Inside the Book Past Loves Day Meet the Authors Where to Buy Story Contest

ANNOUNCING WINNERS
2010 PAST LOVES STORY CONTEST

In past years, we have jokingly complained about the difficulty of choosing winners out of a diverse array of enriching and heartfelt stories. But this year, with almost two hundred entries, it was truly a challenge for us to discern what elevates some, among the many jewels we received. (See what you think when you read just the baker’s dozen stories published here.) This year, once again, we couldn’t quite limit ourselves to only three prizes–and decided to add one Fourth Place prize of $25.

When comparing such personal experiences, and given the quality and emotional impact of these stories, no purely objective evaluation is possible. Although you might have chosen winners differently, we hope you will understand that we chose stories that most closely approach what we were looking for. In the end, we are comfortable with the choices we made, even though we know that so many more deserve recognition.

For those of you whose stories were not chosen, please know that we found deep feeling and meaning in every one. We had the great privilege, each day, of reading the pieces as they arrived, spending much of our morning immersed in your memories, feeling the emotions they evoked. Thank you for revealing how your past loves have truly become part of the weaving of who you are.

Because it is clear that more of the stories we received deserve to be shared with a wider audience, we have begun the process of publishing an anthology of stories from the first four years of the contest. Through the fall of 2010, we will be getting in touch with the authors of stories that we may want to consider for inclusion in that anthology. Our hope is to publish the anthology in the fall of 2011.

Now, we are pleased to share this year’s winning stories, presented as they were written.

2010 Past Loves Story Contest Winners

FIRST PLACE

November Rain
by Kelley Walker Perry

I remember the resonance of soft rain falling on a tin roof. The memory of its sound echoes in my heart as the greatest regret of my life.

The cool November rain that night failed to deter my lover and me; we lounged in the hot tub on our cabin deck, gazing at a spectacular mountain view.

We’d gone on the trip to Tennessee because work stress had gotten the better of me. I could hardly afford such extravagance, so Ralph had sold his truck—an old Ford he’d been tinkering on since he was a teenager. Lost in my own world at the time, I never even acknowledged his sacrifice.

Most of the leaves had turned from vibrant scarlet and gold to late-autumn hues of russet and sienna, and a chill was in the air. All that week, we browsed in Gatlinburg’s shops and dined in nice restaurants by day. By night, we drifted from the hot tub and the rain to the Jacuzzi and its bubbles, and then sat talking in front of a roaring fire made pungent by carburetor cleaner—his unique idea of lighter fluid. Later, he attempted to chase away my demons with his tender touch, in the best way he knew how.

I typically spurned his advances, explaining that I’d been hurt too many times in the past; that I wasn’t ready for a commitment; that I didn’t completely return his feelings. I broke his heart almost daily, but he kept trying.

That particular night, he left me in the hot tub and slid aside the heavy glass doors leading into the cabin. I thought he was refreshing his drink, but he was gone quite awhile. When he returned, he shyly led me inside—where he’d filled the Jacuzzi with fragrant bubble bath, lit scented candles and incense, and even popped in a soothing CD. Instead of staying, he simply kissed my cheek and closed the door on strains of Celtic music.

While I wallowed in the bath like a pampered walrus, Ralph sat alone on the deck and wrote a poem for me on a yellow legal pad. After I’d dried off and dressed, he offered me those heartfelt lines—I’m sure in hopes that his love for me would finally sink in.

At the time, I was less than grateful. I thought he was being pushy; I needed space. His spelling was incredibly flawed—thankfully, I held back from noting this last tidbit aloud.

That was the final solitude we’d have for the vacation. My mother and sister brought my kids down; they were on Fall Break, but I’d left them in Indiana for the first half of the trip. We spent the remainder of the time shopping, visiting Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies, checking out old cabins at Cade’s Cove, and meandering through the local artists’ colony. During one excursion Ralph took my son, with whom he was very close, on a secret mission. Later, he presented me with a bottle of Tryst, an expensive perfume I’d especially liked.

My mother’s birthday fell during our stay. Ralph happily grilled for us all; he never minded spending time with my family, and in fact seemed glad to be included. I later learned that everyone but me believed we had gone to Tennessee to get married; I’d just scoffed when we passed by a chapel and he tentatively mentioned something to that effect.

Everything that man did, he did for me. He continued struggling, even after we returned home. But I can still see the look on his face the night he began to give up.

