My First Heartbreak

I’ve changed the names, but the story is as true as I can tell it.  And after forty-six years, I can’t help but smile at the boy romantic I was.

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Caroline Marks. Second Grade. The Auditorium. Reinhardt Elementary School (pictured). 1964. I think Caroline is so pretty with her red hair and green eyes. I don’t think so much of those saddle shoes and her dress is really frilly, but what of that when the sun sets over two pine trees every day after lunch.

She has no idea who I am, of course. I’m in Mrs. Hill’s class on the front row of the center section during this study period after lunch.  Caroline is in Mrs. Barnes’ class at the near end of the left section.  The monitor of the auditorium is Mrs. Dean.

I don’t open my books. How can I when such beauty is a mere thirty feet away, concentrating on her writing or drawing or whatever she works on so diligently? I sometimes close my eyes and picture myself holding her hand, or of taking her arm at the beginning of the day and escorting her to class. In the privacy of my imagination I envision myself ... gasp! ... kissing her on the cheek, then feeling her lips touch mine.

Ah, Caroline.

Overriding the faint stirrings in my private area -- what they are, I have no idea -- is the wash of Caroline over me. She bathes my soul in feelings I’ve never had before. Takes my heart in her freckled hands and massages comfort into the tissues, then squeezes hard until blood rises to my eyes. Those times I save things up until I get home, then cry the agony into my pillow.

I decide to let her know how I feel. To write her a letter and present her an apple for after lunch. I have to. The world would fold up and die if I didn’t. So I summon my very best penmanship and write, “Hi, Caroline. I think you are very pretty. I hope you like this apple. Rocky.”  I even draw her face with the fiery hair and grassy eyes.

I can’t concentrate on my morning studies. I forget to add the “p” to the end of the first syllable of Mrs.Turrentine’s name, as all of the boys routinely did. I am lost in the beauty of Caroline.

In lunch, I can’t eat.  Can’t think about anything save  ... oh, maybe giving Caroline my whole lunch.  I sigh.  She probably ate, and the apple would be plenty. I give up that idea, but I can’t slow down my heart. It acts like it wants to beat itself out of my throat. And when the bell rings at the end of lunch, I have to run to the auditorium because I couldn't just hand my note and the apple to Caroline.  Couldn't do that to save my life.  No way. I would be so scared. I have to put it on her seat where she’ll find it, then, oh please, oh please, oh please, proclaim me her hero. Fortunately, the girl’s bathroom is right by the auditorium and she always stops there on her way.

I try to sit the package down, but the apple wants to roll to the back of the seat and out of the back crevice. The tardy bell rings and ... panic. I put the package under her chair but forward so she can see it.  I run to my place, and try to act like everything is normal. It’s not normal. Nothing will never be normal again. My heart is thirty feet to my left in the hands of Caroline Marks.

She picks up the apple and my note, then turns to the girl on her left. The girl points in my direction and Caroline marches over to me and drops both note and apple in my lap. Then leaves.  Not a word does she speak. And my face could have set fire to the note and burned the apple to a crisp.

All is over.

As hard as I try to wait until home to relieve my hurt feelings, I can’t. I ask Mrs. Dean’s permission to go to the bathroom, explaining that I ate something at lunch that didn’t agree with me.

She pats me on the cheek and says that I can stay as long as I need. And I stay the whole period.

My world is finished. I am crushed.