The Long Summer

This is the continuation of the story of my first love and the events that have impacted my life the most. I'm not exaggerating there, and once the whole story is told, it should be clear why everything affected me the way it did, and for as long as it did. But this is part two, the middle.

When I left off, it was summer, and Sayla and I had been phone friends for a while. I had told her that I "liked" her, but we never agreed to start dating. I cannot recall exactly why, but it might have had something to do with us not being able to see each other much. It's hard to consider a relationship that takes place entirely over the phone a real relationship. I also don't remember why we couldn't see each other much. School was out, and neither of us had jobs or anything we had to do. We simply may not have been able to get to one another. Her mother and stepfather worked during the day, I believe, and my parents probably did, too. I wonder if things would have been any different had we lived closer (where it took an hour or less to walk from one house to the other) or been able to secure rides so we could spend time with each other. Everything might have still worked out the same though.

We talked all the time on the phone. Countless hours. It was practically like we were dating. We talked about everything, and as I mentioned before, we masturbated while talking to each other. Sort of like phone sex, but there wasn't a lot of role-playing. It was pretty much us feeling good, knowing that the other person was also feeling good, and talking about how good we felt. When I tell people how many girlfriends I've had, I say two; I'm counting Sayla, even though we never officially said we were dating and never did anything physical, but when you've heard a person have an orgasm, and have talked to them while they were masturbating, I think it's acceptable to say that you were going out. (Plus, it feels wrong to say that I've only dated one girl. First, it's a really low number. Two is a low number, but one is really fucking low. Second, Sayla and I cared for each other. I don't know how she would refer to me, if I'd been something like an ex-boyfriend or just a friend, but she's dated a lot of guys. She doesn't need to add to the total. I do.)

I believe that summer was also when I bought her a vibrator. It was a simple thing, only about $11 at the Spencer's in the local mall. It was glow-in-the-dark, waterproof, and had three different heads you could put on it, little caps that went on the top of it that created different sensations, I guess. It's weird, thinking about it. I bought a 14-year-old girl a vibrator. Granted, I was 17 at the time, but it still sounds weird. And creepy.

The thing about Sayla is, she was promiscuous. Like I said, when I met her, she claimed to be a nymphomaniac, and she wasn't lying. She was bisexual and liked both men and women very much, and had been with who knows how many people of both genders. She probably had more sex by the time she was 14 then I will ever have in my life. Now, I'm not judging her, nor am I saying these things out of anger or hatred. I'm just telling the truth. See, her promiscuity makes some sense. She was molested as a child, and then raped when she was either 12 or 13. The way she put it is, "I figured God didn't want me to be a virgin." At one point during the years I knew her, she also said something along the lines of, "I was molested, and that makes me want to do a lot of sexual things, and I don't like that, but I can't help it." I've met a number of girls that were molested, and they all seemed to struggle with sexual urges. I don't know why that is, but molestation really messes with the brain. I can't fault a person for being messed up.

Anyways, back to the story. Sayla and I were very close. But during June, I believe, she went down to Florida to visit her grandmother. She was gone two weeks, I believe. We still talked on the phone a lot, using phone cards. One night while talking to her, she told me that she didn't think she would go out with me when she got back. I felt terrible. Beyond terrible. The one girl that had liked me, had really liked me and opened up my world, had shown me what it was like to have a real friend that liked to talk to me and accepted me, was rejecting me.

I don't remember much of the conversation. This was more than eight years ago, mind you. I'm lucky to be able to remember any details at all. She said that we probably wouldn't go out, and I was crushed. This is just a hunch, but I think that she had had sex with someone down there. Hanging out with people, having some fun, got horny, and fucked somebody. She felt guilty about it, knew that I wanted her all to myself, that that sort of relationship was what I expected, and didn't think she could give me that. I think she was trying to protect me. I can't fault her for that, even if I do think it was the wrong decision. But she didn't know how I would react.

I turned in. I wanted to be completely alone. It was like I had spikes coming out of my body, to keep anybody from getting close to me. I made an especially rude comment to Sayla. For my birthday, which is in the middle of July, I went to see Metallica, a band I'd loved for years, down in Atlanta with some friends. When I got back, I was telling her about the concert, and I said, "It was the best thing that's happened to me this summer." I knew it'd hurt her; I wanted it to. I felt like, if I couldn't be with her, then what was the point of us getting so close? I regret that comment even now, perhaps because it is still so vivid in my mind.

I was reading a book about Buddhism as the summer was coming to a close. It helped me to wall myself in even more. Buddhism teaches to discard wants and desires; I tried to discard my desire to be with Sayla, though in the end I only managed to discard my concern for her. I was angry at her. I lashed out at her. I'd feel bad about it, apologize, and try to be nice, but that would make me want to be with her again, and that's make me angry, both at her and myself.

That summer, those few months, are what I remember the most about my relationship (personal, not romantic) with Sayla, which lasted for years. It's hard to imagine that so much could happen in three months. But so much did, especially at the end of July/beginning of August.

I hadn't had a birthday party in July, because I didn't have any friends I talked to outside of school (aside from Sayla), and Sayla's birthday was at the beginning of August. We decided to have an early party for her that would also serve as a late party for me. Great idea, right? Well, neither of us could arrange a party by ourselves, so we had a third person, a girl we both knew (though I didn't know her that well and had never really spent any time around her), throw a party and invite people, procure beverages, and the like. Great idea, right? Yeah, it was wonderful. A night to remember. The story of the worst birthday party ever. At least, the worst I've ever been to, and one of the chief reasons I don't drink around people.