Too late, I discovered my true feelings for him. Too late, I learned that some things we do are irrevocable. He left his house key on my pillow early the following February and married another woman that summer.

I ran into him in town the other day; he looks good. Happy.

Yes, I remember the rain. It is the bittersweet sound of the only real love I’ve ever known, lost forever in the misty mountains of Tennessee.

SECOND PLACE

Inside Out
by JoAnne Potter

I saw him today. Yes, I tell you, it was him, swirling up through an eddy of 6AM passengers at SEATAC like a fleck of gold. He's changed during the last twenty-five years, but I knew him. Oh, I knew him.

He wore a beat-up baseball cap that could have been the same one he wore to the race track in the 80's. It looked that old. And he still wore the silver-rimmed aviators he always liked, though they have bifocals now, but you'd expect that, wouldn't you? His denim shirt buttoned over a blooming belly he never had then, but when he leaned down to take his granddaughter's hand, he looked at her with the same blue twinkle he once turned on me. He drew her up on his lap, right hand circling her shoulders, his left under knees in a quick, practiced arc. Don't you remember how he used to do that? But it was his intensity that convinced me, the way he focused his attention until the child filled his entire horizon as she told him her tiny troubles. He absorbed her little cries, bearing them tenderly next to his own, offering himself as a willing haven for her sweet worries, protector of long practice. He'd done that for me, too.

To a stranger, he would probably look old, and hide whatever sinewy youth he once wore beneath age's crepey cover stretched too thin. To anyone else, he would probably look like an unremarkable old man, kind and harmless. There, sitting in an orange plastic chair in an airport coffee shop with a six-year-old, he revealed none of his ripe, tight-coiled strength, his taut, purple-veined attention, his broad, deep-muscled vitality. How could he? Only shared memory carries these, resurrecting them for my private use without apology. Time tries to commit slow thieving, but he still lives in the fullness of long-spent days, remaining ever young to my eyes, full-fruited and bursting.

It was him, all right, even through the aged camouflage long years have dealt. For me, he carries the best of himself hidden from casual view. He still wears the same shining boldness, but as skin rather than armor, now distilled over gentle years. Maybe you, like the rest of the world, see only what you must, but I know him inside out.

THIRD PLACE

Beyond the Veil
by Xenia Schiller

You are both 27 and in love. It’s amazing, unbelievable …You’d suspect it all if it weren’t happening to you.

He is movie star handsome. And funny! No one makes you laugh like this. You just get each other. He’s talking about marriage now, and it scares you, because he means it. Happily-ever-after is rolling into the station right on time.

You don’t understand when he falls down the stairs, and into the bookshelves at work, or why the seizures are coming, why they won’t stop. Right up to the diagnosis. You’re married now, and it’s not at all how you imagined it but still bad times shared with him are better than the best you’ve ever had alone.

You’re both 30 when he decides he’s had enough of the less-than that medicine has to give. Not of you, never of you, but only of the cancer. This world has nothing to offer if he’s not in it. But he asks you to let him go, and for his sake only you say ok, knowing it will never be ok. And mostly because you’re in practice, you continue to hold on.

“Watch for the signs,” someone says. And because you have nothing else, and also because you’re desperate for any part of him, you do. The cell phone that spontaneously dials the old number still listed as “home” (because even though you’ve moved, that’s what it is.) The disembodied knock at the door when you forget to lock it, his very real presence when you first wake up. It’s agonizing, but it’s good, it's what you have, and you can’t get enough.

The first anniversary, the first for your marriage, is the worst. A rogue calla lily blooms that day, and this happens every year, except one year when it doesn’t. A close and empathic friend sends roses that year, except you get two bouquets, one that exactly matches the rare roses you held at your wedding - a gift made possible by Love, working behind the scenes. So you thank him, and the tears that come are different this time. There’s joy mixed with sadness, where previously there was only despair.

More and more you are laughing. Not the forced kind, but the knees-to-the-belly kind, complete abandonment. It doesn’t hurt as much when you catch yourself thinking, “I can’t wait to tell him this.” Somehow you know he is there, laughing, yes, but mostly happy that you are healing.

One day you’re watching a movie when the sound cuts out. The remote gives no satisfaction, so you consider his solution, mostly because it still amuses you. Percussion calibration, he used to say, and thinking those words you pimp slap the side of the TV. Sound comes flooding back, and what you know right then is complete and utter joy, at this inside joke that you will always share together.

