My Forgotten Love

Tuli

I woke up while it was still dark. Sitting up in bed, I rubbed my temples. I’d forgotten about my first love, who had been missing from my life for nearly nine years.

Until this dream I just had.

Even though Adam couldn’t reciprocate my feelings because of our age difference, my love for him never waned.

It was odd that I’d forgotten about him, but now, memories of our time together came flooding back.

I remembered the first time we met. I was about five. Daniel, my brother, had recently befriended him and would talk about him constantly. Then one day, Adam came over for a sleepover.

Despite the tender moment we shared in my dream, we despised each other when we first met.

I remembered the day he put gum in my hair. My mom had to cut my hair really short to get it out. I cried my eyes out as she did.

The thought of looking like a boy was mortifying. I cried so much that my mom called me a drama queen.

So, I hatched a plan to get back at Adam. I remembered the day I went to his house. His mom greeted me cheerfully at the door.

I told her that Daniel had forgotten one of his toys at home and wanted me to bring it over. She let me in, unaware of the bottle of superglue I had in my back pocket.

I sneaked into Adam’s bathroom. Thankful that he didn’t share it with his parents, I took his shampoo bottle, opened it, and poured the entire bottle of superglue in.

I screwed the cap back on and shook it. Not wanting to raise any suspicions, I sneaked back out, one of Daniel’s toys still in my hand.

I knew if I went to give the toy to Daniel, they would suspect something was off.

I must have been a clever five-year-old, because I managed to pull it off.

Until Adam showed up at our house with a shaved head and I revealed my ingenious plan to ruin his hair like he did mine.

He was already upset about his hair when he arrived, so he burst into tears while I laughed like the little brat I was. He ran off, crying to his mom.

Not even half an hour later, my mom found out and yelled at me.

Needless to say, my butt was bright red after a minute in her room, and I was sent to bed without dinner to think about what I’d done.

She spanked me pretty hard, but I held my head up high. It wasn’t until my dad had a serious talk with me that I felt remorse.

My father couldn’t bear to physically punish his kids, but he had a way with words. He could make you feel guilty, even if you were just getting back at someone.

I had to promise him that I would apologize to Adam at school the next day.

I remember reluctantly seeking him out at school, only to find him swinging alone.

Daniel was nowhere to be seen—If he hadn’t finished his homework, his teacher would make him stay inside.

So I joined Adam on the swings.

“Addy.” I couldn’t pronounce his name correctly for some reason. So “Addy” was what I started calling him.

He shot me a look. “What do you want, brat?” he asked, not very nicely.

I guess I deserved that. “I’m sorry for ruining your hair,” I mumbled.

He stared at me for a minute. I blushed, feeling ashamed, and looked down at the ground. I heard him get off the swing and walk over to me. I refused to look up at him.

He didn’t say anything. Instead, I felt a pair of warm arms wrap around me. Caught off guard, he whispered in my ear. “I’m sorry, too, Tuli.”

He let go, and a blush spread across his cheeks.

“Even though you ruined my hair, I think you’re pretty smart. I wouldn’t have thought of putting glue in someone’s shampoo bottle,” he said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

“You’ve got a mean streak. Consider yourself my little sister. The little sister of evil.“

I looked into his beautiful brown eyes and thought I felt my heart skip a beat. That was when my crush on Adam began.

“O…kay,” I said, grinning at him.

After that, Adam and I were inseparable. If I wasn’t hanging out with Megan, I would always play with him and Daniel.

I didn’t care what games they played, as long as I got to play with them.

Most of the time I brought my dolls over, and Adam would take out his toy shark.

We were dark little kids, pretending that my dolls were having a pool party when the shark would suddenly appear and eat them all.

I even used a knife to remove their limbs, and we used food coloring as blood. It’s a wonder our parents didn’t send us to a psychiatrist.

I chuckled to myself, remembering those silly times.

But for every happy moment, there were sad ones, too. About a year after Adam and I became friends, my mom divorced my dad. My dad never really explained why. I remember hearing screams downstairs while I was playing with my stuffed animals.

I ran downstairs, Daniel following me, to see what was going on. My dad was dodging the objects my mom was hurling at him, and boy, she was really trying to hurt him.

She threw dishes, her ceramic animals, our radio, anything she could get her hands on.

She even picked up one of our stools, the one with a broken leg but still standing, and chucked it at him.

My dad had good reflexes; he dodged everything she threw.

