My First “Everything”

Her name was Katie and she was my first everything, first girl everything anyway.

This girl is important. She’s important cause she fucked me up a little bit. It was so horrible. Her skin tasted like Doritos, her teeth were like alligator clamps, her mouth like an industrial vacuum cleaner, she wouldn’t stop clanking her teeth against mine, and she tried to rub me out as if she were waxing a car as fast as she could.

She was one grade below me, exactly a year younger. I had seen her around and I thought she was gorgeous but my self esteem was way too low for me to ever consider talking to her.

How We Met

We both went to this LGBT support group thing during class every Thursday and it was really just a way to hang out with your friends and skip class, but it became my favorite day of the week because I knew I’d get to see her.

Any sort of slight interaction with this girl made my heart race and perspiration was frequent. To this day, I can’t tell you why I liked her so much. Raging hormones? Maybe it was just the right chemistry? I don’t know.

One day during one of those LGBT group sessions, she said she had a crush on someone. I really had no reason to think so but I had a feeling it was me. The older girls in the group urged her to tell all of us who it was and she kept resisting until eventually she just blurted, “It’s Alex!” I swear my heart skipped a beat and the room went silent. What’s even funnier is that we were out of time for that group session. So she left as quickly as possible.

I wouldn’t see Katie till the end of the day and I spent my next few classes with a dumb smile on my face. I felt like my head had been inflated with helium. I found her after the last bell and we exchanged numbers. We talked non stop and eventually started dating.

That winter break was amazing. Constantly having sex, constantly cuddling and falling asleep with each other. I felt so loved.

Coming Out

She was the reason why I came out. Before my parents knew I was gay, they would let girls stay over. So like any other 15 year old lesbian, I invited my new semi-secret girlfriend over for new years. I had sex with her for the first time.

Once we were back in school, we would be on the phone together constantly. Don’t ask me why, but I was on the house phone when I decided to reminisce with her about that new years night. My little brother was 4 at the time and he decided to pick up the other house phone to play with it. I couldn’t hear him pressing buttons on my end. Eventually, he pressed the speaker button in front of my mom in the other room. She heard every dirty thing I said to her on the phone.

My mom had asked me before if I was gay cause she had a feeling, but I had always denied it. She actually seemed more disappointed that I had sex. She told me, “how dare you put your head in between someone else’s legs? You’re 15.” I was ashamed. My mother was on the verge of crying and it was my fault.

My mom and dad had always been separated as long as I had been alive, so she had me call him to tell him what had happened. He was so calm. He told me he had a feeling I was gay but that was all. When I saw him in person though he did scold me about having sex in the house, but after that he never brought up me being gay again. He just really doesn’t care. He thinks it doesn’t make sense to reproduce in an already overpopulated, extremely cold world. So it makes sense that he never cared for grandchildren.

My mother on the other hand wants to be a grandmother. She constantly questioned my sexuality and even still occasionally asks me if I’m still gay. Although it can be annoying to have to go over my sexuality, she always makes sure to tell me that she loves me unconditionally. It took her a couple years to say it but she said that she believes that God made gay people and if that’s the way I am, that’s what God intended. Either way though she took me to the doctor to have me tested for STDs.

Fighting

I was more than happy with Katie, my new girlfriend. We fucked like rabbits and couldn’t keep away from each other. I always told her how much I cared for her, bought her gifts, tried my best to be romantic, all that. I loved her, at least, its as close as I’ve ever gotten to love. Unfortunately, that was short lived.

Some of the girls from our LGBT group had tried to tell me that Katie had cheated on me with another girl but because I didn’t know them very well and I just didn’t want to believe it, I ignored it. It turned out they weren’t lying. Throughout our one year relationship Katie cheated on me with 7 different people.

Katie had some problems of her own. She lived with her verbally abusive grandmother and virtually uninvolved grandfather because she didn’t know her father and her mother was too crazy to raise a child. I know that her mother was abusive when she did live with her though and I know now that she didn’t process it right. She took out her anger on her friends and me.

It wasn’t long until she had started calling me names and hitting me. One time without saying so she tried to get me to pretend to rape her. I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time, all I knew is that I didn’t like it. I just couldn’t do it, it was scary and it made me so uncomfortable. She got really upset and threatened to break up with me.

