a story and conversation repository (est. 2000)

1984 ( 16 Years Old )

My first-ever girlfriend was Anna Smith. She moved to Fort Collins from Nebraska in the middle of ninth grade. I had two classes with her, and we found it easy to talk with one another right away. I don't recall how long it was before our multi-hour phone calls began but each ended by one of our parents picking up another phone in the house and saying they thought we had talked long enough.

The only time we saw one another outside of school was at the Foothills Fashion Mall one weekend. I don't remember why, but we never went inside. We just repeatedly circled the structure's perimeter, gray loading docks, service entrances and all.

We never kissed but held hands during the mall walk and sometimes in the school hallways. I didn't understand how a touch could be so electric and rightfully worried, given how moist my palm became in hers.

Then, one night, she answered the phone in tears. Her father was upset about something and decided to send her back to Nebraska to live with her mother. It was clear this decision was final and was to happen not in months or weeks but in days. Curiously, I can't recall those last few days or even our last moment.

The first day I was to go to school post-Anna, my mom offered to give me a ride. Mom rides were reserved for special occasions, being nice in that it saved me a three-mile bike ride. As we waited for an opening in traffic to leave our neighborhood, sitting at the intersection of Fuqua and Prospect (not that I don't vividly remember this moment), I stared out my window at the foothills a mile to the west.

In this quiet, my mother put her hand on my knee and said, "It is ok to cry, Troy." Before she finished the sentence, a sob inelegantly burst from me. Then another. Then more. My mother drove slowly and silently, her only child sobbing in the seat next to her. Once the car stopped behind the large, empty-to-me middle-school, I wiped the wet from my face using sleeves and hands, trying to erase the moment. As I got out of the car, my mom said, "I love you. And it will get better."

And it did.