I feel like I should mention that all of this is merely fiction, and although I do attend Reading Festival, all of the events have been made up for creative purposes.
I was 16 when I lost my virginity. It was at a festival. There was music, laughter and alcohol. People were so happy, the crowds atmosphere brimming on arousal, and then there you were. It was cliché in that our eyes met across the tents. I was eating. Which is quite often. I had spilled tomato sauce all down my white shirt, and I was laughing at how to get it off. You laughed too, not out loud, but with your eyes. I saw them crinkle, and your mouth twitch, your left eyebrow slightly raised. I couldn’t help but think you were beautiful.
It isn’t even like me to do stuff like this. I’m not reckless. I get good grades, I listen to my teachers, I obey my parents, I have a stable group of friends who don’t attend parties that often. In fact, the reason I was at the whole festival that changed my life was because I was celebrating some outstanding GCSE results. I had worked so hard during exam season, making notes, revising, determined to make something of myself. It’s not like it was illegal, but, deviancy just wasn’t something that I was used to.
The day we set off for the festival had been pretty hectic. Food, was, is, and always will be a vital issue. I wanted more food, my friends said we had more than enough. We were getting to Reading by train, and we didn’t want to pack too much. By the time we’d set off, I was in a foul mood. However, before long the train journey had soothed everything, I was happy to be with my friends, and we were on our way to one of the best festivals in Europe. The weather, despite living in Britain, looked astoundingly perfect and I was ready to share some unforgettable memories of summer 2011.
We joked about meeting hot lads whilst planning for Reading, and although none of us had boyfriends or even relationships in the past, we were hopeful we could catch attention. There was Amira, with her tanned skin, deep brown eyes with impossibly long eyelashes, framed with her thick black hair that hung just past her shoulders in loose waves. She had a laugh and gullible mind that made her childish, but I had been best friends with her since playgroup, she was impossilby easy to prank, and that’s only one of the qualities I love about her.
Then there was Ella, the complete contrast to Amira, with her blonde hair and blue eyes. We often joked that ‘Hitler would have her’ but really, we adored her sense of humour, her exaggerated ways and her ability to obsess over the latest boy band. She was a serious stalker, but it could also be a helpful quality when locating certain gorgeous teachers. The last of my friends, Jemima, was again different. Her shoulder length brown hair and quiet ways weren’t necessarily what Jemima was all about. She had a fantastically dry sense of humour that would catch us at such unexpected moments that our cheeks would ache for days after. Also, she was a maths genius, and for that I was jealous of her.
So there we were, me and my group of friends, off to Reading to experience something completely new. I hadn’t expected to meet some tall, adorable looking guy with an incredible ability to raise his eyebrows. It was definitely the tallness that struck me first. This guy was tall, like, over 6 ft. Considering I am only just 5ft myself, I found this incredibly overwhelming. Not necessarily attractive at first. Plus, he wasn’t exactly toned. His arms were a little on the skinny side but he had a wonderfully attractive face. His eyes were a grey blue that I were jealous of. It was his personality that struck me. Struck me like a very fast oncoming car, in a pleasant way.
I hadn’t realised anyone could be so funny or interesting or just so genuinely kind. Or at least that’s what it felt like in my over excitable teenage mind. After our eyes had met that first time. That first time where I made a complete fool of myself, clumsy as always. I didn’t expect anything to happen. It was a look, an intense and shared moment, but that’s all I ever expected. After all, my knowledge of relationships was very limited, coming from books and overly fantasized films. So it was to my complete surpise the next day when you approached me.
We had spent the first night in the tent, all of us, Amira, Ella and Jemima, crowded but not caring, singing and eating until the sun started peaking out across the horizon. We joked throughout the night of what we must look like, our hair a mess and our make up smudged from the day before. Stumbling out the tents, half drunk on happiness, we managed to organise breakfast.
We had bacon sizzling over a camping stove, a last minute purchase we had aquired. There was no cutlery or tissues, so we ate hot bacon, with our hands, dripping with grease. Sustained for at least another hour, we set about dressing ourselves. I wondered if you had waited till that point to stand by our tent.
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