year-long first love, without a first kiss. Well, what’s in a first kiss anyway?

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