FIRST LOVE
Shall we buy our hats for the wedding or…?
I wanted to be with Niall the moment I saw him. I’d just started university in Leicester and he was working in the campus café where I’d get my coffee every morning. I thought he had a lovely smile and great eyes. After some digging, I added him on Snapchat. He messaged me saying, “Do we know each other?” I replied, “No, but we’re about to!” Our relationship started off slowly – I made him wait for a bit – but then we were on fire.
As a couple, we were quite adventurous. We loved finding random hotels to stay in and visiting different places, like Amsterdam, together. One of my happiest memories was around Christmas time. Back home in Romania, I always had natural Christmas trees, but they didn’t smell the same in the UK so, after I moved, I bought fake ones. Niall found a farmers’ market selling real ones, and drove us there to pick one up. It reminded me of home.
I think our immaturity broke us up in the end. We were still kids; he was 19 and I was 21. There were definitely trust issues in my case and we’d argue every day, about stupid things, like “Where are you going? Who are you going with?” It was too much. Niall was the one who eventually made the decision to end it. I didn’t want to give up on him because I knew we were fixable. At the time, I was angry, but now I know it was for the best.
Seeing him again on the date, I noticed that he’s grown up a lot since then – and so have I. In the past we kept bottling things up and having explosive arguments. So for that evening we just decided to talk calmly and be a lot more patient with each other. After dinner, we carried things on and went for drinks. It felt comfortable, homely and just like old times. Seeing Niall again brought back really good memories.