First Times

Falling in love with him was so easy and simple, yet I wish I could undo it all. Forget it all. He was my best friend, my confidant, and it felt like in a second, it all vanished. All of our laughs, good times, bad times, the way he smiled when I tripped on my words, the way his dimple would pay a visit to mine when we kissed… it was all gone.

“You ready?” Said my mom as I held on to the last letter you wrote me.

“I need a minute….”

“It’s been 30 minutes since the last time you asked for a minute. Nena, we can go home. We don’t have to this. It’s too sudden, let’s just go.”

You loved my impromptu decisions. You loved my night owl soul that would take you to Walmart at 2am because I wanted to bake brownies and we were out of eggs.

“Mia?” Said my mom.

“I have to do it alone, I’ll be okay. I just need space.”

I walked away as I fought the tears as hard as I could, but they came pouring like that river we went to visit last summer. The day was so hot that the ice cream melted in five seconds, so we ended up with milkshakes instead. You promised me we would go again this summer, you used to keep your promises.

***

“I want 47 kids.” He said.

“You sure? I think we should have 50.”

“50! Are you mad woman? 50 is way too many, but 47, oh, 47 is the perfect number, you get a good balance of ages and at some point, the older ones can raise the little ones. It’s the perfect master plan. We would barely be parents! Can you imagine? Our kids would raise each other, and we would take all the credit for it.”

“I like how you think, I really truly do, but there’s a flaw in your plan.” I said.

“Really? How can there be a flaw? It’s perfect!”

“For starters, we are getting married in 30 days, and now it’s when you decide to tell me that you want 47 kids? That is unacceptable, I want 50 or nothing!” I said.

“Are we adding to our wedding vows?

“We could.”

“Alright, let me just add that in my notes. But you know what?”

“What?

“I kinda want to start on kid number one now.”

In my head, I was supposed to reply back with you’re stupid and push him, but he beat me to it. He said in a demanding voice to his phone turn off bedroom lights and kissed me. It wasn’t a romantic kiss; it was a goofy kiss. He tried to count my teeth with his tongue, I know, graphic, but that’s just Mark’s way. My future husband was a goofball.

***

“Is your mom coming?” He said.

“Yes and be nice.”

“I’m always nice. She loves me.”

“No, she doesn’t.” Mom said.

My mom didn’t hate Mark, she loved him. They even had inside jokes and would even text each other. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I get jealous of their relationship, I wish mom and I would get along as well as her and Mark, but I guess haven’t been kind to our relationship. She’s on her soon to be third divorce, and every time she marries and divorces the process is a bit difficult. Last time she splurged all her retirement money, and now she lives with us in our two-bedroom apartment that is already crowded enough with Mark, the two cats, the dog and me. I sometimes want to scream at her that she needs to get her shit together, I know Mark wants to scream that to her, but he likes that she makes lasagna, his favorite, whenever he asks for that, so he doesn’t question too often my love hate relationship with my mother.

“Mom, don’t like that.” I said.

“Sorry nena, I just wanted to see Mark’s reaction.”

“What? I knew you were lying. I am unfazed by those lies.”

“Guys we gotta go. We’re going to be late for the cake tasting.” I said.

“Shit, you’re right. Let’s go.” Mark said.

He grabbed the keys of the car, grabbed my bag that was sitting in the kitchen counter before I could reach for it and rushed us out of the apartment. We wanted to move before the wedding, but the house market is crazy right now, so we decided to focus on the wedding first, and then the house. I sometimes wish we had picked the house over the wedding. I need my space from my mother, and I’m also tired of not being able to use my speakers to listen to music because my neighbors think it’s too loud.

We decided on the double chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. Mostly because we had a chocolate on our first date. Our first date lasted twelve hours, and I can still remember the feeling when he held my hand for the first time on that day and the way I blushed when he casually mentioned that he was a good kisser. We were twenty-two at the time, now we are almost thirty and ready to go to bed by 10pm, but I still blush at the thought of that first kiss, first night together, that first I love you.

“You guys got a really basic cake.” Mom said.

“I think we picked the perfect cake.” Mark said.

