Seventeen years ago today, during an also damp, unseasonably warm February, we fell in love. ("Fell" implies it was unintentional; "fell" is accurate.)
We had been very good friends for two years, happy roommates for three months, and roommates with ricocheting sexual tension for several torturous weeks. Those days, every time our eyes locked, in the kitchen, on the couch, after your quick shower, before my long shower, you had me biting my lip. Literally.
It occurred to me that we were in love in the early afternoon. I felt defeated (which is also to say that I was a novice writer). When you returned home from Prior Library, you took one look at me, grabbed your keys, and drove me to a playground to swing. It's hard to feel defeated on a swing, but especially if you're talking to a boy who studies relentlessly, turns beautiful double plays, and cares deeply about your (often fictional) obstacles.
I think it occurred to you that we were in love later that evening. It was an even safer setting -- also public, chaperoned by all of our friends -- but I'm very flirty in bowling alleys. I always expect I'll be a much better bowler than I've ever been. There are never enough seats. Had there been enough seats, I would've still found your knee.
Like most of life's very best, purest things, it began that wholesomely. A soggy playground, a smoky bowling alley, but the tension.... The tension landed us in a fantastic, and fantastically distressing predicament.
I had big sparkly plans. You had heavy serious anchors. We'd live 2,300 miles apart for years, until finally, thank God, thank you, thank me, we wouldn't. ...