Now the plans you make are your plans, not his, not ours. And even though you’re not yet in the practice, it’s ok. It’ll come. This new life is not perfect, but the happiness is exactly what he would have chosen for you, and that makes it ok for you to choose it for yourself.

FOURTH PLACE

One Unusually Warm Winter
by Daniel Mullen

When I think of Christie, my mind grabs a hot cup of coffee, settles into an overstuffed chair and stares out the window at slowly falling snow. Christie wasn’t my first love; she wasn’t my last love, either. She is, however, the one about whom I still write poetry, stories, and songs that no voice will ever sing. Her memory I keep locked away; she’s mine. Like holding a favorite blanket in my child-like hand, I long feared that if I shared her with the world, she would vanish from my mind and heart forever.

I knew her years before. Though she was young, she already stood a head above the other girls, had brown hair that tumbled like a waterfall down to her shoulders and a smile that could wake a man from a coma. She had yet to grow into the woman I would meet again a decade later. Our interactions then were innocent, confined to after-school Bible studies and late-night chats with friends at the 24-hour diner downtown. She always left a tip, though the waitresses would simply leave a pot of coffee at the table. I wondered what it would be like to be alone with her, without our friends guiding the conversation. If my heart hadn’t been devoted to following God, I might have pursued a deeper understanding of “Christie.”

As we both stepped through the heavy, wooden door of adulthood at the end of the Hallowed Halls of Secondary Education, she traveled to the Far East in search of peace. I traveled to the Middle East with the Army to enforce peace. Both missions failed, but would provide a foundation for conversation ten years later.

This time my emotional ties were open. Divorce had jaded me; children had matured me. I quickly affirmed my attendance to her birthday party one November. Any chance to catch up with this old friend would kick all other plans to the curb. Christie had a guy waiting for her in China, I found out, but that didn’t deter me.

I remember us cooking in her mother’s kitchen. Every night was a different flavor: “fajitas, salmon, curried chicken, hamburgers. We were both so lost in the joy of cooking that we doubled the wrong recipe once and ended up with enough masala for a large Indian family to flavor their meals for a week! Her mom watched in amazement as we weaved around each other, grabbing pans, chopping vegetables, seemingly as one body.

Over Christmas, I went so far as to introduce you to my children and parents. They all thought she was wonderful, funny and gorgeous. I did too. We frosted dozens of cookies and accidentally frosted her backside. My daughter howled as she stood up and displayed her new yellow and blue accents on her black, skin-tight jeans. She took it in stride, though, laughing along with the rest of us. That was the moment I knew I loved her.

With the New Year came new experiences. I would pick her up from yoga and listen to her complain about the instructor’s incompetence while trying to not get caught stealing glances at her slightly sweating face and hair. My heart sank when a letter came from a school in China, informing her that her teaching position would be available that May. She was ecstatic until she saw the sadness in my eyes. We promised to make the most of the couple months we had left together. I cautiously agreed to the plan, but knew I was hurtling head-long into heartache.

On Valentine’s Day we threw dietary caution to the wind and ate pizza with wine while watching a movie.

The big day arrived and I almost stayed away. Our good-bye lasted all day, save for momentary interruptions for insignificant activities like eating and talking. At 11:30 that night, I held her in my arms for the last time. She cried into my chest and I cried into her hair. She smelled like a winter’s worth of memories–and flowers.

HONORABLE MENTION (in alphabetical order by author)

No Beginning, No End
by Courtney Bessent

Sometimes I try to think back to the particular moment when I realized I loved him, but it’s an impossible task. None of my memories hold the start of our love because it has no beginning. There was, however, a moment when I realized it would never end: the last time I saw him. But I am skipping ahead—what about the first time I saw him? There was no first time. I like to say that he and I never met, that we’ve just always known each other. If we ever actually met, it was when we were babies, when neither of us remembers. Our love spans the length of my life, from before I knew to call it love to now when I have only my memories.

