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I have always been a hopeless romantic. I have always been the girl who cried her heart out whenever she saw romance movies. I remember how hard I cried the first time I saw the movie Titanic and how miserable I felt when I saw the movie A Walk to Remember. I also recall how tears flooded my eyes as I saw the movie The Fault in Our Stars about two cancer patients who were in love. 

I have seriously lost count of the number of times I have drowned myself in tears while seeing a romance movie. And yeah, I love books and my favorite genre would be romance. That has to be the reason I can never get enough of Harlequins novel and the reason why Nicholas Sparks’ books never gets old to me. It took me two days to recover from the sadness one of his books the best of me made me feel.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m that kind of girl. I’m sure you are probably wondering what kind. The kind that loves love and good love stories. The kind that is thrilled by the idea of loving someone and being loved back in return. The kind that just loves the idea of being in love.

I felt love was a take as much as you give game and I equally felt that as long as I loved a boy and he loved me back in return, every other thing will fall in place and we would always be happy. I was wrong and I had to learn that. Not in a hard way but in a very slow and subtle way.

My name is Dee. I am 22 years old and this is my love story.
I ran a four year BSc program in a private University somewhere in the eastern part of Nigeria.

Attaining a BSc was the first step in achieving my long list of life goals. I was barely sixteen years of age when I attained admission into that institution to study accounting.

I was very naïve being a girl that rarely went anywhere asides from church and school. Not that I was a locked up kid, I just preferred staying home and drowning myself in some good books. Some say I’m introverted. That could be true to a reasonable extent.

I wasn’t socially awkward if that is what you are thinking. I had friends. Female friends. Given by the fact that I attended an all-girls secondary school. Yes, you are right if you are thinking I had no male friends. I had very slim opportunities to make male friends.

I had a crush at church but we barely spoke to each other because I was awfully shy around him and thinking about it now, it seemed he was shy too.

I remember my first encounter with a member of the opposite sex. It was an unexpected encounter. My classmate at school Emma had given my cellphone number to her cousin. She was a crazy person and she thought it would be fun matchmaking her cousin and I. He called a couple of times and we spoke.

He was an engineering student in the University and he sounded matured the times we spoke on the phone. One day on our usual phone conversations, he said he had had enough of hearing my voice over the phone and he wanted to see me. Half of me was excited.

Finally, I could share boy stories with my friends and not have to do the listening all the time. The other half was scared. I was scared of what he would think of me. I was scared he wasn’t going to find me attractive. I was scared our meeting up was going to be one huge mistake. Still, I summoned up courage and decided I was going to meet him.

It was a Friday and school ended by 1pm. I remember going home and I remember lying to my mother. I told her I had to go to my classmate’s house to collect my notebook which I had lent her earlier and which she forgot to bring along to school that day.

I remember my mother asking me why it was so urgent and I told her I needed the notebook to prepare for a test that was scheduled to be written on Monday. I felt bad for lying but I had already promised to see him. As I lied, I prayed in my heart that she would believe me. I prayed that she wouldn’t see through me and find out I was lying to her.
“You can go but come back before evening”. She said.

I was relieved to hear those words and I immediately left the house.
Emma was waiting for me at a Junction close to my house. She was to take me to meet her cousin Kennedy since I didn’t know my way to where he lived.

I didn’t know what Kennedy looked like. I wasn’t big on Facebook then so I hadn’t seen a picture of him but from the sound of his voice over the phone, I was convinced he was going to be good looking and I was right.

Kennedy was handsome. At least by my definition of the word handsome then. He looked exactly like Alex, my crush from church. He was tall, slim and very light skinned.
Where I’m from, a person that light skinned would be nicknamed albino even if that person wasn’t an albino. He embraced me tightly the moment he opened the front door.

Let’s pause for a moment and let me describe me. I am a small person. Very petite in stature. I’m short and slightly skinny in case you didn’t understand what I meant by petite. No, I do not have big boobs neither do I have a big behind. I’m just small everywhere except in my brains. I mean, I can’t just miss out on everything. I’m just kidding.

I hated being small. I hated being short. I hated being the smallest girl in my class. I hated always having to stand in the front of any queue formed in school. I also hated being nicknamed smallie by my teachers and classmates.

At thirteen, most of my classmates had begun developing boobs while my chest was still as flat as the back of a pressing iron. Not that so much has happened in that department. I’m kidding again.

I began menstruating quite early, even before I started growing boobs. I remember the first time I noticed that swell on my chest. I was so excited that I pleaded with my mom to purchase bras for me. I had always wanted to wear one.
“Where are the breasts you want to cover?” my mother teased me.

She bought the bras for me nonetheless. The bras came with foams that made my breasts appear bigger than they actually were. I felt proud to flaunt the hand of the brassiere in class by slightly moving my shirt down my shoulder so the hand of the bra could show and my classmates would know I finally wore bras.

I was fifteen when I first met Kennedy and I had one year left to finish secondary school. As he embraced me, I didn’t know what to do. It was the first time I was embraced by a guy like that.

So I just stood there, arms by my sides. How awkward he must have thought me to be. He asked me to make myself comfortable and he began speaking to his cousin in a native language.

Emma told me she had to go. I got frightened. That wasn’t the plan. She wasn’t supposed to leave me all by myself. What was I supposed to do?

My heart began racing and I tried pleading with her to stay using my eyes. Emma smiled.

