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Headstrong young lass seeks demure partner for complicated love triangle, involving tears before bedtime, copious amounts of alcohol and threats of self mutilation.

First love, never an easy thing, but a thing that does teach you much about yourself. There I was, 16 and silly with my tartan pants and kick-arse ripped t-shirts with natty slogans� punk goth girl with bright red lipstick and love handles. He was 17, long dark hair, a Kafka-reading bassplayer in an industrial goth band. We used to go sit on the pier and he would stick his hand up my shirt to feel my (already) lumps of boobs.

Ah! So many scenes of we two leaning in doorways, skipping through malls, eating hotdogs at 2am, drinking cheap wine from cardboard cartons. He was wild and obnoxious and he took my fancy, and I did whatever was asked of me. That incredible four hour telephone conversation where we just talked and talked and then let ourselves be silent, then talked some more. The next day, still more to say, didn�t matter that we�d been tangled in phone cords all the night before. Couldn�t bear not see each other, so totally wrapped up in the sticky salty kisses that rained down, and so very much hooked into the mental, the emotional, the �.

My mother hated him. She told me "never rely on a man to fill you up. He won�t ever fill that hole inside". I laughed and told her that I could take care of myself, that I was strong and independent and in fact I didn�t need a clich�d mother standing over me talking crap. I ran and ran, ran to the beach, let the wind whip salty sting across my cheeks, and hugged myself to feel the memory of his arms.

Two weeks after the four hour conversation we decided that it was right that we should consummate our affection with a fuck. In his room at the hostel, the afternoon sun making the curtains yellow, a dim golden glow lighting the sheets. I lay back and he began with my top, unbuttoning ever so slowly, kissing me as tenderly as a 17 year old can. It was my first time, I was pure and fresh underneath all those black clothes, and I ached to feel what it feels to have a man take that bounty. He was gentle; his long fingers deft with their movements, his hair trailing down around me like a human curtain. I did not cry or start with alarm. I was ready and I accepted him into me and gave of myself fully, and I felt as if the union of body inside body had fulfilled me. There was a little blood, and when we had done with it he stayed inside for a while and it was so odd to feel him deflating. We lay for sometime on that musty bed, my hands holding tight to his arms, so pale, so strong.

Spinning on a roundabout in the middle of traffic, laughing at the cars as they beeped their horns at us, we were giddy with the absolute thrill of just being.

Two weeks. We spun on roundabouts and made love in golden hours, and he held my hand as we dangled our feet over the edge of the pier.

Then no phone call, not even four minutes. He disappeared. I walked to the hostel, to his room, where a girl answered the door and said "Nick doesn�t live here anymore". Can anyone know the emptiness that follows that statement? I searched, called friends, but he went without a goodbye.

Two weeks more. I get a note with a lock of hair in the mail. It is not his hair, it is from another girl. He writes, "Claudia is here now. Thanks for everything, N." I find a friend of his and force him to reveal Nick�s new location. I storm over there, he is sitting on the bed playing his bass, humming a melody. He looks up, doesn�t say anything. I scream at him how, why, you bastard. He points to the wall, a photograph of a girl with long blonde hair in a ponytail, sitting on a fence, her legs dangling over the side � "Claudia" he says.

My hand connects with the side of his face. He pushes me down onto the bed and straddles me, holding my arms back. I immediately quieten, playing dead. "You�re a nice girl", he says "But you chameleon yourself for others. You have no integrity. I cannot love you." And he lets me up. I go home, blind, stumbling, lost.

Words I live by. Seek not to be fulfilled by others. Chameleons will never know love.