first love

I know what you're thinking. You want me to fill you in a little. Give you a bit of background colour. What was the story between me and Lucy, between me and Lucy and James?

I have to apologise, but I truly remember very little. I remember the first time I noticed Lucy. We (the class) were standing in the corridor outside a classroom in the week we all started at the Big School. We had to do that, wait outside for the teacher to come along and allow us in. So there were twenty, thirty, 13-year old kids all milling around in the narrow space at the top of a staircase, between 2 closed classrooms. I was leaning against the outside window, and Lucy was leaning against the firedoor that led to the stairs. We did a lot of leaning in those days. She was standing next to a taller, blonder girl called Elaine. Lucy had already developed the crooked smile.

So everyone was there, but in my mind I can picture just four of us. Elaine, Lucy, Jane Hinchcliffe, and me. Someone was standing next to me, and Lucy was talking to him, but I can't picture who it was. Not James. James was not in our class, not in any of our classes, apart from Maths. Jane is asking me about the timetable. She did that a lot at first, until I was horrible to her about something. After that she befriended a psycho girl who used to disrupt every lesson.

So that's it. The first memory. I don't remember what we might have talked about. After that there was just a gradual process of growing closer, helped by the fact that Lucy and Hazel Brown and I all did Latin together.

Later, in the sixth form, I used to do two subjects with Hazel; and Lucy was in English too. By that time we were very close, and with James and I inseparable, he got to know Lucy as well as I did. We used to talk about her together, how brilliant she was. And then, at some sixth form party or other, he asked her out. And came back in amazed, both at himself for asking and at her for saying yes. Okay. For saying, I will.

That was the beginning of the end for me.