One Small Piece of a Love Story

Sometimes, I worry that I'm losing touch with teen me. That I'm forgetting how monumental those years felt. That I'm minimizing them in my mind, so how will I ever be able to write about them convincingly? But a scene from Lauren Oliver's REQUIEM sparked a memory today that I haven't thought about in years, and since it hit me so forcefully, I thought I'd share it with you.

It was the summer after my junior year. Honey Bear (though I didn't call him that then) had just finished his first year of college. What had started as a tentative friendship eighteen months earlier had steadily grown into love, though not an easy one. We'd both felt strongly that we shouldn't date exclusively, so we hadn't. But as our feelings had deepened, that had proved more difficult. And now we were facing two long years of separation.

Young men in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are strongly encouraged to donate two years of their lives as well as thousands of dollars to go out and preach the word, so we both knew this was coming. We both believed in the counsel and wanted him to serve. But I don't think we expected to be as in love as we were. He came over to say good-bye a few days before he left, and for literally hours, we just sat on the couch, forehead to forehead, and cried. We must have said a bunch of stuff, too, but now, twelve years later, I don't remember a word of it. I just remember the crying, the clasped hands, the feeling that Something was slipping away.

After a while, the phone rang. We both knew it was his dad even before my mom answered. So we kissed one more time--slow and sweet, the only way we knew how--and he left, maybe for the last time. I watched him drive away for as long as I could, until our neighbor's house and the curve of the road swallowed my view, and then he was gone, maybe for good.

It was only one day (just a few hours, really), but that one day is forever stamped on my memory. And every time I think back on it, I feel seventeen all over again.