The Five Years of James: A First Love Story

I was fourteen when I met James. He was the cute guy who sat next to me in history class, freshman year. Dark hair, dark eyes, tall, had a smile that left me completely breathless. He liked to mess with me, tease me about little things, like the way I laughed, which he made me do a lot. I liked his attention, liked the way he called me “Blondie,” as if somehow he was branding me. I think I fell in love with him almost immediately.

Halloween, my friends and I went to the local farm for the Haunted Maze in a country town called Green, New Jersey. I felt my first taste of freedom as a teenager that night, staying out late with my friends without a curfew. We walked through the maze, screaming as overdramatic teenagers do. A guy jumped out at us with a chainsaw, and I ran, losing my shoe, laughing so hard I almost peed my pants. In a fit of giggles, my friends and I went to leave when I heard someone call my name.

“Ellie?” 

I turned and there he was: James, standing there with his flannel and rugged charm, helping out with the Halloween festivities. We talked a while, much to my friends’ dismay. They ended up leaving me behind so I could hang with him. He told me to wait for him to get off, so we could take a walk. I agreed, feeling a rush of excitement that I had never felt before.

After work, James took me to the local park, which was close to the farm. He sat on a swing, and I sat on the play structure, as we talked about school, friends, and our families. I took a deep breath and told him that I really liked him. He was surprised, not expecting that, and it made me laugh because I was so obviously in love with him. He tried to warn me about him, that I shouldn’t fall for him, that he wasn’t good for me. But I didn’t listen. We were drawn to each other like magnets, and when we were close enough to touch, I looked up at him, and he looked into my eyes, leaned in, and kissed me. I still remember that kiss, how his full lips felt against mine, the shock of electricity that raced through me, intoxicating me.

We dated for a few months after that night on the farm, but those months felt like years for my heart. I experienced a state of euphoria being his girlfriend; Ellie and James, etched in my notebooks. I loved holding his hand in the hallways, stealing kisses every chance we could get. Weeknights and weekends spent with him, at his house with his family, making out in his bedroom, sneaking touches behind closed doors.

One night on the farm, we sat in a truck and talked about the future. He was a country boy, and I dreamed of leaving for the big city and making it big with acting. Although we didn’t realize it, that was the first sign from the universe that we wouldn’t work out. Still, we swore it would always be us, cross our hearts, as if the future were already written. That night, James told me he loved me. And I loved him.

The high of first love began to fade, and James became more distant as I became obsessive. Girls flocked to his outgoing personality and lopsided smile, and soon, I wasn’t the only one receiving his attention. It hurt every time, watching how they flipped their hair and giggled at his jokes. I hated sharing him like that. Rumors circulated that he was trying to hook up with another girl from our gym class. Jealousy was never a good look for me, and as much as I tried to hold onto him, my constant need for his love pushed him away. Then, in hopes of winning back the attention from my own boyfriend, I ended our relationship and ran away to a friend’s house, hoping he’d come and find me.

He did. And he kissed me and told me he loved me, and I believed him. But the next day, a friend told me how James called me crazy, and the only reason he was staying with me was that he didn’t want me to do something stupid. Brokenhearted, I confronted James, and I ended it for good. Though it gave me some reprieve, letting go of the anxiety of constantly fighting for him, that settled feeling didn’t last long. Soon after, I began to miss him. I checked my phone constantly, hoping he’d text or call. He never did.

I was fifteen, a sophomore in high school, when I first realized I was suffering from depression. Nothing made me feel happy. In fact, I felt nothing. Completely numb, and so alone. My friends worked hard to keep me busy, showing up at my house when I refused to go out, making me spend time with them. I buried myself in theater, choir, and other crushes, but they were only that: crushes that came and went. Some with kisses, some with “what ifs,” but never anything that stuck. Nothing that made me feel the way I felt about James.

A couple of months into the school year, James went on to date one of my best friends. As much as I tried to play it off that I didn’t care, I did. I couldn’t stand to be around them, holding hands in the hallway the way he and I always did. I avoided them as much as I could, chest tightening each time I saw them kissing at his locker. I hated how she would talk to all of us about him as if he were something new. He wasn’t a shiny new toy. He was mine. Didn’t she understand that? He was every fiber of my being. And she didn’t care.

Our friend group felt for me, but I didn’t want their pity. I just wanted him.

When he broke up with her, I felt a guilty glimmer of happiness for the first time in a long time. Even as she cried in my arms, a part of me hoped there would be a chance for us again. Ellie and James, still etched in my notebooks. But he went on to date another girl, whom he would then date on and off for the rest of high school. I tried to move on, dated around, kissed a few boys, but nothing lasted.

Then, one night, when I was home, lying in bed listening to music, my phone buzzed. Looking at the text, I saw the words “whats up,” and my heart was hooked again. James knew how to do that; leave me in the dark for so long, only to come back and breadcrumb me enough to give me hope. He would ask me to send him pictures: some of my smile and some of my body. I did both because I thought that would bring him back to me. 

It never did.

At sixteen, James and I began meeting again, this time in secret. His diesel Ram, the same truck where he first told me he loved me, announced itself before it even arrived, its roar rattling the walls and windows of my house. On random nights, when he was feeling lonely, he’d pick me up, and we would drive with no destination, listening to music, his arm hanging out of the window while I snuck glances at how beautiful he was. The Best of You by the Foo Fighters was his favorite, and I’d watch his perfect mouth as he sang along to the song. We would park on a desolate, dirt road to make out, stealing third base, and I was convinced this was love.

