“Do you think you’ll remarry, Hänni?”

“Yes, I think I so,” I said in answer to my inquisitive friend. “If there really is such a thing as ‘The One,’ Andrew is it. Someone once convinced me I was nothing, made me think I was a hard rock. But really? I’m a gem. Andrew knows this about me, that I’m a treasure, and he treats me as such.”

“That’s good,” my friend replied. “And also, I agree. You two are kismet. I can see it in your actions, your laugh, the way you write—you are changed, and I mean that in the best possible way.”

And then together we marveled at the miracle of only having had to kiss very few frogs before I found my handsome prince.

—–
Hot and sloppy, my first kiss was with Ian. I was 16 when I met the boy I’d spend the next three years crawling into bed with … and promptly falling asleep alongside. I’m not sure why we fought our biology, how we resisted the ever-present urge to explore each other fully inside and out, but we never made it past third base. For us, sex stopped at fumbled bra straps and belt buckles. To be sure, ours was not a great love, but it was a first love.

The last day I had with Ian, we drove through California in a stolen car. His father would be angry when he returned the Lincoln, a little worse for wear and with 1000 miles—the driving distance from Seattle to San Francisco—added to the odometer. But we didn’t care. We were young and restless and ripe for adventure. But we were also, despite ourselves, and with college looming in the near future, growing up.

“I think you should go away with me to Ottawa for university,” Ian said, carefully maneuvering through the redwoods that were eons more ancient than he and I were. “I know you’re set on Virginia, but it’s so far way, and it would be difficult for us to stay together … and uh … um …”

There was something desperate in his voice. I felt my guts buckle, and not because the Lincoln trembled as we curved through the forest.

That fall Ian went to Ottawa. I went to Virginia. Within the year we had both lost our virginity, just not to each other.

—–
I was 22, the year we laughed all the way to our wintery retreat about the presents our friends had made for each other. Newly engaged and ready to nest, for Christmas Aaron had gifted his bride-to-be a vanity. Enola, for her groom, had crocheted a quilt. How sappy! we bellowed. Let’s never get married! I roared.

In retrospect, it would’ve been wise to heed my advice, at least as it applied to the boy sitting next to me.

Blake had something unspeakable inside of him, part of me already knew. The too many times I’d cried myself to sleep, it was merely a specter of things to come. Nonetheless, within a few hours I would become Blake’s fiancé; within the year, his bride; before our second anniversary, his betrayed. As I waded through the emotional wreckage of his eventual affair and our ill-fated pairing, I couldn’t help but think our “love” as we had come to understand it—as a test in control and complacency—should’ve met it’s demise years before its dissolution became a legal matter.

—–
29 now, almost 30, in my life’s manuscript, the chapters for first love and worst love have already been written. In two days Andrew and I will celebrate our second year together. We will dine by candlelight. I will wear a pretty dress; he, his shiny shoes. I’m cautiously optimistic. This very new, very precious love? It kind of feels like forever.