Almost from the start I was quiet and careful, and he was loud and reckless. In general I didn’t trust him and he didn’t know what my problem was. We grew up this way, watching each other out of the corners of our eyes. When I was nine, he began calling me for the five minutes (give or take) that I was allowed phone privileges. When I was eleven, he was too busy getting into trouble to remember I existed, which suited me fine since I spent my time silently judging him for being in trouble yet again. Still I was never more alert, more self-conscious, than when he was in the room, and I despised him for this. By thirteen, I thought that maybe he would always be in trouble, which thrilled me. People joked that I should stay away from him, but of course I didn’t. We were friends and more-than-friends, but we also moved in and out of phase, sometimes ignoring each other, sometimes whispering to each other over the phone until the small morning hours, and often dating other people. By fifteen, I had figured out that the best way to ignore him was to develop a crush on another boy. That didn’t work because fifteen was also the year that he kissed me, and I realized that I could have forgotten him before that moment. Before that first kiss I might have been able to forget. At sixteen, we fantasized together about the wedding we would have (saying ‘I do’ in unison at the stroke of midnight of the new millennium). At seventeen, when both of us were too cool to acknowledge our anxiety about the future, he kissed me for the last time.

In all that time, the first eighteen years of my life, I don’t remember telling him I loved him and yet I don’t remember feeling anything else. Even the moments when I despised him, I did so because I really loved him. Despite the glances and smiles that turned into hugs and kisses, I never admitted that I would do anything for him. It was easier to say that I was going to college, not that I was walking away. It was easier to focus on where I was going than to admit that I would have stayed for him. And, for his part, he never asked me to. When I think about it now, it seems impossible that things could have happened any other way. Even if I had told him how much I loved him, I would still be here today without him. I knew he would have insisted that I go, just as he knew the truth behind everything I didn’t say. He always saw in my eyes the same thing I saw in his: the stunning recognition of love, all the sameness beneath our differences. I know this because the last time I saw him he told me so.

My leaving set us on different paths that crossed again only once, only briefly, when I graduated from college. Even though I was dating someone else and graduating nearly a thousand miles from home, he dropped everything to be there. In that one move, he taught me that there is no substitute for expressing love, and that love is not bound by time, distance, or even silence. He taught me that when I feel something, to say so.

Firsts
by Mitchell Close

You’ve told me it was beautiful that day. The sky was clear and the sun was shining bright. Birds were chirping and children were laughing as they played nearby. I don’t remember any of that. I only remember the look on your face as we biked through the park. The sound of your laughter as we told jokes back and forth. The way your hair blew back when we picked up speed. Days like those are some I’ll never forget.

After transferring to a new high school in the middle of my senior year, I thought nothing good would come out of the change. I had lived for the hustle and bustle of the city. Movement. It was poetic to me. Everyone was always on the move and always had things to do and people to see. The countryside town we moved to after my parents divorced was the complete opposite. There were only a few trees miles around the town. There was only one market and they got shipments in once a month. It was… quiet. Everything was new for me.

The first day of class is always the hardest, and that day was no exception. The school had twenty-three students in my grade. I walked into the senior classroom totally nervous, unaccustomed to two thousand less people walking the halls with me. The teacher was welcoming, but the class was everything but. Cold stares followed my walk to my desk. But when I sat down, you were next to me, striking up a conversation immediately. Your wide green eyes were the first thing I saw. You were so different. So… awake. Something I just wasn’t – something I couldn’t be.

Every day I went to class less and less to learn and more just to be with you. I tried to deny my affection for you, but you were intuitive. You caught on right away. And one day, you just asked. The day is a blur – the surroundings, gone. But the question… It was so you. “Wanna catch a movie tonight?” I was completely caught by surprise. I’m pretty sure my face was red the rest of the day and that the other twenty-one students knew about us, but I didn’t care. All I could think about was that night. We would be together… it was what got me through the day sane.

When you picked me up, we talked right away. I had been on a date before, but it was completely awkward. We hardly talked, and when we did, it was about the weather. But with you, everything seemed to fall into place. When you held my hand, it was like two puzzle pieces fitting together, and everything was right in the world. I remember thinking that you were just too perfect. That this couldn’t be real. But it was. The night ended too fast.

You were the first person I had ever kissed when we kissed that night, and a couple weeks later, the first person I ever told “I love you” to. You were also the first love I ever lost, when you were killed by that drunk driver the following year. Your funeral was the first I cried at. You were the first person I had given my heart to, and the first person I ever opened up to, about my parent’s divorce, my stillborn brother, and many other things. I died every day after your death. But you taught me so many things before you died. You taught me to be myself, but most importantly, you taught me love, something I didn’t think I could give anyone. Every day I am so thankful for the wonderful two years you were in my life.

