FIRST lOVE BOOK

"I need closure," she said, holding back a decade's worth of breath. She stumbled over her emotions, now rushed over by the blood that pumped so violently through her veins. His voice. The same. Hers, unrecognizable to him.

"You need what?" he asked callously, as if disgusted by the thought that he should have to answer to her after all these years. Years he had happilly faced without her.

She could fain into ceaseless death at his sharp tone. Why on earth she thought the reception would be any less than angry was beyond her now. She hadn't thought this conversation through. Only reacted to the excitement of having found him. It's a small world, thanks to Mr. Google. She was ready to admit he had once been alive to her - she was in denial of his existence while trying to nurse the wounds he so carefully inflicted upon her Soul. She was even ready to desist all arguments she had so resolutely defended - that she had never loved him. Love had died when he left. She bore the grief like a soldier on the battlefield. It was easy to forget him for the sake of her choice to live - she had many times contemplated a clean slice to the vein. How simple it became over the years to forget he had cut her down with this very tongue he now used to dig even deeper into her most sacred being.

"I can't help you. Only an individual can bring closure to themselves." He spoke so professionally, as if giving a lecture.

She wanted to tell him her heart. She wanted him to know that she still loved him and wished him well, even any wife and children he may have. She had forgiven him, and even herself for the mess that became the the end of their relationship. "I'm sorry," she blurted out. "For all the hurt I caused you." She had come a long way to Destination Forgiveness, and she wasn't about to dash that away in the face of his disinterest.

"No harm done. You have no need to apologize," he lied.

"I forgive you too for persuading me to murder our son." The memories of anger came back to her as she tried to drag her tongue across the word, 'murder'. He had succeeded in convincing her that he was not 'ready' for fatherhood, only to leave her post-termination, with the evil excuse that he was disinterested in raising some white man's grandchildren. He had made no reference to her clandestine attention-seeking affairs that had hurt him during their relationship - nor did he claim cause by his tit-for-tat groupie-fan sex he had been enjoying shortly before the big 'dump-her like a hot white potato'. She flashed back to memories of him fucking that white man's daughter...passionately. The sugar was brown enough then. She steadied her nerve. She was not about to toss out her resolution to forgive him no matter what he said to re-open her wounds.

"You had a cyst. The doctor said you had pain and couldn't keep the baby." She supposed this was his comfortable way of dealing with the fact that he commanded the firing squad, blind-folded the target and shot point-blank to the belly at his own seed. She was delirious! He was actually denying what occured? Surely not? Surely not after all these years. "That's not what happened." She wanted to scream, but whimpered her retort instead.

"Are you saying you did not have a cyst?" Was he trying to make her out to be the liar? She knew that reminding him that he pressed the trigger would not do any good now. She tried to politely explain that she would have been perfectly capable of carrying their son to full-term, had they chosen to have him.

"And how do you know it was a son?," as if the knowledge that his seed had died at his own hands was now a concern to him. She was flippant, now. "Like I knew each time." She had had three additions to her nest since they parted.

"Your friends say you are happily married, with children, and you have a son now," he emphasised, as if her live son was a replacement for their dead one."That's a blessing, " he was straining to gain ground.

"Does your husband know you are talking to me?" He tried changing the subject. "No. He knows I am dealing with some things from my past", she allowed the change of topic, not wanting to further ruffle her angry feathers.

"You know, openness was an issue with you. It is important that one be open with one's partner. You had several clandestine affairs," She had to interupt, "I had two affairs - the first of which happened before we even decided to be in a relationship." She could hear herself becoming defensive. He finally decides to throw this mess in her face, now, of all moments. She knew she had been naive and dumb for trying the juvenile method of gaining his attention by outside sex.

"I was messed up and did what I knew to do," she cringed at this ridiculous defense.

"If you had been open, things could have been different. One must be open and seek support from one's partner. You need to do this with your spouse. He should be present with you talking to me," as if he was some relationship guru, or some psycho-therapist setting a patient's stage for closure.

He finally succeeded in unnerving her! "You had affairs yourself too!" He had never admitted to screwing his 'number one fan', who had unashamedly left her name-tag bracelet face up on the radiator in his house for her to see. He stayed silent on the topic, even now. Perhaps her plural use of "affair" had stirred him the more. She had long-suspected the groupie-fan sex was not the only dipping out he did. But that was neither here nor there. She had no interest in rekindling any fires. Her intentions were pure. She did need closure. His method of leaving had cut her to the core. He had used the one weapon against her he knew would work - her rocky 'bi-racial' self-image. She was out to prove her blackness when she met him. He was all Black Africa, and she loved the acceptance she felt in his arms. How do you cut a woman off cleanly, except by the means of ripping into her self esteem? She had never been black enough, nor white enough. Somewhere in between - which she hated. He was the first man she allowed in to see her pain. He was the first man to encourage her to grow beyond it's vice-like grip. She hung on to that appreciation of him just in time...

"So your therapist said you should confront me to find your closure?" She gritted too many teeth and her tongue strangled amidst their pearly grip. She was not about to let him convince her that she was some crazy woman seeking to give him some female drama. "What if my children answered the phone? Did you think how your erratic selfish need would affect them?" Somehow his emphasis on the word children made the possibility of their existence far-fetched. She sensed a woman in the background. Perhaps his wife? Certainly the significant other who answered the phone initially. She must have remained in the room to listen, and to defend her man from this psychotic ex-girlfriend who'd be reaching into the phone to stab him? Perhaps he really meant to ask how his 'partner' was feeling listening to him make closure with some ex-girlfriend. It occurred to her that his lady love might be the same groupie fan who had the audacity to come to the bed she had paid for to fuck him.

She aligned all nerves, rolled her neck and braced herself to end the call. He was right. She could not possibly find closure in talking to him. He forgot too quickly that he himself had tried to make such a call to her a decade earlier, when he had heard on the grapevine that she was to be married, and to a Christian, of all types! She had allowed him the peace of expressing himself - so had her fiance. She even beared his insult of her choice to follow ‘white Jesus’. She thought about reminding him of her generosity of this call. She wanted to use the opportunity to tell him that if he was so convinced that Jesus is black, why wasn’t he, a black man, following the black Christ who came originally to save his black people? She could imagine hearing his nonsensical references to a female Creator and the power of the universe. She saw no point in ministering to him. She had to stay focused. This was a call to close the door on her past with him. She knew it was silly to have expected he would allow her the same act of closing he had claimed years earlier from her.

She apologized to him and requested he apologize on her behalf to his wife and children, though she was not in the least bit sorry at this point. She ended the conversation with a courteous 'thank-you' for his time, as if concluding some business transaction. There was no feeling of finality. No creation of a satisfying whole from the emotional puzzle pieces she had held at the beginning of their telephone conversation. Yet there was a sense of completeness invading her Soul. She had held him on a pedestal too long, now no more. How could she continue to respect a love that could not love her through this moment?

She hung up the telephone, enthralled by a new grief. Grief at the thought that she would never be able to hear his voice again, never be able to express her love and appreciation for the love he once gave her; the love he withdrew; the love that allowed her to continue beyond him to a better, stronger self. She knew that in the deepest annals of her heart she would always care for him. She had given him her love once, and could never take it back. Speaking to him now she realized she had changed; grown passed the need for his love and affirmation. She had risen above her own broken heart, and peeked back now to see the door close, softly, to that dark place of pain she had long occupied, without him.

left open by neglect due to denial of trauma to the heart has been a necessary part of healing for me. A healing long overdue. This one was written for the man who had first claim to my heart...