She was an Air Force kid, it was middle school, and I didn't know it, but our time together had an expiration date. I can't remember how we met. Maybe it was 8th grade English, maybe it was before then. All I know is that she was a quiet, kind of punk-grunge-goth girl in the early 2000's. I was awkward, nerdy, and I didn't have many friends. But I fell hard for this girl, and, unbeknownst to me, she had a bit of a crush on me too.
We talked a bit through middle school. We were friends, but we didn't hang out, if that makes sense. We pretty much only saw each other at school, and if we had classes together, we'd try to sit close to each other. I never asked her out. She was small and pretty, and she had a constant stream of suitors. She'd date a different guy every month, and I didn't want to be part of that endless procession. I knew it wouldn't be good for either of us.
At the end of freshman year of high school she moved to England with her family. I was pretty torn up about it, but I tried to get through it. We would talk. A lot. On AIM, then MSN, we spoke pretty regularly for years. Her father was transferred to Italy and the family went with him. She would talk about living in Italy. She would tell me about her relationships, I would tell her about mine. She would tell me her troubles, including her battle with depression. We would send letters back and forth sometimes. She had beautiful handwriting, and always signed her notes with two x's before her name.
I still have all those letters. She told me I really helped her sometimes, that I pulled her back from depression a number of times. I didn't know any of this, and it made me feel good that I could help her. One day, with nothing to lose, I told her I loved her, really loved her.
She felt the same way, but it was impossible. We both knew this. Nothing would ever come of this. She met a guy and he proposed. I kept talking to her, and I chatted with the dude a couple times, and I tried my best to be happy for them both. Meanwhile my personal relationships were going from bad to worse. I dated other people, but in my heart I knew that she was the one I loved. My love life suffered as a result.
Freshman year of college for me, she breaks it off with her fiance. She finds God and it makes her happy. She says maybe she'll try to move back to the States. Maybe she'll go to a college near mine. In the meantime, she's visiting her aunt and uncle for a while in North Carolina. Maybe I could see her.
Of course I could see her. I had to. Fall break of my freshman year, I drove ten hours in a single sitting to see her and stay with her for three days. When I arrive, it's like she never left. We drive for ice cream in the night. We stay up talking in her aunt and uncle's living room. We take a ferry to a little island where there is a beach and an aquarium. We spend the day there, taking silly pictures. I am nineteen years old, and I am in love, and this moment has been five years in the making. I kiss her at sunset, barefoot on that beach. She bites my lip and laughs playfully. She is a fantastic kisser. She is a foot shorter than me, so I pick her up, feel her feet come free of the waterlogged sand of the surf, and I kiss her again. I tell her for the first time, from my lips to her ears, not through a screen or telephone, that I love her, and she tells me she loves me too.
We never have sex. She's a good Christian now, removed from her wanton days in high school. I kiss her as she snuggles into my chest on the couch and I jokingly ask her to read me a bedtime story, and I fall asleep as she reads from an old copy of Grimm's. She wakes me the next morning with kisses and blueberry pancakes. I'm the happiest I've been in years.
We spend the next day as kids do. We go here and there. We joke around. For a brief moment, we're both in love. She says another friend is coming to visit, on the day I'm leaving. He comes and I go. Before I do, I say my goodbyes, press her against the door of my car, and kiss her one last time. I ask her not to forget how she feels about me. She says, somehow, she doubts she will.
I drive home another ten hours with a light heart. I'm happy, really happy, for the first time in a long time. A relationship is still impossible, but I have some sense of closure. Maybe things can change. Maybe things will get better. I remember at this time we had Myspace. Facebook still wasn't very big, or maybe it wasn't even open to the public yet. Her Myspace has pictures of us both. I look at the pictures at the library computer lab of my university, and I smile.
A few days later, there is a new picture. It is her and the friend who came to visit, sharing a kiss. I feel something break inside. I remember that at the time, there were no tears. I had a hundred different emotions fighting inside me. I go to lunch as planned with my friend. He notices my face, and he instantly knows something is wrong. I tell him I'll explain if he comes to my apartment later that night, but I can't talk about it then.
He comes by after class. I am already monstrously drunk. I talk a bit about what happened. He understands. I'd already emailed her - probably a mistake, but it turns out she understands how I feel, and she apologizes a couple days later in an email of her own. I accept her apology, but we both know nothing will be the same, that nothing had been the same since I kissed her. She loves me, but it's impossible, beyond impossible. What we want out of life is so different, that it would never really work, no matter how much we loved each other.
She goes back to Italy. She never does go to school in the States. We kind of fall out of contact. We catch up every once in a while, and sometimes it's almost as if she hadn't broken my heart more than once, but it's never the same. She gets married a few years later to a different guy. She invites me to the wedding, but I can't go. First, it's in Italy, and second, I don't know if I could sit through that.
She and her husband move back to the States, to Oklahoma, then to Illinois. She's had two kids now and still looks incredible. She posts pictures of her adorable children and her budding family on Facebook nearly every day. I talk to her incredibly rarely. I'm okay with it now, but sometimes I think back to high school, and talking almost every day, and sometimes I'll think about that day on the beach in North Carolina. I haven't loved anybody like I loved her since, though I've come close a couple times. I know if somebody ever gives me that ache in my heart again, I won't let her slip away.
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