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The first divorce of Thomas Piaget’s life was not his, but his parents. He was seventeen and in love with the impossible Alison Normand. He had up to this point displayed plain qualities, moving evenly through his life, doing well in school for the most part and playing a variety of sports and doing well in them as well. But then Allison happened, and he started to ask himself about the verities of love, fixating on the nature of it and its subsequent meanings. You loved, you got married, and then you got divorced. Or some got divorced while others stayed married, but he was not sure if they remained in love. His head filled up with questions and doubts. He loved Alison. He was sure of this, but his mother and father had told him that they at one time had loved one another as well. Then something happened. What?

Something happened, and whatever it was, it was happening all the time, not just towards the destruction of marriage, but the creation of it, the need to announce and define one’s love via marriage. He said to Alison, “If we love one another and we want it to last, we should not get married.” Alison had looked at him with a fair amount of incoherence. Here was this boy she was at present dating because of an appearance she thought altogether becoming. His shock of hair, full lips, sly smile, the way he dressed in polo shirts and khaki pants as if he was always casual and relaxed, and then to be surprised by his intensity towards her. She had dated other boys beginning at fourteen, and as she counted them in her head, Thomas stood as the seventh for her. They had been an odd mix, but one thing they all had in common was how other girls thought them good “catches”, so she had moved ahead with them up to a certain point, secure in her approved choice.

But one by one they had faded or failed her. She liked to think she had dismissed them, but there remained some doubt if this was really the case. It could be said they had become bored with one another. In each case, they had much to show one another, explaining likes and dislikes, some of these were shared while others …were not. And then something happened. They moved on and away from one another. None of them was as curious or fixated on their relationship together as Thomas was. They did not dote on their lives together and miss one another as incessantly as Thomas said he missed her. She could gather a reason for this owing to the fact that Thomas was her seventh boyfriend, and she was his first girlfriend.

What was it like, that first time? For her it was Reggie Stark asking her out and her ignoring his request until talking it over with her friends, Katie Witchett and Maddy Rice at that time. Both thought him suitable for her. They explained how they liked the look of the two of them together, talked about what she should wear, coming to her house to help with her wardrobe. And then after these first steps, they talked about boys in general and what should or should not be allowed. They still wanted nothing to do with penises they told one another, but then again there had been some discussion about the “things” and the problems they posed. All agreed that they were to have nothing to do with them or the boys if they produced one on the first date. This was a deal breaker.

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