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1

I don’t think you fall in love for the first time until something—or someone—feels dangerous. I don’t mean dangerous like going to jail, I guess I mean just different, really different. Different can feel dangerous, right? Like, I think it feels dangerous when your heart pounds so hard you are sure it’s visible beating under your shirt. Or when you can’t sleep, or catch your breath, or concentrate or listen, or when you turn a different color just thinking about his face, or when your relationships with your friends get all screwed up, or when you fight with your parents. When you change direction or your mind, or when tears fall and fall from your eyes for hours, when your whole life gets put in a Cuisinart—all because of a single person.

For me, it started at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—and it ended there too. I am not sure why the person that I was in love with ended up not wanting to be in love with me anymore. A part of me thinks it was my fault. That does not sound strong, but sometimes I don’t feel strong. What I hear is that we are very strong, we girls. Girls can do anything. We are leaders, we are intuitive, we are brave, we are smart, and we kick ass. “If women ran the world there would be no war.” Don’t you hear that? Maybe it’s true; I’m certainly not going to say it’s not. But if it is true, then how come it can all feel so impossibly fragile? How come you can feel like you are getting it entirely wrong?

Maybe boys don’t feel strong all the time either. I don’t think van Gogh felt strong, and look at everything he did—look at The Starry Night. Maybe you can feel fragile and still paint The Starry Night. Or maybe you can paint it because you are fragile. Maybe you can be strong and still be vulnerable, like a tree. Have you ever seen a tree filled with birds? There seems to be one on every branch, and then all of a sudden something happens, possibly from the atmosphere or the surroundings—or maybe not, maybe it’s something having to do with the tree itself, the branches, the leaves, or even the roots—that causes the birds to fly away in unison. And the tree is just left there—maybe strong, but left.

The air felt loaded in New York City. It was one of those days that you feel not only that the temperature will drop but that something tremendous is going to happen. It was a Monday in November and the sky was so blue it was violet, uninterrupted by clouds. The sidewalks reflected the shining sun, making us squint. Mostly, I remember this crazy wind. It was so forceful you knew the meteorologists were talking about it on the news. It was pushing us around. Our hair whooshed over our heads, twisting and tangling. Sometimes a gust would come and push us a few steps faster than we would have usually walked. This made us squeal. We were suited up in fall sweaters and jean jackets over our dark blue, pleated school uniforms and black leggings, scarves wrapped multiple times around our necks. Fall clothes are the best ones—I feel so much safer in a cardigan and boots than in some flimsy dress and sandals. But even in our chunky sweaters, we weren’t dressed for the sudden change in weather; we weren’t at all ready for it. The three inches of leg between where the stretchy legging fabric ended and my ankle booties began were red with cold, and that was just the beginning. We were not protected. We should have been wearing parkas, heavy ones.

Farah, Padmavati, and Reagan were coming over to my house after school because that night my father, who is the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was hosting the opening of a new exhibit he was curating, and—for the first time—my friends and I were invited to the party. Charlie, our only friend-who-is-a-boy, was meeting us at my house. He was probably already there because his school, St. Tim’s, is on the west side of Manhattan, where we all live. My brother, Oliver, goes there too, but he’s a senior, and we are sophomores. St. Tim’s is just for boys, and Hatcher, where Farah, Padmavati, Reagan, and I go to school, is just for girls. It’s on the east side of Central Park. But it’s not really where we met. We’ve known each other since we were born. Since before we were born really. We’re Turtles. Fifteen years ago on the Upper West Side, five babies were born all in the same month (basically) to parents in the same reading group, all because of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It sounds like a reading group orgy—but really, it was because of the discussion of one hot scene and what happened when everyone got home.

Our parents called us the Turtles because turtles lay so many eggs at one time.

Text copyright © 2014 by Isabel Gillies