I was 12, and I loved him. I loved him so much, in that awkward stage between woman and child. My breasts had just started developing, and I was being noticed by boys for more than my curly hair and my big ears. It was a magical time in my life. I wanted him to the be the first one to touch them, see them. Well, besides Javier, but Javier didn’t count – he groped them without permission in class one day, and I punched him in the arm.
I hated New York, but I loved it. I was used to North Carolina, to mild winters and quiet nights, people who spoke with warm twangs and comforting colloquialisms. New York was bitter, there were no smiles or salutations to strangers, the ‘children’ weren’t really children at all. They traded their parents’ porn in the hallways at my middle school, smoked real cigarettes instead of just pretending they were with empty fingertips and their warm breath against cold air. It was terrifying, and it was invigorating.
I loved that New York boy. He lived down the street from me, and he and his friends would play curb ball outside of my house. I would sit in my living room window and watch them, out of sight. Not that it mattered, they never looked in my direction, even when I was out in the open. They were too cool for the little bony girl with broad shoulders and big feet. They hadn’t noticed my new tits. I wanted them to. To notice me. And my tits.
The day after one particularly heavy snowfall, I heard the sharp bring! of a basketball hitting cement, over and over and new that a new game of curb ball had just began. I was prepared, I was going to be seen today. I was already dressed, in the tightest jeans I had, which weren’t actually tight, just too small for me after my latest hormone induced growth spurt, and a clingy shirt. I slipped on my mother’s heeled snow boots and my black coat, checking my hair in the mirror and prancing delicately out of the door and down the stairs.
I worked my way over to them, this little brown girl attempting to saunter like a grown woman and failing miserably at it. They didn’t look away from their game. I was almost across the street, to the opposite side of where the love of my life was standing, almost directly in his line of sight. And I slipped. The sole of my mother’s boot made contact with the slick black ice on the asphalt, and I went flying. In a second, I was spread eagle, on my back. I looked as if I were attempting to make snow angels where there was no ice.
“Daayuummm!” came the exclamations from the curb ball boys. I closed my eyes, too slow to attempt to play it off, too embarrassed to think of anything else to do but just lay there. I opened my eyes to find my love leaning over me. His long lashes fluttered as he blinked at me. “You aiight?” he asked. Before I could answer, he decided I was and walked away, continuing his game with his friends.
I lifted myself up out of the road when I heard a car round the corner. I wanted to die, but I wasn’t brave enough to do it that way. I figured jumping out of that window I spied on them from so often in the past would be quicker.
#1.