As the Sun May Rise
by Alexandra Foxx

That summer I lived in the west wing of the monastery in a long room filled with scarcely occupied beds. The men lived in the east wing—the crumbling wing with cold rusty water and old pipes that groaned when used at night. Between the wings were the nuns’ quarters, their ears trained to hear the soft footsteps of a teenager against the worn carpet.

His name was Kyle and we met at the beginning of camp. We were in a huge group, talking, getting to know each other when he asked, “So is anyone going running tomorrow?” I paused, waiting for someone else to answer first and then said, “I love to run.” That was the first time he smiled at me, one side of his mouth crinkling up higher than the other, creating a lopsided dimple. I fell in love with that dimple first.

We had the surrounding lands to ourselves on dew filled mornings. We met every day at four to watch the sunrise as we climbed over a swollen hill, into the orchard. We climbed high into the trees to watch the hues of pink, red, orange, and yellow all melt against the greenness in the distance.

After the sun rose high enough to peek in-between the trees, we would run. Trails wound through the woods, twisting past old decaying murals and eroding stone pulpits. We ran until we couldn’t breathe, until our worlds grew light and our legs heavy and then we would lay in the grass, cheek to cheek, and just listen to the world going [on] around us.

Kyle would press his face close to mine and whisper jokes that made me laugh until birds, disturbed by the thunderous sound, beat their wings against loose tree leaves, hushing us. Other times he just held me, and we let the quiet say what was between us.

But once the breakfast bell rang—a foreign sound that tore down the illusion of Eden—we hurried back to the dining hall, apart.

Through the weeks we became best friends and then something more. We made excuses to see each other during the day, and we always had our early morning wanderings. Soon enough all I could think about was him. At noon we’d steal away to the orchard again, hiding in the giant pear trees from passing interlopers, quietly singing Bob Dylan. It was there I told him about all the little hurts, and the great hurts in my life. He was the first person I ever told about the reason I couldn’t sleep at night, the reason I cried. He was the first person to tell me it was all going to be ok—and I believed him. He was worth believing.

But the season came to an end, tearing down the summer leaves in streaks of burnt orange. On our last night, Kyle skirted between the wings of the monastery to say goodbye in private before we all left the next morning.

I’ll never forget how he whispered in French that he loved me. We sent letters back and forth, murmuring into the paper those dangerous words of love. For years we were best friends, lovers, supporters, confidants, and then, slowly, inexplicably, we faded away from each other the way summer fades to fall.

Years have passed and there have been new loves, new stories to fill my heart. But Kyle was the first person who made me see how beautiful I was, how beautiful I could be. He was the first person to push away my darkness and let the sun kiss my skin. I couldn’t say I thought it would last forever—there were too many problems for that—but I also wouldn’t say I regret a moment. Like each individual memory of him, my love for him slipped away a little at a time but every now and then, especially when I drive by green hills, I still think of him and his lopsided smile and I can’t help but wonder where he is now and hope his life is as beautiful as mine, as beautiful as we were all those summers ago.

THE SUMMER I KNEW
by Juliana Hill Howard

August of 1953 changed my life forever. It was my first experience in a canoe tripping camp for girls. The camp was located in the far North land ,just below Lake Superior. Camp Widjiwagon prepared women from thirteen to eighteen with all the necessary skills to take extended canoe trips into the Quetico Provincial Park in Canada. This is an area forever set aside as wilderness. No motors, roads or building will ever be allowed.

It was the summer of my thirteenth birthday and I was beginning to feel many stirrings in my body and soul. Sexual feelings that I could not express or completely understand began to make themselves known. All my friends were beginning to laugh, giggle and talk incessantly about boys. Everyone had a crush on a boy from school or someone’s older brother or the bagger in the local grocery. Why were my feelings so different?

During the six weeks I had spent perfecting my J Stroke, learning to flip a canoe and carry it on my back down portages of a mile or more, and packing a "Duluth Pack" so that it was balanced, padded with soft things in the back and held everything necessary for canoe tripping, the constant conversation among the girls was Marge, the camp director's daughter. She would be returning shortly from an extended trip into Canada and all the old campers and staff had stories to tell of this extraordinary woman who could paddle all day, carry a canoe for hours and hold a steady course across a lake, no matter how big it was or how hard the wind was blowing.

