Seventeen

It was in my junior year in high school that I 'fell in love' for the first time. Sure I'd had several girl friends up to this point, but there was something different about K. Our initial meeting was composed of mystery and chance, because neither of us were 'looking' for a romantic interest when it happened. Although I knew who K was—she was a friend of a friend of a friend—I never had her in any of my classes so never had an opportunity to talk to her.

It was the middle of May, a month before classes were to let out for the summer, and our school jazz band was recruited to play at the annual Mother-Daughter Tea. Because I played trombone in the sixteen member ensemble, I pissed-and-moaned along with the rest of the group for being enlisted as cheap entertainment. End-of-School fever was running rampant through the troops and the last thing any of us wanted to do was give up even an hour of our precious afternoons. Besides, our jazz band was scheduled to go to Bremerton that weekend to take part in the all-state jazz contest so any time spent between now and then was of the essence.

At the Mother-Daughter Tea everything went as expected. We supplied what amounted to 'background music' while the girls and their mothers sipped weak tea and snacked on cake and cookies. Our band director, Rick, a brilliant instructor who had a passion for all things musical, decided it was time to kick things up a notch. We'd been working for weeks on Indian Lady, a Don Ellis number Rick had transcribed for the group, and not only did it really cook, but I'd been given a sizeable trombone solo halfway through. There was no way these gals were going to sit still when we launched into this song. And, of course, they didn't. After we'd finished we were given a rousing ovation and it was during this time that I took a moment to pan the faces of the audience. My eyes immediately locked onto K's who was sitting with her own mother about six rows back. She was beaming, radiant, aglow. I wasn't sure what was happening but had the eerie sense that something inexplicable was passing between us. When the band was excused to leave—the girls and their mothers had another half-hour or so—I looked around for K and discovered she was looking around for me. She was still beaming, still radiant. Once again I felt that same 'something' pass between us, but because I didn't have her in any classes and was leaving for Bremerton after school the next day, I tried to shrug it off. There was nothing I could do. I knew I was going to be out-of-town until Monday, so suspected that whatever had happened between us would have passed by then. I couldn't have been more wrong.

The next day, Friday, I tried looking for K in the halls between classes, but had no luck. I didn't know what I would've said to her if I did happen to run into her, so in a way was a little relieved. It was at the start of sixth period, Advanced Algebra, and I'd given up all hope for the day, when one of my classmates informed me there was a girl outside asking for me. No. It couldn't be! How did she find me? I had a minute before the bell, so leapt from my chair and hurried outside. It was K. Smiling foolishly, she handed me a folded note and touched my arm as if to see if I was real, and then she was gone, running off to her own class.

When I took my seat my heart was beating so forcefully I thought it might explode. The sound of blood roared through my ears. With the precision of a surgeon, I slowly unfolded K's note in secrecy beneath my desktop. What it said was short and sweet:

Dear Craig,
I don't know what happened or how or why. Maybe we're not supposed to know, maybe that's how it's supposed to work, but please call me when you get back from Bermerton. Please. Please! I'll be thinking about you.
Love, K     776-XXXX

My heart stopped. The roar in my ears stopped. The world stopped. And when it started up again I discovered it had been irreversibly changed, and not all of it for the better.

Had I trusted my heart, my body, the blood roiling through my veins, I would have been all right, but instead I came to trust what was abstract, impossible, invisible, nowhere in evidence. I put my faith not in anything I could point to, or touch, or feel, but words in a book. Not in the sun, the wind, the earth or sea or stars, not in laughter or passion or effortless joy, but words in a book. Words. In a book.

What the hell was I thinking?

On Monday, K and I became a couple. I'm not sure how it actually happened or where or when, it was simply an unvoiced fact. It may have been 'love at first sight' or something else less mystical, but whatever it was it was overpowering and unavoidable. Suddenly we were doing everything together and inseparable. We did not doubt that we were 'in love'. It was a natural fact and there seemed no other options.

Because I knew nothing about K prior to the day we met, I learned her father had recently died and that she and her mother were going to move to Jacksonville, Florida at the end of the summer to live with relatives. Initially she was planning on applying for college down there following her senior year, but now she decided she wanted to return to Washington to be near me, to see if she could get accepted at Western in Bellingham. I would be applying to the University of Washington in Seattle, which meant if I was going to see K I'd have to commute sixty-five miles each way. She asked if we could carry on a long-distance relationship for the year that she was away and, of course, I answered yes.

K and I were both virgins, but within a few weeks we began 'experimenting' sexually, mostly heavy-petting and mutual masturbation. Because neither of us were ready to 'go all the way' we were content to go as far as we allowed ourselves. Because of this physical initimacy, K and I bonded quickly and came to trust each other implicitly. Unbeknownst to both of us, this closeness also caused an adverse reaction in me. I started harboring some resentment towards K because she was leaving and began to act out. I did not recognize this as the cause at the time, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. One afternoon I was visiting K at a neighbor's house where she was baby-sitting and begin to roughhouse and slap at her legs playfully with a plastic toy baseball bat. At first K giggled and tried to get away, but then I struck too hard and she started to cry. I was devastated and felt terrible and started to cry myself, but quickly covered this up by hugging her tightly so she couldn't see my face. Other times, while we were enjoying ourselves at the park or beach, I would suddenly lash out at her without provocation in order to arouse an argument. To her credit she was always able to soothe things over before they got out of hand, but I've come to realize that throughout my life I've often resorted to this type of behavior whenever I felt threatened or powerless. Unconsciously I may have been trying to instigate a 'break-up' in order to protect myself from the heartache of K going away, but this does not excuse my actions or conduct.

On the evening before K was to leave for Jacksonville, I drove her and her mother to Sea-Tac Airport. They'd arranged to spend the night at the Jet Inn because they had such an early morning flight, so K's mother invited me to join them for dinner in the hotel restaurant. K and I were sullen throughout the meal knowing we would not be seeing each other again for a year, although K's mother tried to keep the conversation light and lively. When dinner was over, K walked me to my car and we hugged and kissed one last time and said our goodbyes. I watched her walk back to hotel, got in my car, then pulled into the heavy traffic of Pacific Highway South (SR99). I managed to make it a block before I was overcome with emotion. I started crying, weeping uncontrollably, huge heart-rending sobs that wracked my body. I'd never experienced anything like it before, the physicality of such sadness, and was forced to pull off the road for fear of causing an accident. I cried nonstop for ten minutes until there was nothing left, then eased into traffic and made my way back home. I would not cry this way again for another three years, not until the night that changed my life, that started me on my slow descent back down to the 'real world'.