“Don’t worry. He will take good care of you.”

She immediately picked up her school bag and left.
The banging sound of the door kept resounding in my head. I’m sure he noticed how uncomfortable I was because he turned on the stereo and one of Celine Dion’s songs began playing. I can’t quite remember which song it was.

He offered me biscuits and a bottle of soft drink which I drank gradually. We spoke for a short while, about nothing in particular. He asked about school, about my friendship with his cousin and I told him I lied to my mother just to see him. He laughed. It was the heartiest laughter I had ever heard and it seemed like his soul laughed as he laughed.

The moment he stopped laughing, he brought his face close to my face and stared into my eyes. His face was very close to mine because I felt his breath on my face and I had no choice but to look at his face and his eyes.

They were light brown with freckles around them. They were in fact beautiful but I couldn’t stay with them for long. I got shy and slowly lowered my head which he immediately pulled back up and then it happened.

I had always imagined what my first kiss would feel like. I had always imagined what being kissed by a boy would feel like.
He kissed me. My first kiss. His mouth was warm and his lips were soft.

I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know how to kiss. I hadn’t been kissed before and I didn’t know how to kiss him back. I didn’t know how to react. It did feel good as he kissed me. I felt very warm inside and I had these tingling sensations curling up inside of me.

Then my knees felt weak. I knew if I tried to stand at that moment I would fall. I had read about girls getting weak knees when kissed by boys but reading about it was one thing and experiencing it was another and you are so right for thinking experiencing it was better.

“Is this your first time kissing?” he asked me as he broke the kiss.

I felt bad. Was it that obvious that I was clueless? I nodded in reply.
“No wonder.” He said softly.

Hearing him say no wonder made me feel worse. No wonder you are so pathetic at kissing. No wonder this is the most horrible kiss of my life. No wonder the kiss was just terrible. I wondered which of these statements he was thinking.

“No wonder your lips taste so sweet. It’s nice. You are a good girl. Don’t change.”

His statements brought me back to the sitting room, to the couch where we were seated. I smiled.

He might have thought the kiss was terrible but he thought my lips were sweet. That was a gigantic consolation prize for me.

He kissed me again, slowly guiding my lips and soon I found the rhythm and flowed with the kiss.

I was kissing him back. I was kissing. I was elated. He didn’t try to touch me. He just kissed me and I kissed him back.

At home that evening, I couldn’t stop thinking of the kiss I shared with Kennedy. I wasn’t thinking of Kennedy. I was thinking of the kiss. The more I thought of it, the more badly I needed it.

I visited Kennedy again with his cousin. This time, we didn’t meet up in the apartment we met up in the first time. Emma took me to a one room apartment she claimed also belonged to Kennedy. I didn’t ask any questions. I didn’t bother.

The room was small and had no furniture apart from the dressing table. There was a mattress placed on the floor and a wardrobe where his shirts and trousers hung.

Emma didn’t leave this time. She sat on the mattress and made herself comfortable. Kennedy left the room and returned ten minutes later with a plate of ice cream in his hands.

I didn’t want ice cream and so I declined when he offered leaving the entire plate of ice cream for Emma to devour.

Kennedy sat on the mattress and pulled me close to his side. He began rubbing my thighs raising my skirt up with his hand as he rubbed. I felt embarrassed.

Emma was in the room and even though she had her back at us, I knew she heard everything. Kennedy slowly push me and I fell with my back on the mattress.

I wanted to tell him to stop. I wanted to remind of the presence of his cousin in the room just in case he forgot. I wanted to tell him that his cousin was sitting on the same bed we were about to make out on. I couldn’t utter any of the protests I had in mind because he was already on top of me and his lips had grabbed mine.

His kiss this time wasn’t soft like the first time. It was rough and felt very possessive. I felt the entirety of his weight on me and it almost crushed my bones. He fondled my breasts.

He didn’t undress me, he just squeezed on my bra. I got lost in the passion and as he touched me, I wanted more.

For a moment I forget Emma was in the room and I couldn’t cage the soft moans that escaped from my mouth.

Desire swept all over me and an unfamiliar need throbbed at my panties. I had felt horny before. I had even touched myself once or twice before and most times when I read the sex parts of romance books, I would feel aroused. But not like this. It never felt like this.

My momentary craze was put to an end when I felt a warm budge on my thigh. Shock replaced the need I felt. I knew about the male reproductive organ. I had even seen labelled diagrams of it in my biology textbook but I had never seen a real one and as I felt it on my skin, I felt terrified.

I looked over at Emma and her face was bent and even though it was her back I could see, I knew her eyes were fixed on the plastic plate she held. I knew she felt uncomfortable and I felt stupid for letting Kennedy touch me in the presence of Emma.

I made attempts to push him off me and he got the clue that I had lost interest in the make out session. He got off me, adjusted his pants and playfully pushed his cousin’s head.

Emma looked at him and smiled and as I looked at her face, I couldn’t find a trace of worry or discomfort and it worried me.

Kennedy never told me he wanted to be my boyfriend. What we had wasn’t labelled nor tagged. He never told me he loved me and as young as I was I didn’t assume anything.

I don’t remember loving him or ever being in love with him. Not in the way I believed being in love with a boy would feel. I loved the fact that he kissed and touched me. I loved the fact that he made me feel grown up in a way I can’t explain. I loved the attention and prestige having him in my life gave me with my few friends. But I didn’t love him.
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