It happened when I was 15. It happened because she happened.

Her name was Heather, and she was everything. She was smart, pretty, playful, fun… she was incredible. In a school filled with kids all trying to fit in and Be Popular she somehow managed to stand out from the crowd without so much as a lick of effort.

I fell in love with her. A lot of boys did. But they didn’t get to spend the time with her. I did.

We hung out a lot during school, after school, at the weekends; we were inseparable. She was my first kiss, and my first love. And one day, while we were at the mall, she told me she loved me.

The reaction was small at first, hardly a reaction at all. I started sneezing. Then it got worse. My face began to swell up, I broke out in hives, and the next thing I knew I woke up in a hospital bed connected to an IV drip.

“It’s odd,” the doctor told me, “But according to all of our tests you’ve a near-fatal allergy to love.”

“Is it treatable?”

“I’m afraid not.”

And I’ve been alone ever since.