1 A good start
I remember that day as a sunny summer day. It so happened that I was attending a funeral. There were a lot of people dressed in black and a lot of children.
I went there with my mom and my little sister, Lily, which, to this day, I still believe she's a spoiled brat.
I was wearing a black and white striped t-shirt and some boyish shorts. I always dressed like a tomboy before my boobs started growing.
I hated how my body was changing. I felt like I wasn't ready to be a grownup just yet.
Meanwhile, my mother and my sister were wearing black dresses.
The sad event was at a neighbor's house, so it was not a long walk from home.
I was feeling especially good that day. I always loved the day after a good summer rain. It's still hot but there's a cold breeze now and then.
"Rain washes away Earth's sins." I always thought and we all have plenty of those.
The interesting thing is that people usually love rain as children but hate it as adults. "Something to hide, perhaps?"
Now, I've never been the one to cry at funerals. I keep thinking there must be something wrong with me when I can't seem to shed a tear for someone who died. But that doesn't mean I don't cry.
Back then, I couldn't fathom these existential thoughts though, I was a mere child and my main concern at that moment was to eat the goodies layed out in front of me. I was hungry, not just for food though, my soul was hungry too but I was clueless.
He was there, at the same table, too. That's how I met him. His grandma died but he seemed unbothered by that fact. A tall boy, with dark, curly hair, not much older than me, was looking with curious eyes towards me when my aunt told him to take a seat across the table from me and my sister.
The strange thing is that I can't remember our conversation or who initiated it, but I know for a fact that a few days later was my 12ft birthday and I had a new friend.
-Matt, Mattie, Matthew.
I still smile as his name rolls off my tongue, but...nevermind that.
Overall, I was happy. It was hard for me to make friends, in all honesty, kids can be mean at that age and I was not that easygoing. I had no idea how to hide my emotions, everything I felt was new and most of the time I felt scared.
I used to be such a crybaby and moat likely I still am!?
Being cautious around people was something I had learned pretty fast at a young age. I did not know what bullying was or at least I did not realise that I was bullied before middle school.
So, after a year of constant bullying, scared is the right word to describe what I was feeling when I met him. Another person, a bit older than me, was actually willing to talk with me.
His mother, a thin lady about my mother's age, kept calling him 'Mattie' which I thought was adorable. I started calling him 'Mattie' too. It was strange for me to keep smiling at a boy that I barely met. But somewhat he gained my trust, I believe that is why we ended up so close.
There's one thing that is still puzzling me even now. I still don't know his exact age. Years later and it's still a mystery.
It didn't matter to me back then, but it should have mattered, two years later, when I realised I loved him and all I wanted was to be his.
-Happy Birthday, Rain!
My dear mother, wishing happy birthday with a cheerful voice, handed me a nicely wrapped chocolate.
Hmm...the thing is, since my family forgot my 9th birthday, I have decided that I won't celebrate my birthdays anymore. It was nothing special, I just hated the fact that I was growing up.
That day still haunts my memories. My 9th birthday I mean.
We were all in the kitchen, eating. My parents were talking about money and what they needed to pay once my dad got his paycheck. While they were calculating the days until D-day my mother suddenly says:
-Hey, it's Rain's birthday today, isn't it?
Everybody looked at me.
I forgot my birthday.
They forgot my birthday.
I remember eating pasta that morning and just spitting it out of my mouth while starting to cry. I hated pasta when I was little, or at least the one that my mom was making. Now that I look back, I think that was the first moment I truly felt hurt.
My logic was: it was alright if I forget my birthday but not for my family to forget it.
After that incident I ran from the kitchen. Can't remember much of what happened the rest of that day.
Back to my 12ft birthday. As usual, on my birthday, since I can remember, it is always raining. It was a light, on and off kind of rain this time though so my older sister and I went outside to play with Mattie and my cousin, Andy. Our cousin was a year older than me. It's strange how I can't remember the game we were playing but I do remember the way it felt when he grabbed my hand to run. The warmth of his palm and the coldness of mine. That day he became my knight!
-Mattie, we have to go. Mom wants us home.
When I said those words I felt sad leaving his side but I was more afraid of my mom and what she would do if we were late. In the end,we left the boys to play by themselves while we arrived home.
There was this big, old cherry tree on the other side of the road from my house where the kids from my village would often come and play. Even though it was close, I rarely played with other kids, mostly just with my sisters.
My parents were wary of letting us, their girls, play with boys. It was fine to play with them when we were little, but when we started to grow things changed. And things kept changing for the worse until a point where the only way to talk with boys was secretly or at school. Remember, phones were not really a thing back then.
I could blame my parents for not letting me have a normal childhood, because, maybe if I had, I would not have turned so messed up but...let's not stress about it for now.
-Mommy! Can we meet Matiie again and play with him?
-We'll see, Rain. You know you can't go outside without my permission, neither do your sisters.
She always answered like that, in a harsh tone.
I knew what that actually meant though. I might as well had said goodbye forever.
It was July already and I met Mattie two more times that summer. We played and talked a lot about him moving here permanently after he finishes middle school.
I remember being a bit jealous because he was getting along really well with my older sister, Dina. They even kept in touch during the time he was away. But he did not keep in touch with me. I found out this a few years later though so it didn't end up bothering me that much.
Throughout the years I've known him, he always had a good friendship with Dina while I was more than once unaware of where he is or how he's doing. With Lily though, my younger sister, it was different. They had a more love and hate kind of relationship. They couldn't stand eachother.
That summer ended as fast as it came and soon school began.
I was in my 6th grade.
You might wonder, where was our father the whole summer? Well, he went to visit my uncle for two weeks in Spain and came back almost three months later. That was not the happiest summer for my mother.
It's autumn, I start going to school and gain some weight. My hair started to lose it's curls slowly and I felt like I was being shaped into a woman.
Mattie left, back to the city and I missed his presence, because he made me feel safe, happy, carefree. I was mostly scared of the boys in my class, always pulling pranks on me, it was not a thing you can forget or forgive easily.
I remember crying a lot and my mind being so confused about the pain I was feeling.
How do you overcome these kinds of things? How do you keep yourself sane?
Some of those horrible moments would go away only after I was losing myself into that happy summer and the memories I had with Mattie.
Happy thoughts, happy life...or something like that. Slowly though, I started forgetting, him, the memories of that summer, even who I was because change had come and I was not ready.
