Growing up, everything in our home was always brand new. New clothes, new cars, new appliances. One upping our neighbors was, in my opinion, the sole thing my parents had in common for the majority of their marriage. My dad would come home from his job at the car dealership, and my mother would report all of the day's business. The Simmons family had purchased a new dryer, and ours was simply not good enough. My dad would say that, come to think of it, he had noticed that it was drying just a little more slowly the last few weeks. "It's all about efficiency these days, Linda," he would nod in agreement. As she finished the scalloped potatoes, Mom would tell of the new socks she had picked up for us at Penny's. They were woven with the most finely wound thread made of steel. Perfect for the grueling half mile walk to school we took every day.
After the obligatory family dinner small talk, my brothers and I would do the dishes. Looking back, it would have been easier to just have one us do them each night, because it always seemed to take eons to finish the small stack. The problem was that everyone always wanted to be the one to dry the dishes. We would always try to come up with a system, but in the end, someone was crying and we were all soaking wet. Defeated and soggy, we would head upstairs, brush our teeth, and get ready for bed. At 16, the monotony of this routine was really starting to bother me.
But this story is not about my parents' shallow tendencies, or my discontent with the life that they created for us. This story is about the end of that life. Well, the end of my life, at least.
I was 16 and three quarters of a year old when I died. The year was 1987 and my favorite song was "Catch Me (I'm Falling)" by Poison. Until about three months before I died, I had never kissed a girl (One year at summer camp, Jenny Graham let me touch her boobs when we were under the water, but as far as real girl connection, that's about all I had experienced). The girl I kissed was Cassandra. I wish I could say she was beautiful, but she wasn't. She sang in the school choir, had brown hair, and messy teeth. We had American Literature together our Sophomore year, and since her last name was Wilson and mine was Williams, we sat next to each other and worked together on most projects. She was over at my house one night working on a partner essay on The Grapes of Wrath, and it happened. I looked at her and knew that I needed to, I HAD to kiss her. I leaned in and made my move. Our mouths met in a sloppy, awkward way that reminded me of this film we had watched in French class that always made me want to gag. After about 10 seconds, we broke the kiss, and she excused herself from the room. "That went over really well..." I thought to myself while adjusting the crotch of my jeans.
Before Cassandra came out of the bathroom, my mom brought in some new recipe that her friend had messed up the previous week, so Mom was trying to perfect it. It was some sort of casserole with spinach and cheese on top, and from the looks of it, not much improved. Cassandra came back in, and we went about our writing as if nothing had happened. I shoved the mediocre casserole into my mouth bite after bite, thankful for something to fill the awkward lack of conversation now settling in on us. We finished our paper, and she drove herself home. I suppose the night was not a total loss, though. Our paper got graded a B+. One day shortly after, I caught Cassandra doodling my name with hearts all around it. The next day, I heard that we were a couple, and by third period, I knew I had to end it. This was really quite smothering. So, I sent her a note through our friend Samantha about the (inevitable) end of our relationship. It was, I said, much like the Grapes of Wrath. It was time for us to both move on to bigger and better things. I thought it was really poetic, actually. So, as it stands, Cassandra was my very first, and (unknown to me at the time) last girlfriend that I would ever have. Quite lackluster, really.
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