Young Love — Part One of Two
A Love Found. A Life Lost— Part 1
It was love at first sight.
“I’m sorry. Haven’t you heard? Cade is dead.”
Part 1 — A Love found
I fell in love for the first time when I was ten years old with a boy named Cade. We had one life-changing year together before he disappeared.
But through a chance encounter, nine years later, involving a random party and a broken-down car, our paths crossed again.
Unbeknownst to me, in two years, he’d be dead.
Love at First Sight
It’s 1987. I’m ten years old and obsessed with the song “Shiny, Shiny” by Haysi Fantayzee. I played it all the time. It drove my brothers nuts. Probably why I did it.
It’s the first day of grade five at Mary River Primary. A small town known for its wine and surf culture.
The scent of freshly cut grass wafts throughout the school grounds. The sun is shining and I’m playing Four Square with some friends in the quadrangle when the new guy walks toward us.
With him is James Thompson. The popular douche who’s “dated” all the girls. Except me.
“Hey, everyone. This is Cade. He’s new.”
Cade has sun-kissed skin, brown hair, brown eyes, and the cutest smile I have ever seen on any boy in my entire life, and he is staring straight at me. I’d never bothered with boys until that day.
Compared to the other girls in school, I’m not the standout. I’m no beach-blonde bombshell like Sara ‘Bloody’ Elliot. The popular girl who has all the latest clothes and gets anything she wants.
I’m a pale, scrawny, curly-haired freak with freckles. Not much has changed.
I’m wearing the standard ugly uniform — green pleated school skirt and yellow polo shirt —the shirt is faded and used to belong to my brother.
Why is he looking at me? “Can we play?” he asks.
I shrug and bounce the ball to him.
A few days later, I’m hanging my school bag up on a hook outside the classroom, about to go in, when Cade turns up with a pink rose and hands it to me.
“I didn’t want to give you a red rose because that means sex and I didn’t want to give you a white rose because that means marriage, so I got you a pink rose because that’s in the middle.” Can’t fault that logic.
I had never been given a rose before. I was speechless. He smiled that smile and walked into the classroom.
By the second week of school, we were “boyfriend/girlfriend”. As far as that concept goes, when you’re ten. He sat with his mates on one side of the school, and I played with my friends on the other. Ah, sweet innocence.
One Great Year
Cade would come to my house after school and play. I showed him my room and introduced him to my dog and the multitude of stray kittens.
I took him to my climbing tree in the paddock near my house, and we swung on the swing and talked for hours.
He told me how his parents had just divorced and how he had to sometimes be with his Mum in the city and sometimes with his Dad here in Mary River.
I told him my parents were divorced, too, and he seemed to find comfort in that.
He ended up carving a love heart in the trunk of the tree with our initials. So corny, but so 80s. (I didn’t think of the trees’ feelings at the time. Sorry, tree).
We were inseparable after that. We were always whispering and gallivanting around the place. Riding our bikes and going on adventures.
One day, we were sitting beside the long-jump pits at school having lunch, and he asked:
“When we get married. What pets will we have?”
“Dogs for sure,” I said.
“Definitely,” he said.
We continued to eat our sandwiches like that’s a typical conversation for two young kids.
First Date
One time he came to stay the night at my house. We walked down to the only fish and chip shop in town. I don’t remember what we talked about, probably dogs.
But I remember being amazed that he wanted to hang out with me. I recall him looking so proud with the twenty dollars his Dad had given him so he could buy me dinner.
That night, as I shuffled under my covers, he got comfy on the mattress on the floor. Then, he asked if he could hold my hand.
Mum had always told me I’m too young to do stuff like that. So, I told him no.
He was a little disappointed and rolled over and went to sleep.
Time to Disco
Somewhere in the middle of the year, I went to a Blue Light Disco at the local Cultural centre (what a funny concept — wholesome discos for primary age kids organised by the police)
We were all having so much fun. Unfortunately, Cade must have gone to stay with his Mum at the time because he wasn’t there.
He never told me when he wouldn’t be around. He’d just disappear then reappear like a Jack-in-the-Box.
I remember feeling down that he wasn’t there, so I made a wish on the dance floor that he’d turn up.
It worked. Because all of a sudden he was tapping me on the shoulder, scaring the crap out of me…like a Jack-in-the-Box.
I was ecstatic. We danced together for the rest of the night.
Then the DJ announced a competition. The rules:
Dance and when the music stops find whatever the DJ requests.
A little like Simon Says meets Musical Chairs.
So we danced until the DJ said, find ten knees and touch them together. Then we had to rush around and find five people, get into a circle and touch knees. And whoever couldn’t find a knee, got kicked out of the game. Losers.
This went on until it came down to two kids dressed in 80s disco get-ups, left on the dance floor. Cade and I.
Any guesses on what the DJ requested?
