First Times Stories

The smell of fresh-cut grass clung to my fingers when I picked her up from the party. It wasn't until that night that she told me what it meant, how it reminded her of her childhood in Wisconsin, summer barbecues and siblings tumbling out of trees.

The day you're supposed to lose your virginity never quite looks the way you expect. In my case, it happens on a Tuesday afternoon while trying out a trampoline behind a friend's house, with his annoying little sister shrieking about 'getting tangled up like laundry' in my ear.

Sometimes I remember trying on those high-waisted mom jeans for my eighth-grade history presentation, feeling like a beached whale trapped in denim. My mom insisted I'd be the only one brave enough to show a midsection, but mostly because everyone else seemed way more terrified of their own awkward limbs.

My cousin taught me to play hockey at her ratty old rink in rural Michigan, which smelled of mildew and forgotten dreams. We skated around in a haze of cigarette smoke, our laughter muffled by our masks.

As I fidgeted with the worn wooden handle of the shovel, the smell of damp earth wafted through the air, carrying with it a familiar yet unwelcome nervousness. Today was the day I'd finally dig my grandparents' garden for the summer, but more pressing on my mind was the looming family reunion later that evening.

There were precisely three minutes and thirty-two seconds left on my parking meter when I realized I'd locked my keys in the car - on a day when the sky had decided to release what felt like the entirety of its accumulated rain since forever - and the parking officer looked exactly how one would expect a middle-aged man in a yellow jacket to look: skeptical. The smell of stale bread wafted from the nearby café as the owner's cat watched me with an interest akin to a spectator at a tennis match - my futile efforts to coax a glimmer of pity from him only made it worse.

The summer before college, I somehow convinced my family I belonged outdoors long enough to buy a kayak from a sketchy Craigslist guy on the side of the highway. As I stood on the dew-kissed dock, the kayak's flimsy plastic creaking under my nervous grip, my dad – still sporting a grumble from the morning's coffee – raised an eyebrow at the tangled mess of fishing twine and old boots tangled around my waist.

The smell of fresh-cut grass and chlorine hung heavy over the school's pool deck, making my stomach lurch like a failed flip on the trampoline down the block. I'd always avoided this place, partly due to the cacophony of kids shrieking, but mostly because – I couldn't bear the thought of being that kid – flailing about in the shallow end, flapping arms for help, or so the neighborhood bullies claimed.