Then he would get back with his girlfriend, and I’d spend months pulling myself back together. 

At seventeen, senior year, James called me, upset about an accident his friend caused, and wanted to see me. Excitement rushed through me; he wanted me to help him, to be there for him; not his girlfriend. That had to mean something. I opened my bedroom door to him, and he kissed me like he never did before. His kiss moved from my lips to my neck, and our clothes fell to the floor. That night, I gave James a different part of me, willingly. When it was over, I asked him to stay with me, but he said he had to get going; his girlfriend would be wondering where he was.

He went home without a second thought, and I spent the entire night crying.

Another bout of depression hit, and I couldn’t go to school the next day. My best friend Molly confronted him in our first-period classroom. She pulled him into the hallway and told him to stop messing with me; that he wasn’t worth it, that I deserved better. I was so mad at her for what she did, because all I could think of was that she took away a chance for me to be with him. I should have thanked her for caring about me, for loving me in a way that I never knew how to do for myself. 

I never got the chance to thank her, but that’s another story for another time.

I want to say that after that night, I grew some self-respect and never saw James again, but that would be a lie. I saw James periodically, on nights when his girlfriend wouldn’t be around, and he would come and go like a revolving door, leaving me to pick up the pieces.

Once, on one of our late-night drives, I built up enough courage to ask James if he ever really loved me. He asked if I wanted the honest answer, and I replied with an anxious, yes.

“No, I never loved you,” he admitted. 

I turned toward the window, tears streaming down my face, unwilling to let him see me cry. He dropped me off at Molly’s house, and I ran out of that truck without saying goodbye. He never texted to see if I was okay. 

That night, I promised to never let him take any more from me again. Instead of giving in to the depression, I began to write. A friend set my words to music, and together we made an entire CD; my songs for James.

The night before I left for college in California, my friend Melanie drove me to the same dirt road on the farm where I first fell in love with James. She parked her small, two-door car next to his massive truck. James took me by the hand, led me away, and we made love under the stars. When we were done, he lit a cigarette. I handed over the CD and a letter.

“This is for you,” I said. “In case I never see you again.”

Tears filled his dark eyes as he whispered, “We’ll see each other again.” 

He leaned down and kissed me as I started to cry.

“Goodbye, James,” I said to him, climbed into Melanie’s car, and we drove off. I looked back, watching his silhouette disappear from the back windshield into the starry night. He watched me go.

I was eighteen when I returned home from college for winter break. James was the one to text me first. I invited him to come over to my house, where Melanie and I were already hanging out. It felt really great to see him again; he still took my breath away. The only difference was that I had someone waiting for me back in California who wanted a relationship. In fact, James found Corey’s love letter to me, and, as he read it, a bitter jealousy coated his words when he dissed the letter, making fun of how emotional Corey was. We drank too much, and as I went to sleep on my bedroom floor, James and Melanie made out in my bed. Something broke in my heart for my friendship with Melanie; it ended, right then. Never to be the same again.

Later that night, I woke up shivering and climbed into my bed next to James. He rolled over to me, his eyes watching me as I settled next to him. He kissed my shoulder. Then my neck. He put his arm around me, pulling me close to his warm body, and we fell asleep in each other’s arms. In the morning, I flew back to California, and James became a distant memory.

The last time I saw James, I was nineteen. Home for the holidays, he reached out, inviting me for coffee; a change of pace, since we had never gone anywhere but my bedroom and that dirt road in Green; so I agreed. I wanted to see him. At Dunkin’ Donuts, he bought me a Coffee Coolata. He seemed older to me then, more mature. Like, he was becoming the best version of himself. We talked for an hour. He told me he still had my CD and letter, stored in his sock drawer. He still kept that piece of me.

James and I drove around that night, talking about our lives. He took me back to Green and parked on a dirt road that seemed all too familiar. His arm found its way around my shoulders, and his other hand stroked my face, but this time, I was in a relationship, and he was in a relationship with his college girlfriend. As much as I wanted to fall back into our old pattern, to feel his hands on me, to taste his Marlboro on my tongue, I didn’t give in. I set a boundary that became the end of our story. 

I had finally closed the door on the love I had for James. Those five years of loving him were finally done. Complete. We both found someone new, and the “us” we knew was over.

Not long after, I moved on from my college relationship. I met Kraig and we married; and after fifteen years and two beautiful children together, I find myself going through a divorce, learning how to love again. 

James married the girl he dated in college, and I never heard from him again. 

I think back to those years, the essential teenage years filled with him: his dark eyes, his perfect smile, and the soft lips I remember kissing so many late nights, so long ago. He was my twin flame. The person I truly loved before I understood what love was.

At times, when my mind wanders to the past, I think about what would happen if we were to ever see each other again. Would the pull we once had still be there? Or would it have faded, like the decades that have passed since I last visited that country road? I was fourteen when I met James, and after all this time, I still think of him and remember him vividly in my mind. Isn’t it funny, how the feeling of first love surpasses all other loves? 

And maybe, just maybe, if our paths were to cross again in the future, that spark would remind me that first love never truly dies. It simply waits, quietly, in the corners of our mind, forever frozen in time, eternal in its innocence.