Her break up threats would turn into me instantly sobbing, she would take it back and we were together again. It then turned into a really unhealthy habit of me not doing something she wanted, her threatening to break up with me, me crying, her apologizing, and then sex. It was terrible.

I wouldn’t tell my friends everything that was going on because I was embarrassed. I knew she was hurting me, but the thought, “this is abusive” never crossed my mind.

The Paper Rose

Our time together started to run out. She cheated on me with someone else again and the cheating definitely lit the match, but it didn’t light the fuse.

She told me that she wanted more spontaneity. She said she wanted me to buy her something out of the blue because whenever I bought her stuff it was because she pointed out she liked whatever it was, so I would just buy it on the spot. She said she wanted me to be more romantic, like get her flowers or something without her knowing. Just surprised her.

I didn’t have money for flowers at the time but I was desperate to make her happy so I looked up how to make paper roses online. Man, that rose took me hours. I spent all night on one rose. The next day at lunch I presented it to her, she didn’t care. She gave me a dry thank you and just kind of ignored me.

When we sat down at the table with her and all her friends, I asked her what was wrong. She said that she knew that it was going to sound bad, but she didn’t like the rose I made, not because she didn’t think it was good or anything, but because it wasn’t real. She said she wanted me to buy her real flowers. I said I didn’t have money right now. And she responded with, I know, I don’t care that you don’t have money. I just don’t want this.

That right there, that’s when I lost it.

I had never cheated on her, called her any names, raised a hand to her, or even yelled at her. But that day, oh I yelled so loud. I screamed that she was the one that cheated on me with her ex and all those other guys, I screamed that nothing was good enough for her and that she was wrong on so many different occasions. I don’t even remember exactly what I yelled at her but I don’t think I’ve ever screamed at someone like that before then or since.

She started yelling back that she thought I had forgiven her. She yelled that I was wrong and to never raise my voice at her. She threw the paper rose on the ground, spat at my feet and stormed away.

The Breakup

After that surprisingly, there was a mutual break up. We decided to remain friends. Her friends had already known most of what happened in the relationship, so it was very easy to talk to them about it when I needed to vent. Understandably they sided with me on the whole, who’s fault was it was that the relationship failed. Consequently, my ex was pissed. But that’s another story.

It was about a week after the breakup that she tried to have sex with me. She explained that she still wanted that part of our relationship. Then she said something so fucking shocking to me, even for her.

She said, “I want you to fuck me and I want to fuck other people, but I don’t want you to fuck anyone else but me.”

I told her I definitely wasn’t down for that and she thought she could coerce me into having sex with her anyway but she hurt me so many times that it was as if I was numb down there to anything she would do to try to arouse me, especially after what she had just said. Nothing she could say would allow me to let her touch me. She ended up leaving angry because I kept pushing her off of me. We decided that we couldn’t stay friends.

When I told my dad about the breakup he asked why and then concluded that even though she was a little older than me, she seemed too immature for me.

I think it was about 6 months after we broke up that I didn’t randomly burst out crying anymore. I remember the first few days, I truly understood why they called it heartbreak. It honestly feels like your heart is crumbling and to top it off you got kicked in the stomach.

The Aftermath

Literally every girl I was interested in after my first girlfriend was a consequence of not wanting to have an experience like her ever again. I couldn’t figure out why I always ended up infatuated with these girls that just weren’t a good idea. I had never experienced a relationship that simply ran it’s course and ended alright, nothing had ever been healthy.

I realized I started to like these girls because I knew I would never be with them so it would never end up messy. I would get flirtatious attention from them but I knew nothing else would come from it and that me feel safe.

I realized that I was actively ignoring girls who were showing honest interest. Even if I was attracted to them, I would shrug off their advances and keep them at arms length because I was afraid of what would happen after they were done being nice.

It’s been 5 years since my first relationship ended. I’m 21 and I’m actively trying to analyze the things I’ve done and still do to correct myself. My goal is to be able to recognize why I want certain things or why my first reaction is what it is. I really want to be able to identify my emotions and really, really think before I act or speak. I think i’m getting better at it.

On the bright side though, one of those girls that I had been pushing away said yes to dinner with me the other day. Fingers crossed.

– “Alex,” 21

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