Two lips touching. (On reflection, the police may have skipped this DJ’s background check).
What I wished happened
The music stops. The crowd goes quiet.
Cade turns to me and says, “I will if you will.”
I lean in and he cups my face with his hands and kisses me gently on the lips.
One. Two. Three seconds pass. We part slowly, wide-eyed, staring at each other in amazement for another three.
The crowd roars. “Shiny Shiny” blares from the speakers. We dance into the late hours…well, nine o’clock. It was a blue light disco after all.
What unfortunately happened
The music stopped. The crowd went quiet.
Cade turned to me and said, “I will if you will.”
I heard my Mum’s words in my head. You’re too young to kiss boys. I hesitated.
One. Two. Three seconds passed. I shook my head apologetically.
Cade looked hurt.
We parted rapidly, wide-eyed, shocked. Cade walked off, leaving me alone on the dance floor.
A resounding disappointed exhale from the crowd filled the space.
Whitney Houston’s “Dance with Somebody” blared from the speakers. (Coincidence? I think not. Sadistic DJ, I think so!)
The crowd returned to their robot dance moves.
They had moved on from the anti-climax of one young lover breaking the heart of the other.
We didn’t dance into the late hours. Instead, I went looking for Cade only to run into Sara ‘Bloody’ Elliot and her swarm of ‘b*tches.’
She proceeded to boast that she ended up kissing Cade.
Ah, how the tables had turned. It was now my heart that hurt.
It was all over. Cade was now with Sara.
What a glorious five months it had been.
Next day at school
I found Cade sitting with ‘Jerk-off’ James and some other boys.
“Did you really kiss Sara?”
“Well, you didn’t want to.” He didn’t look at me.
“Not yet, I didn’t,” I said.
He looked up with a glint in his eyes and that smile. “So, you’re saying one day?”
“What do you think?” I walked off.
Showtime
Every year in November, the “carnies” turn up in our small town with their traveling show. Not quite Royal but big enough to entertain the masses out of their hard-earned cash.
Cade and I had the best day going on rides, winning crappy toys from the bottom shelf.
While playing on some swings away from the main show, I found a deflated plastic prize that had been discarded by someone.
It was an inflatable red heart with white arms and “I LOVE YOU THIS MUCH” printed across the middle.
Cade found a tap and washed it clean before blowing it up.
“Can we pretend I found this so I can give it to you?” he said.
What was I going to say to that? No?
“Sure,” I said. Trying to hide my girlie giddiness behind my tomboy persona.
He gave me that smile again. Finished blowing up the heart and handed it to me.
There was a slow leak in the heart (ironic), so we ask for some tape from one of the stalls and sealed it up. (I kept that silly inflatable heart for years. Unfortunately, I don’t know where it is anymore).
Our first goodbye
It was getting late. The sun was low in the sky as we walked across the oval toward the piles of chopped wood from the wood chopping competitions.
Cade fell quiet.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m leaving,” he said.
“What? When?”
He hadn’t said anything about leaving. We’d been together all day. Not once did he give me a hint.
“Mum is coming to get me tomorrow.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” my voice cracked.
He shrugged and snatched up a piece of wood from the ground and started pulling loose strips off it.
“You’ll be back to see your dad, right?”
“I don’t know.”
I couldn’t understand. It didn’t make sense to me that he wouldn’t come back at some stage to be with his dad.
He looked at his watch, “I gotta go,” he dropped the piece of wood.
I was standing in front of him, holding the stupid inflatable heart. When Cade reached out awkwardly, ever so fleetingly, and touched one of my hands, and gave me one last smile.
“See-ya.”
“Bye.” Tears filled my eyes. I fought to stop them from falling out.
I watched him walk away across the oval toward the direction of his house. I stood there lost.
If I had to choose a song for that moment it would have been Phil Collins, “Against All Odds.”
The gut punch of realisation that I wouldn’t see him was waiting in the wings.
Life goes on
The weeks that followed consisted of me crying and waiting. Waiting for him to call and give me his new number.
“Shiny, Shiny” had been shelved and replaced with Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.”
Though I only had a year with Cade, the love we had was real no matter what others think. It might have been young and awkward, but it made a mark on both our lives.
He needed stability in his life which my family and I provided, and I gained a best friend and we both experienced our first love.
It may not have been an intimate love, but rather a bond that is hard to define.
He never did call. I didn’t see him again until a chance encounter in 1997 when I was nineteen.
Read Part Two
And find out what happened next…
Tagging some writers who may relate: Natasha Nichole Lake, The Sober Vegan Yogi, Daniella Montage, Jane Kelley, Gabby Gabs, Deb Groves Harman, Judy Derby, Catherine Allsop, Scot Butwell, Michael L Butler, Art Bram, Ira Robinson, Leonard Tillerman
