The Loves of My Life

Chapter 1: My first crush

He picked me up into his arms and took me into the house. He placed me on the couch and kissed me on the forehead.
“You are such a brave girl.” He said as he wiped my tears away. I looked at him through my blurry eyes and hiccupped a bit. He was so handsome. Sixteen years old, wearing acid washed jeans, a band t-shirt and sporting a mullet. Did I mention he was really tall? Well everyone was tall for me at my age. Did I also mention I was eight years old?

And the reason he so heroically carried me into my house was because I had fallen off my bike and skinned both my knees. Luckily, I was with his sister who also was my best friend then and he had come to pick us up. I didn’t know he would literally pick me up and carry me home.

My mother appeared with a first aid box and he started to expertly clean the wound and placed a Donald Duck band-aid on both knees. “There we go. I told you it would be over in no time, sweetie.”

HE LOVES ME! He called me sweetie. I was eight years old and I was already in love.

That day I was even more thankful that my best friend lived in the building across mine. And that I had another reason to go to her house. Her gorgeous older brother! When I woke up in the morning, he was my friend’s weird older brother, but now he was my knight in shining armor.

As the days followed, I paid more attention to him when I went over to their house to hang out. I learned he was in a band and played the guitar, both acoustic and electric and was a huge fan of Guns and Roses. When I asked him, “What’s a Guns and Roses?” He gasped and looked at me wide-eyed. I thought I did something horribly wrong when he turned around and walked off into his room. A minute later he pointed at his sister and me. “You and you… into my room now.”

I stepped into his room for the first time. The walls were covered in posters of bands and women clad in bikinis. His bed was unmade and a stash of magazines lay underneath it and he made sure they were well hidden as he kicked them further under his bed.

At the far end of the room, his two guitars were arranged neatly in their stands. In one corner of the room there was a table with his school books strewn over it and above that a shelf full of tapes. He then took out one tape and put it into his cassette player. “Never ask again, what’s a Guns and Roses.” He said as he hit play. My friend rolled her eyes as the song started and mentioned that she heard him play every time on his guitar and was so bored of it. “Well I like it.” I said as I watched him playing an imaginary guitar.

I was getting into the song when I saw a picture by his bedside. It was him with his arms around a pretty brunette girl who was kissing his cheek. I took photo frame in my hand and examined the picture carefully. Without knowing who she was I immediately disliked her. I wanted to make fun of her stupid big hair, her dumb make-up and her ridiculous jewelry she wore. I nudged my friend and asked who she is.

“That’s his girlfriend, Polly.” She said making a face. Four words couldn’t have punched me harder in the gut. That was his girlfriend and yes she was pretty no matter how stupid she looked.

That night I experienced heartbreak for the first time. My eight year old self did not even know what it was but I felt very bad.

Later that night as my family and I were watching TV, my dad was flipping the channels and a familiar guitar rift snapped me out of my gloomy mood. I told him to go back a few channels and he did so and stopped on MTV when I recognized the channel the song was playing on.

There he was… a Rock God… long blond-ish hair, porcelain skin and a voice that could make angels cry out of sheer happiness. At that age, to me, “Sweet child of mine” was music in its purest form. It was like Axl was singing to me and no one else.
I forgot about my knight in shining armor and developed a healthy obsession with Rock music after watching that video.

It’s been almost 25 years since that incident and whenever I go back to that city I bump into my knight in shining armor, give him a wave and silently thank him for introducing me to a genre of music which will never go out of style.