We have been stuck in traffic for the past two hours and it feels like we are never getting home. I told Mark we should’ve stayed longer in Orlando because traffic usually is horrible during the weekdays at around 5pm, but he repeated over and over Google Maps says we’ll be home in about 47 minutes. Forty-seven minutes my ass.

“I’m hungry, stop talking about cakes.” I said.

“Hon, are you still mad about the whole Google Maps thing. I’m sorry, I said there was no traffic, I didn’t notice I had no signal, and it was just showing the offline map. Can you please let this go? I’ll get you Olive Garden when we are closer to home alright?”

“No amount of breadsticks can fix this Mark. Imma faint at this point.”

“Mia, you are being dramatic! Don’t you always carry one of those snack bars in your purse? Eat that for now, we’ll be home soon.”

“You ate my snack bar; I will die in this car.” I said.

“Mia just stop being so dramatic.” Mom said.

“Mom, just… not now okay.”

Mark started to say “Hon, please calm down, we are stuck together in the car…” but I immediately cut him off and just blurted out that we were stuck together all the time anyways. I guess is the low blood sugar or perhaps that with a sprinkle of resentment towards my mom for not moving out of my apartment, but I said what I said and the damage was done.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mom said.

“Oh, I don’t know mom, what do you think it means?”

The cars started to move now as quick as my anger escalated towards my mother. I knew I needed to shut my mouth and not say anything. Not say anything and keep quiet just like I have for the past 20 something years. I needed to be still, complaisant, and just accept that my mother will always be my mother, and no one would make her change. But, I wanted her to change, I wanted her to be a proper adult. A proper mother. My mother. But she was just Cindy, the wild card. And right now, in this moving car that way going over 70 miles per hour, I could not stand to be near Cindy the wild car aka my mother. I wanted to open the door and jump into the car moving next to us. I wanted to disappear.

“Mia please, we’re all tired and hungry. You don’t need to explode like that on us. There’s an exit in about 5 minutes. Please.” Mark said.

“No, no, let her say everything she needs to say. Apparently, I haven’t been a good mother to her.”

“Oh, so you call yourself a mother?” I said.

“Mia!”

“Mark let her speak her mind. She has words, let her say them.”

“We want you to get out!” I said.

“Get out of the car? Nena we’re on the highway driving more than 70mph, it’s not possible at the moment.”

“Get out of our apartment. Leave us alone. Take all your drama with you. Your divorce gets finalized in a week, and we want you to move out after that.”

“Is that true Mark?” Mom said.

“What the fuck? You really gotta ask him? I said it, it’s my home too, and I can make decisions as well. You need to move out.”

“Mia, this all started because you’re hungry, please don’t do this now. No one needs to go anywhere.”

I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from saying all the things I said after that, but I can’t. I wish I could just go back in time and decide that we should stay home, order Chinese take-out and re-watch our favorite anime for the fifth time. I wish I could hold him one more time.

“Mia, the taxi is here to pick us up. We need to get home and get some rest, tomorrow is going to be a long day.” Mom said.

“I can’t leave him here.”

“Sweetie, he’s not actually here.”

“Yes he is, he is in that cold room all by himself and he needs me, and I need him, and I’m stupid. I did this to him. I should’ve… I just… I want him back mom! Bring him back!”

Traffic had stopped, and Mark, well he was more preoccupied with trying to calm me down than the road. Traffic had been getting heavier and he wasn’t fully aware of that, he had been slowing down, but not fast enough, not quick enough. At some point, cars stopped, but Mark didn’t. He didn’t notice the cars were there and he just hit them. He basically hit a giant metal wall. The last thing I remember was him putting his arm in front of me to protect me from the airbag. And that was it. Now I was crying in the middle of the emergency room, with a broken rib, and a few more bruises, and with no Mark. He had a stupid heart attack because of his irregular heartbeat condition. We used to joke about him having no rhythm because of it, or that he couldn’t play a music instrument because of it. I guess… I guess I never thought something bad could happen. He was my forever.

“Nena, let me take you home.” Mom said.

“Okay…”

***

“He wouldn’t want me to wear black.” I said.

“He really likes… liked you in that cute pink dress with the purple flowers.”

