My First love

I don't know where to begin because I can't tell how it happened.
Yes, all I know is, we were neighbours who usually meet at the refuse dump in the morning, church on Sundays, and around the neighbourhood. At school, I was her senior with a two years gap.
I don't know how it all started but vividly, I usually recall all the mornings she'll stand by her window, peeping through the curtains, waiting I pass and when I did pass, all she does is call my name Ben. I felt it in her tone that she wanted me. I don't know what about me gave her sleepless nights that she wakes up early just to see me pass to school and even when I returned, I found her there still.
During break times, we intentionally cross paths admiring each other from a distance since falling in love was prohibited. At Church on Sundays, her fashion sense wowed onlookers. And it was after church that fateful Sunday. In her Kaba and Slit, she glowed.
We were just kids then. We didn't know how, we didn't know when. It all happened in a flash but I know it was a fine Sunday noon.
She made it known, her intentions about what I told her the other day. About me wanting her to become my girlfriend. About my pristine feelings without blemish. I don't know what exactly I said but I guess it's one of those things you say to a girl when she becomes the centrefold of your magazine. With smiles on our faces, my first love and I began the first chapter of our love story. We went from friends to admirers to lovers real quick and a day without setting eyes on each other wasn't a day worth remembering. From time to time, I spent most of my afternoons around her homestead under the pretence of playing with my other peers who lived in her vicinity. A mistake I've lived to regret. One may ask why I call spending time with the one I love a mistake. News spread among peers in the neighbourhood that Bernard and Fortune are into an entanglement. Well, other competitors couldn't watch me claim ownership over a girl who was admired be her age mates and even guys we call senior brothers. And it was on this occasion that things went south. I was reported to our Pre.Tech teacher, Mr. Atepor who was feared by all and sundry. Bulky eyes, black lips, tensed voice, weird smile that depicted vileness.
During morning assembly, I heard him cast insinuations about seniors, JHS Three pupils especially proposing to juniors. There, I knew I was in trouble. A dead meat as he'll always say. I knew he was talking to me indirectly. Well I don't know about others who are also deep rooted in this abominable act. I knew something was wrong somewhere and the mastermind behind this Intel was none other but a close relation of hers who sells in our school. For Christ's sake our relationship wasn't a sexual one. Just two kids proceeding towards adolescence and they just can't hide what they feel for each other.
During lessons that day, my attention was divided. The day was still young and I knew before the closing bell tolls, I'll be summoned and truly, right after the second break, i was duly charged. Not with perjury or treason but with the offence of falling in love. Kowtowing to hormonal changes that happen within is a crime. He threatened I stay away from what God had put together, I thought. Spare the rod and spoil the child so I took a few lashes all in the name of love. I stomached the pain without regret.
Just like Jesus Christ at Golgotha, I was the sacrificial lamb.
News of our teenage love affair reached the ears of my parents when her mum and uncle paid a courtesy call on my parents. I felt the guilt in the stern warnings of my dad. Their one fear was me getting her pregnant whiles the thought of intimacy barely crossed our minds. But I wouldn't say that was the end of a tale forged by the laws of nature because even after the ridicule and punitive measures meant to prevent me from seeing her, we still make time for each other somewhere around the dark corners of the neighbourhood. There she apologised for the humiliation and pain I've been subjected to both at home and in school.
Fortune, my first love back in the days. I mean the good old days when love spoke straight from the heart without hefty conditions attached.