The Landslide — What was your character’s first love like?
His name was Jimmy Smith, and he was sixteen. To the thirteen year old girl who had just shot up in height, no one was more handsome or more enthralling. Of course, the truth of it was that Jimmy Smith was nothing more than a juvenile delinquent, whose troubles got him shipped off to a correctional facility, and then boot camp. But if you ask Mari, she still remembers all the times they would talk (or rather, she would talk, and he’d feign interest before slipping some excuse to go cause more trouble).
Her first real boyfriend and relationship, however, came when Mari was fifteen. He was a sweet, proper kind of boy, Lester was. Unfortunately, a little too sweet and proper, and Mari got bored of him. Despite how much her mother loved him, she could only tolerate so much. She broke up with him on the eve of her seventeenth birthday, returning a plastic ring he’d given her from an arcade, his ‘promise’ ring.
She’s had many relationships and dalliances since, but if you ask her, deep down, — Mari has only been in love once. And still is.