“He does like me in that dress. He bought it for me for the honeymoon and couldn’t control himself and gave it to me as an early wedding gift. Like six months in advance.”

My mom has been trying not to cry in front of me, I know she cared, but she’s trying to be strong for me. She’s trying to be my mom, even though she struggles with that.

“What’s that?”

She was holding a Mark’s red box. We both had memory boxes, his was rectangular shapes and made of plastic while mine was a square box that you would open and close with a red ribbon.

“He was writing his vows.”

“Mom… I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“He told me he finished them, but he didn’t want to tell you because you were struggling with yours. I have it…” she said.

“What do you mean you have it? He gave you the vows?”

“He didn’t want you to find them and read before the big day. He put it inside his memory box and put it inside my closet.”

“Mom I don’t have time for this, we gotta go to the funeral, and his parents are gonna show up any minute now and I’m still in his pajamas. Can you take care of the fur babies? I know they miss him, maybe give them a treat or something. I gotta put on this dress and hope I can make it through the day.”

“Don’t go.” She said.

“I have to go, it’s his fucking funeral. I won’t see him again after today.”

“Sweetie, he’ll always be with you.”

“I’m really not in the mood for Hallmark crap right now.” I said.

The drive to the funeral home felt surreal. I could hear his parents talking to me, but I wasn’t really listening. His mom wouldn’t stop crying and saying that I was still going to be part of the family and all I could think of was that I needed to hold my vomit until we reached the place.

Everyone is so weird at funerals. They look at you and keep asking How are you holding up? And I just want to scream. Not at them, but just in general. I want to scream.

“Did you read the vows?” Mom asked.

“I don’t think I can do it.”

“Maybe in his own way, he let you something to help you through this.”

“Mom I’m pretty sure he didn’t think he was going to die before our wedding.”

“Sweetie, he might’ve said something that can help you push through.”

I knew she was right. Mark always had the right ways to say. I’m the writer, and yet he was the one good with words.

“I gotta read it alone.”

“It’s okay, just call me, text, anything if you need me.”

“Thanks.”

Mark had a way of making me feel like I was the only thing that mattered. He was always trying to make me feel special. I know he also wanted me and mom to get along better, and I guess, in a weird fucked up way, he was able to do that. Mom has been doing her best to help me around the apartment and I guess she’ll be living with me indefinitely.

I found the cutest garden outside the funeral home. It had a few roses and a small bench right at the left side of it. I walked towards that little bench and just sat there. I sat there for what felt like forever. But I finally got the courage to open the letter, to read his vows.

Hey Mia,

I don’t know why I did an opening line when this is technically not a letter, but whatever, I’m gonna leave it like that. You better, not be reading this before wedding, and if you are, it better be because I’m dead (sorry if I’m actually dead, that was a messed-up joke.) Anyways, I love you.

Do you remember our first times? The first time you held my hand, the first time you said you liked me, loved me, kissed me? As I’m sitting here going through our memory box, I can’t help but wonder on those times; on all of our first times. I think of them and think that in just a few weeks we are going to share another big first time, our wedding. We are going to be married people. Can you imagine, us, married adults?

Mia, you are the love of my life and I have shared so many first times with you that my memory box is about to explode, and I wish I could just tell them all, but this is supposed to be my wedding vows to you so I can’t write you a whole book, so here goes my vows.

I vow to share more first times with you. I vow to share the first time we see that positive sign on the pregnancy test, the first time we unlock the door to our first home, the first time we travel outside the country. I vow to share with you the first time we take our kid to school and the first we have to ground them because they tried to sneak out of the house. Mia, I vow to love you every day in the best way that I can. I vow to fuck up way too many times, and I vow to work on those fuck ups. I vow to be here for you in your worse moments. And I hope that I can give you as many first times as I can in my lifetime. But, if I don’t, please my love, keep having first times and enjoy them the same way I enjoyed seeing you see snow for the first time. Those curious eyes, filled with hope and so many dreams. I love you Mia and I vow to love you forever.

“This fucker.”

“Mia, they’re waiting for you to give the eulogy.” Mom said.

“Okay, I think I can do it now.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I think it’s time for me to have another first time.”