Finally, the anticipated day arrived. We all stood on the bluff overlooking Basswood Lake and watched her canoe trip arrive. You could hear the voices of the trippers singing all the way across the lake, "Break Out the Oars, Course set for...Widjiwagon". My eyes scanned the horizon. Which one was she? Suddenly, there could be no doubt. She was in the stern of the second canoe, red felt hat set at a rakish angle, blue work shirt tied at the waist and long tanned legs showing at the end of her cutoff blue jeans.

My stomach jumped, my heart seemed to flip and time stood still. My legs felt weak and then I began to realize what was different about my feelings compared to my friends. This woman made me know what all my longings and aching were about and why I did not know how to express them. It was a woman I was attracted to and this day charted the rest of the course of my life.

We fell head over heels in love and it lasted for the next ten years. She lived in Milwaukee and I lived in River City, Iowa. We wrote letters every day for more than six of those years, lived together part of our college years and then, one day we let each other go. There were too many other women in her life and I could not go on in that manner. I knew she loved me, but I needed to be her only love.

Twenty- seven years went by without any contact between us. We finally were reunited in 1990 and she still took by breath away. Although we both have other partners, I cannot help by hold her close in my heart. She was my first love. It was a passion, perhaps, unlike any I have known since. She helped me understand who I was and nothing was ever the same again.

Coming to terms with being a lesbian in the late 50's and 60's, was a difficult path to tread. Marge showed me the way and helped me know that it would be okay. Those were scary days to be Gay and she gave me the confidence and assurance I needed to go forward with my life.

My Hero
by Ariella Nasuti

Inter-racial dating was not common forty years ago in the small town where I grew up – at least not for twelve year olds. In those days, there were two African Americans in our school - Joe and Larry Prince. Joe was a star athlete who sprinted his way across the minefield that is junior high, silencing his critics with the sheer enormity of his talent. His brother, Larry, had the lanky build of a dreamer and the hands of an artist. Instead of the muscled t-shirts favored by most boys, Larry wore flannel shirts and baggy jeans. He wasn’t blessed with the ability to run fast or jump high, but he could make people laugh. His sense of humor set Larry apart but he was convinced it could also bring the world closer, for even the most ignorant kids would see in time that laughing with Larry was more fun than hitting him. And it was, but not as much fun as kissing him.

Larry and I first kissed in a darkened hallway lined with floor to ceiling lockers. I mention the setting because the feel of louvered metal pressing into my upper back as Larry took me in his arms isn’t something easily forgotten. Still, it was worth it. That the kiss was tentative, chaste, brief and somewhat awkward goes without saying – we were in seventh grade, after all. And seventh graders in my day weren’t as sophisticated as they are today - a point of both pride and shame for my generation.

The morning after ‘the kiss’ I received a missive from Larry, one passed to me in a crowded hallway between classes. Expecting a declaration of undying love, instead I glanced down to see a hand-made comic book. Every few days after that, I received a new installment in the saga of The Captain, a crime-fighting superhero born of Larry’s imagination. After school, he’d read the comics aloud to me, bringing the painted images and printed dialogue to life. We’d sit on the grassy playground behind the gym, knees touching and heads bent over Larry’s handiwork. As he spoke, I’d stare into his chocolate brown eyes, seeing a hero more real to me than any superhero could ever be.

As The Captain battled injustice with his fists, Larry fought racism with words, disarming his enemies one joke at a time. Some mistook his gentle manner for weakness, but I knew better. Larry taught me that although punching a bully may stop him, it doesn’t make him think. Larry’s method did. In time, he won over all but the most hard-core racists. When that happened, Larry no longer needed The Captain for guidance and inspiration. So, he stopped writing the comics. The superhero he’d created slipped into the shadows of my mind, resurfacing only in dreams and scraps of memory that flit through my thoughts at odd moments. When that happens, I remember the lesson of those comics: that good always vanquishes evil. That’s what Larry believed, or at least the way he wanted life to be.

During our hectic high school years, as sports and work moved center stage, Larry and I drifted apart. Like all teenagers, our gaze shifted from the security of what we knew toward the promise of distant horizons. Part of me regrets that we lost touch, for I never knew the man Larry became. But, another part will always celebrate the gentle, funny, imaginative boy he was. In countering racism with humor, bitterness with optimism, and ugly words with barbed jokes, Larry walked a path few do. And because he welcomed me – a white girl – into his heart, he didn’t do it alone.

Yes
by Sylvia Outley

When you asked me if I had ever loved anyone before, I felt the skip in my heartbeat, our relationship being so young and the ocean of possibilities stretching out way beyond my world and coming back to lap at my feet. I stared at your fingers waiting just next to mine on my knee.

