Sissy was, indeed, passionately in love with him, and he with her. In the morning, he forgot about her a good deal. She was in the same classroom, but he was not doing the same stream subjects. He was busy, and her existence was of no matter to him. But all the times she was in her classroom, she had a sense that he was upstairs, a physical sense of his person.

Every day she expected him to come through during breakfast time, and when he came it was a shock to her. But he was often short and off with her. He gave her his direction in an official corner, keeping her at bay. With what wits she had left, she listened to him. She dared not misunderstand or fail to remember, but it was cruel to her. She wanted to touch his chest. She knew exactly how his breast was sharp under the waistcoat, and she wanted to touch it.

It maddened her to hear his voice when it said, “Eish.”
She wanted to ask the boy why he would say something like that, but she was afraid, and before she could feel one touch of his warmth he was gone, and she ached again. He knew that she was dreary every afternoon she didn’t see him, so he gave her a good deal of his time. The days were often a misery for her, but the afternoon and the nights were usually a bliss to them both.

Then there was silence. For hours they sat together, or walked together in the dark where there were no people, and talked only a few, almost meaningless words. But he had her hand in his, and her bosom left its warmth in his chest, making him feel whole, they had sex while they were bored.

One evening they were walking down by the canal, and something was troubling him. She knew she did not have him. All time he whistled softly to himself. She listened, feeling she could learn more from his whistling than from his speech.

It was a sad dissatisfied tune, a tune that made her feel he would not stay with her. She walked on in silence. When they came to the swing bridge, he sat down on the great pole, looking at the Lebopo Mountain. He was a long way from her. She had been thinking about the past when they were feeling whole.
She had more and more questions like, “Am I pregnant?”

“No.” he answered without reflection. “No, I’ll leave this place and go abroad soon,”

“Go abroad! What for?”

“I dunno! I feel restless,”

“But what shall you do?”

“I have to go to get a solution from other girls, and find out what I should do against this terrible thing,” he said. “I am gradually making my way. I know I am,”

“And when do you think you will go?”

“I don’t know. I won’t go for long, I’m thinking about my mother.”

“You couldn’t leave her?”

“Not for long,”

She looked at Lebopo Mountain

They laid there, staring. It was an agony to know he would leave her, but it was almost an agony to have him near her.

“And if you made a lot of money, what would you do?” she asked.

“Go somewhere; buy a pretty house at Makgobaskloof for my mother”

“Huh, I see,”

There was a long pause.

“I could still come and see you. I don’t know.”

There was silence. The Lebopo Mountain started changing, covered by snow. He suddenly went to her, and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t, don’t, don’t ask me anything about the future,” he said miserably.

“I don’t know anything. Be with me now, will you, no matter what it is?”

Tell us: How did you get over your first heartbreak?