She was the first person I ever kissed, the first person I ever held hands with, and the last girl I ever dated.

Hair jet black, bangs straight across, tall and slender in our standard school uniform. We were 13 years old riding the bus together. We always ended up having the same classes in the city, always played the same sports and got on the same team. Bashful, always smiling and sat next to me at lunch without asking if she could. She was Japanese American, born in San Diego but her father got transferred over to Okinawa. We were the odd combination, I had the worst English speaking skills and she was rapping Dr. Dre songs, but couldn’t order correctly from the cafeteria menu.

I had my set of friends, the same people I grew up with and the same routine. Ayako was the hurricane that not only changed my life, but also changed how I saw females. It started off with lunch, then it progressed to sitting next to each other on the bus, and then she started sleeping over. She wrote me notes during the classes we were away from each other, professing how much she liked me. At 13, the only thing I could think of was friendship wise. It never struck me as odd, but even more so, she never struck me as odd.

The day of school came where we would enter our summer break. Ayako asked what my plans were. “I’m not going to the states this year, I asked dad if I could stay here instead” I said with a smile. It wasn’t that I did want to see my family, it was because I wanted to see Ayako. The summer friendship turned into a summer romance for me. I started looking at her with attraction, and started caring about how I looked around her. She wrote a note on my door one morning:
KC,
meet me at the beach, there’s something I want to tell you
love, Aya.

I raced down to the beach, a million things were racing toward my mind. I didn’t know if she wanted to stop talking to me, or if she realized how I was looking at her while she was changing in my bedroom. As soon as I got to the sand, she yelled my name. I walked over with my heart inside my throat and my skin was on fire. She took her hand and brushed it across my cheek, then she pushed my bangs from my eyes so I could lock into hers. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to do ever since I saw you” she said. She got on her tippy toes and leaned in to kiss me. As we were kissing, my heart combusted. I wanted to keep kissing her, be with her, and never be away from her. She pulled away from me and rubbed her face against mine, “I love you.”

She traced her hand down my arm to interlock her hands with mine. I stood there, licking my lips and feeling her skin touching mine. I never said ’ I love you back’, I didn’t have to say anything at all - she already knew I loved her. Our romance only lasted through the summer, she ended up moving back to California before our freshman year began. I always wondered if we grew up in the era of e-mail and Myspace maybe we would have stood a chance. But I come across her name sometimes when I log on to Facebook, I pretend I don’t see it. She was my first and my last, and I kind of want to keep it that way. But I do miss her taste.