Samuel Fisher was too old to notice me, and Amish. When I was seven and he was eleven, I scraped my leg and he carried me home from the pond on his back with the stride of a hero, laden with my brown, awkward limbs. When I was nine and he was thirteen, Sadie told him about the teenagers that had driven by, yelling things about me that neither of us quite understood. I felt my stomach dance for just a moment when he surprised me with such poorly hidden anger, and I felt protected by his disgust. When I was eleven and he was fifteen, I watched him throwing hay bales down to his father and brother from the flatbed cart while the team of sweaty mules waited sleepily, and I loved him.

When I was fourteen, it was the summer of the sheep. Three lambs died of lockjaw and the big ram broke his leg in the fence. Samuel was eighteen. It was almost two weeks into the summer visit with my grandparents when I finally saw him. He appeared in the milking barn while I talked to Sadie over the rhythmic hissing and clicking of the milking machines. His mother never raised her head, moving from one cow to the next. He was wearing a t-shirt and dirty sneakers and no suspenders. He followed her from cow to cow and told her that he had made up his mind. They switched between Pennsylvania Dutch and English and low stubborn tones and aggravated shouts. I stared. He didn’t even notice me, the half black girl with Amish grandparents that came from the city and tried to make herself at home in his sister’s hand-me-down dresses. He didn’t even notice that I was there to adore him for yet another summer, this year with my wild hair tamed and a bra. His mother finally reduced her end of the argument to one simple statement, “You’re not going to Florida,” and Samuel got frustrated and left.

I came across him as I walked to my grandparent’s farm. He was coming through his front yard and he jogged to catch up with me. We walked in silence for a minute before he began asking me questions. He asked about Philadelphia, school, my father, my friend, my church. We went to the pond and stayed for the rest of the afternoon. And I knew that Annie Fisher was wrong; her son was leaving. Before we went our separate ways, I kissed him on the cheek and he didn’t look surprised.

When I was eighteen and Samuel was twenty-two, Aaron Blank’s buggy was hit by a car. Two days after my stay with my grandparents had ended, Aaron Blank was dead. Two days after that, Samuel was home, back in suspenders and an Amish shirt. When I was twenty, Samuel was married and starting a farm of his own. And I, away at college and not having seen him since the time he wasn’t surprised by my kiss, was heart-broken.

Now I wait for you to come home from a war that I can’t even imagine beyond my cliché vision of desert and my vision of you the way you looked when you tried on your body armor while I watched. I remember the time I told you, yes, I had loved someone before. I grew into a woman still clinging to a child’s love, and I came away with a dreamer’s heart. I remember how I felt with you waiting for the answer and the ocean lapping at my feet.

Your Memory More Real
by Judah Raine

The way was hard, sometimes. And so often you would thank me - for little things, like toast and honey, and a pen that wouldn’t run dry when you had to write lying down. And you said I’d touched your life, and you were glad you had found me. But looking back, as I sift through the memories and trace their textured colours, I see now that it wasn’t that way at all.

I could be strong, because your strength was so much greater. I could have faith, because your faith was so much simpler. I could endure, because your courage was so much deeper. Somehow, you filled the space you were in. Not with words or demands, or even obligations. Just filled it gently, then overflowed, and gave, and gave, and gave. I knew from the start that I would always share you with the world. There just was too much of you for one heart to hold. But that was okay, because somehow the more you gave, the more you had to give.

Our time was so short, and now our “together-dreams” are gone. But we had so much. We lived so much. And I had the most precious gift of all. I had the chance to walk with you, even just for a little while, to share the moments of pain and to comfort you, the moments of fear and to hold you, the moments of peace and the moments of joy, and to be touched by your humility and your courage. I was able to walk with you, and then to watch as you “walked” on out of sight to a place where I cannot follow until another time. But, though the space in my heart is as great as the space you filled, I am at peace with your going, as you were, knowing that at last you are free. I am at peace because, through all those long, dark hours, it wasn’t I who prepared you for the leaving, but you who prepared me for the staying behind.

It’s the courage of your dying that keeps me strong, keeps me holding on through the dying of all that I was with you. And all the wisdom in your waiting to die taught me so much - of life, of love, of hope and of acceptance. I learned to see myself through your eyes, learned to touch the simple things that make the deepest memories. I learned to laugh, and to cry, to immerse myself in those moments where silence can be beautiful and darkness kind. I learned to love without reservation, without fear, without hesitation. I learned to trust and to dream. I learned how to say goodbye. And I learned how to go on.

