Reclaiming the First

illustration by Yinne Smith

*Names and certain details are changed to protect the interviewee’s privacy*

One of my favourite lines of conversation when meeting a new friend is the “Who was your first?” prompt. Whether that’s your first love, your first sexual experience, or your first heartbreak; whichever stood to affect you the most: The First. My roommate recently told me a story about her first, and how, after years of not getting closure, she created her own. 

Kacey met Alex when she was fourteen, in a school environment where the kids partied a lot, and girls talked about boys by their lockers. Most of her friends had boyfriends, and a lot of them had already lost their virginity. To Kacey, Alex was a wealthy “cool boy” who traveled, partied and knew everyone who was anyone. Yet, he always managed to keep his grades up. Even at that age, he seemed wise beyond his years. 

One day, he stopped to talk to Kacey at her locker, even though they didn’t have any classes together. He told her she was pretty and asked her on a date. She said no. 

So he asked her again every day for the next two weeks, pairing his routine inquiries with extravagant adolescent gestures. He drove her home in his parent’s 2008 Lexus that he didn’t have a license for, opened and closed her locker for her at school, carried her books, and skipped steps ahead of her on the stairwell to clear her path. He told her stories about his travels in Europe- his grandparents were the Count and Countess of Sweden. She was awestruck, and at the end of those two weeks, she thought she was in love. 

The next time Alex asked her on a date, Kacey said yes, thus launching the next four months of her very first relationship. To Alex, Kacey was a quiet, reserved girl who served as a challenge. He relished the idea of taking her virginity, but she was adamant that she wasn’t ready to have sex and continued to decline any advancements he made when they were alone. In the nature of self-centred high school boys, Alex soon became bored of what he’d previously considered a chase. He broke up with Kacey the next day at school, leaving her tear streaked at her locker with a stack of textbooks that she hadn’t been prepared to carry. She was devastated and spent that first week attempting to fake various illnesses so she wouldn’t have to go to school. 

After that, she cried in the girl’s washroom each time she passed Alex in the hall. Months later a boy from the soccer team asked Kacey to the winter formal, and it finally seemed like her high school experience was turning back around. Alex, seeing her at the dance that night, texted her that he missed her and asked if they could hang out afterwards. Instantly, Kacey gave up any excitement she’d had about the boy she was attending the dance with. She counted the minutes of each hour until the last song was called and the kids were sent home, which would mean it was time for her to meet Alex. She found him sitting out in the soccer field behind the school smoking a joint. Although they hadn’t spoken in months, it suddenly seemed like they’d never been a part. He stroked her hair while telling her how beautiful she looked that night and how much he had hated seeing her with someone else. He wanted to be with her so badly, he told her. He wanted to be as physically close to her as possible, he said. If only they could be together like that one night, he would know that she wanted him. In desperate belief that sex would bring them back together, Kacey said yes, and gave Alex her virginity right there on the unlit soccer field. 

He walked her home later, kissed her goodnight, and sent her to bed swooning with images of them walking the halls the next day hand in hand. But the next day, she didn’t see Alex, not even once, and he didn’t text her. The day after that was the same. Finally, she built up the nerve to approach his locker at school, and asked where he had been. Alex looked at her like he didn’t know what she meant; like the question was out of place. “Kacey, you know we’re not together right?” he asked, expression unchanging. Kacey swallowed hard and in a breathless voice mustered a quick “oh.” Alex nodded at her and repeated the sentiment of his previous statement, “It was just sex Kacey, it’s not like we’re a couple now.” Of course, Kacey had thought they were. Actually, she thought that had been the whole point of them having sex. She had been sure of it. Numb, she slowly turned around and walked back to her own locker. She wanted to throw up, or scream, or cry. She wished desperately that she could stop existing in that moment, though of course she didn’t. Kacey kept on existing, and though she cried herself to sleep many nights after that, she eventually met another boy. 

She was seventeen then, entering her last year of high school and fell very much in love. Then she turned 18 and moved away for school, turned 19 and fell in love with someone else, turned 20 and had been heart broken a handful of times. When she finally moved back to her hometown, she was stronger, and wiser, but there was a feeling that still lingered deep inside her. Kacey felt that she had never resolved her first. 

With all of her other boyfriends, she’d found closure. They had ended things amicably or spent time resolving problems or feelings later on. Though she hadn’t talked to Alex since that day by his locker, six years prior, she texted him. It was February 12th and she didn’t say “hi” or “how are you?”, she asked what he was doing on Valentines Day. An hour later, he confirmed that he was doing nothing, and she asked him if he’d like to meet up. He said sure. It was all very matter of fact. He picked her up that evening in a 2012 Lexus, one that he had a license for and drove her to his apartment in the city. They talked about each other’s families, their jobs, what they had been doing the last six years of their lives. He cooked her dinner by candlelight, and played classical music. When Kacey indicated that she wanted to have sex with him, Alex offered her a full body oil massage and played with her hair beforehand. The sex was standard, but the gestures were romantic. In some ways, Kacey felt like they were back in the ninth grade, sharing this experience as a couple in the way she had hoped they would back then. It felt good to be treated this way, while knowing that the next day it would hold no bearings on her. Alex told Kacey that he’d like her to be his date to an upcoming gala, that he would call her next week. She knew it wasn’t true and didn’t need it to be. It felt freeing to hear him lie to her and know that she didn’t care. Kacey knew what she had texted him for, and it wasn’t romance or a reconnection. She wanted to have sex with him, to reclaim the act that she felt had been taken from her all those years ago. She wanted closure.

When he drove her home that night, Kacey felt the most confident that she’d ever felt, and promised herself that she would never let someone use her body like that again.