You Never Forget Your First: And He Just Might Be the Death of Me

by Millie Perez

For all the little girls who dream beyond their circumstances… Sí se puede.

“Now we go home and pretend that there is a life worth living after mom. And hopefully sometime real soon, we can actually start to believe it.”

The confession that kept me up most of the night. Amelia Nuñez has a crush on me. Had. First crush means she was just a kid, but what about now? To think that the woman who I’ve had embedded in my heart for the better part of a decade, at one time had feelings for me.

“Kicking people out of their own beds…not letting them into family gatherings? Tsk tsk.” He gently pushes past me and into the entryway, then leans down and whispers into my ear, “Remind me to teach you some manners later tonight.”

If you feel the urge to sleep in my bed, it is with the understanding that it is with me in it. Got it?” he says sternly.

“Just to be clear, I don’t care that you have condoms. Good for you! What I’m confused about is the fact that this is a family friendly vacation. With children carajo!”

“Miami. When I came to visit you after you had broken up with your high school sweetheart. I wasn’t there because I was on a business trip. I flew down because I knew it was your birthday, and I wanted to celebrate with you. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was about to have the best night of my life with the girl who's always had my heart.”

“Amelia, we’ve already fought about this before. You deserve better than fine. You deserve the very best, and I’m going to give it to you. Just you wait and see.”

“If you think I’m going to let another opportunity to date you pass me by, you’ve clearly underestimated me. I’ve waited ten years, Amelia. Ten years. And that’s on me. I was too chicken shit to tell you about my feelings before, but now it’s out there. So, if we don’t end up together, it’ll be because that was the choice you made, and I’ll respect it. But don’t you think for a second that I’m going to be deterred because you need time to heal. You’ll have all the time you need, but in the meantime I'm making sure you know I’m here. And that I’ll always be here regardless.”

“So basically you want to Netflix and chill… all you had to do was ask,” he teases as he begins to tower over me on the couch and smother my cheeks with sloppy kisses. “Uhh get off of me, you’re a slobbery Saint Bernard!” I say in a fit of laughter.

Evan kisses me like a man who has waited a decade to do so. Because he has.

“You’re gonna be the death of me woman, and I don’t even mind one bit,”

“But when I’m ready, it’s you. If you’re willing to wait a while until I’m ready, you’re the person I want to be with, have dreamt of—”

“Rule number two. I am yours, and I belong to you.” “Within these cabin walls?” I try to finish from his previous rule. “No. Everywhere Amelia. I love you, so that means that I am yours, and I belong to you. When we have sex, I will be making love to you. Understood?” I nod again weakly. What in the sex Gods have I gotten myself into?

Feeling his heartbeat vibrate through me helps regulate my breath, and brings in a sense of peace I’ve been missing since I last saw him Sunday. This is my man.

We’re officially that gross couple who doesn’t know how to walk away from one another.

“But there was never a doubt that it would be me and you. We were always destined to belong together, Amelia. I may have been your first crush, but you were always my forever.”

Once you’re poor, you work as hard as you can to never put yourself in a precarious situation in which you could be struggling again. And since it’s not like we manage cash from day to day, I could see how the billionaire status seemed as if it was made believe.