1995 — FIVE
TO: EVE ONLY
well I’m sitting here in Mr. Masters office at lunch
detention. I may not be able to finish the note but
I’ll give it to you anyway. It’ll suck when you leave.
I don’t have mutch to say, but when you leave I’ll
miss you alot. Please don’t forget to give me the phone
# where you will be. Was that stuff really real that
you gave Primo? Well the bell is going to ring so I
have to go.always James.
P.S. I love you
My last note from James. I was not leaving for good, as it seems to sound, I was only going out of town for Spring break. However, during the reccess, we broke up. Valerie DiGiovanni told me that he had cheated on me several times with Penny Vachel, an overweight schlub who was a year younger than me, a girl who had a reputation for being slutty and dumb. Of course James denied any activity with Penny but I wouldn’t hear it and dumped him cold over the phone. I was sad for the remaining two weeks of vacation though. My first-ever boyfriend, my first kiss, and we only lasted about… two months, tops? I was “so in love”, without a clue as to what love even was.
I remember at the time thinking that Valerie was just lying to me to protect me from staying with James any longer. She was really doing me a huge favor though. He was regarded as scrubby, dirty, poor white trash, and I did have to put up with a lot of my friends making fun of me for going out with him. But he was so cute. He had a face like James Dean under all that grime and clothing that probably hadn’t been washed in weeks. I was slightly angry on the inside at Valerie for telling me the gossip and instigating our breakup but in the end it would have been social suicide had I stayed with him any longer. After we broke up, about a month or so later we were able to still be friends, but I secretly longed for him, though I never again acted on my feelings toward him. He was left behind in junior high to complete eighth grade while I advanced to high school. Then he moved and changed schools and I don’t think I ever saw him again, except once in passing, at the food court in the mall.