Except for the stool; the broken leg grazed his forehead. I guess she had thrown it hard enough that the leg scratched him, breaking the skin.

The last thing she threw was their wedding ring.

Daniel and I stood there, eyes wide with shock. My poor father slid down to his knees and crawled towards my mother, stopping a foot away, probably afraid she would throw something else.

“Elise, I love you very much. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave our kids. Danny and Tuli need a mother.”

She turned to look at us. I’d never seen such anger in her eyes. “You mean these ~children~ who do nothing but take advantage of me?”

It felt like someone had grabbed my heart and squeezed it as hard as they could. I remember trying to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat.

Mom kept up her harsh tirade. “As far as I’m concerned, these little monsters aren’t my kids. You should be grateful that once I divorce you, I’m letting you have full custody. I never want to see them again.”

She spun around to face us. “You hear that? Poor little brats, your own mother wants nothing to do with you.”

I was completely stunned. I thought my mother loved me. I remembered all the times she would laugh and play with Daniel and me.

How could someone who had shown us so much love suddenly despise us?

I couldn’t find the words to speak, I just watched as she turned her back and left the house.

We heard the car engine roar to life. Daniel and I rushed to the front door. Our mother was about to leave. I didn’t intend to stop her. I just let the tears flow.

Daniel, however, flung open the screen door and slammed it shut behind him. I hadn’t planned on intervening until I saw him gather a handful of rocks.

I dashed out after him as he hurled them at her car, shouting as she reversed out of the driveway.

“Go ahead and leave, you bitch!”

“Daniel, stop!” I yelled, grabbing his arm.

He would have ignored me had I not embraced him. “Stop!” I sobbed. “You’ll get into a lot of trouble.”

He dropped the rocks and hugged me back, weeping into my shoulder as our mother drove away.

That was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.

Adam wasn’t there to witness the breakdown of my family. But he and his parents were supportive. His mom cooked us a lot of meals.

But nothing could alleviate the depression my family and I were plunged into. I had never seen our dad cry so much.

What also didn’t help was that he and I were both prone to emotional eating. Dad hit the gym a lot, but he let me eat all I wanted.

While I was fortunate to never reach the point of obesity, I became an overweight kid. And that was when the bullying began.

Both Adam and Daniel were protective of me and would confront the kids that picked on me. Still, their words made me cry myself to sleep almost every night.

I started to wear baggy clothes and hoodies to hide my roundness, and my self-esteem plummeted every day.

As I grew older, the depression receded into the background. I couldn’t deny that I began to despise my mom, but I learned to live with the new reality. My overeating became less frequent, too.

I didn’t lose a lot of weight, but enough to start to feel comfortable with myself. The bullying, however, never stopped.

The only time I was happy was when I was hanging out with Megan, Adam, and Daniel.

Megan didn’t know much about what happened with our mom. All she knew was that she walked out on my dad. So she was always there trying to be cheerful for us.

Adam always seemed to be the most cheerful, though. Nothing ever seemed to dampen his spirits. Until the day of his fifteenth birthday. It was late December, and a heavy snowstorm swept through Colorado.

During the summer, Adam had earned his driver’s permit. As a reward, his father went to buy a car for his birthday.

On his way home, an SUV slid on the ice and T-Boned him. The force of the crash killed Adam’s father instantly.

Adam’s mother was so devastated and desperate to mend her broken family that she married another man five months later.

It didn’t do any good, especially for Adam.

Adam sank into a deep depression, and having his mother marry another man seemed to do the exact opposite of healing his broken heart.

I thought he would have been happy for his mother. But far from it.

He changed his appearance. His beautiful brown locks had been dyed black, he began to wear black clothes every day, and his overall cheerful demeanor vanished.

He stopped hanging around Daniel. I would say that he stopped hanging around me, but I didn’t let that happen.

Our school was K-12, so I would sneak off the playground during lunch and find him.

Gradually, Adam’s depression eased, and I’d like to think it was because of me. It didn’t disappear completely, and he kept his emo look. I still loved him the way he was.

It was like that for the next two years. Adam protected me from the bullies, and we were always there to try to ease each other’s pain.

Then, at the end of those two years, came the event that occurred in my dream.

The morning after Adam came to see me, I sat outside and waited, and waited, and waited more, until it was time for his family to leave. It was a bright and sunny day, but I felt gloomy.

Adam kept true to his word, and I was able to Skype some days after school.

Until a year later. I’m not sure what happened. He just stopped talking to me. It was like he disappeared.