I can’t pretend I don’t think of you. When I wake, alone, in the grey light of dawn. When things get too much and I don’t know where to turn. When I see a special beauty, or hear a phrase, or catch a scent of rain on its way. And sometimes I wish that you could hold me, enfold me in the beating of your heart or simply touch me with your smile. You will always be there, larger than life itself, and sometimes your memory seems more real than I, softly, in the silence within.

Yes, the way was hard, sometimes. And so often you would thank me for the little things. And you would tell me you were so glad you had found me and that I had touched your life. But, looking back, I see that if I did, in some small way, touch your life, it was because you loved me. And, in giving me the joy of loving you, my life was touched, and healed, and changed. Though the ache in my heart is as great as the space you filled, still I can be content. Because, for just a little while, I held in my hand the most precious gift of all, and I know in a place much deeper than the sadness that, if I’d known what was to come, I’d have done it anyway.

On the First Day of Sixth Grade
by Cristie A. Tanji-Tallman

We met on the first day of sixth grade. You sat down in the desk next to mine, said hello with a funny little smile that was three parts shy and two parts hopeful. My entire life changed right then, because for the next seven years, you have been my best friend. It’s not something I can shake my head about, it’s true as any fact you could find: if you had sat four rows over and two seats back, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today.

I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you.

We were just friends, at first, and we would just argue over difficult math problems and laugh at our misspellings in English, and when we’d chase one another through the four-square courts. Our other friends knew it long before I did, that we were perfect together. They’d corner me and ask why we weren’t dating yet, and I would just snort out an answer—something about just being friends.

I can still remember the day in tenth grade when I realized that they had always, always, been right. We were both late for class, and we were laughing as we ran through the school’s courtyard, barely dodging the security guard who would have sent us to detention. When we reached my destination, you grinned and pulled me in for a hug. You were so much taller than me, then, and still are, that my face was just shoved into your chest, and I—I was hit so abruptly with a fluttering burst of joy. I knew that I never wanted to let you go; that I never wanted you to let me go.

But falling in love isn’t so simple, and I was suddenly lost. Five years of being next to you didn’t prepare me for the nerves that moved into my stomach every time you sat near me. I couldn’t decide anymore what to wear, or how to do my hair, and every time that I tried and you didn’t notice, I would go home and cry. It was so hard, then, to know when I could hug you, and when it changed from something okay for friends to do, into something more. I had to watch my every step, careful.

You were my best friend, and I couldn’t risk changing that by telling you about my dreams—the dreams where you were always right there, with me, holding me close and keeping me there, safe and warm and sweet. You were my husband; my partner-in-crime. Even when I was awake, I couldn’t stop looking at you, admiring the way your dirty blonde hair would messily fall into your dark, brown eyes, contrasting with how pale you were. My favorite time to look at you was when you were laughing, because your dimples would show, and your sharp cheekbones couldn’t hide the sparkle your eyes had, crinkling at the corners. By twelfth grade, I had all but given up hope of you ever noticing how I felt.

I called you one night, hiding in my room when I’d had a fight with my mother. You came and stole me away, took me out to pretend everything was alright. We sat and ate ice cream in your dirty old jeep, talking for hours about nothing and everything, until you said—you said that when you sat down next to me in sixth grade, it was because you had maybe sort of liked me, and that you maybe sort of still did.

I laughed and yelled and suddenly—it was like everything had come true.

We kissed for the first time at Christmas, and we still laugh about how chaste and embarrassing a kiss it had been, even now that the romance is gone, replaced by a friendship too strong to have been ruined by the attempt. I want you to know that I still love you today, and that I will tomorrow, and every day after. You’ll never be my husband, but you were always my partner-in-crime, someone who changed my life and helped make me the woman I am, just by sitting next to me when we were eleven-years-old.

Young Love, Old Rules
by Samantha Ducloux Waltz

The warmth of teen-age love infused my body as I clasped my hands behind Mel’s neck and we swayed to the music. We’d discovered each other at the Encampment for Citizenship, a six-week summer program for high-school graduates held in Berkeley, California. 1963 was a time of social rumblings across America, and students from all over the country had come to learn how we could make a difference.

Heady with idealism, I noticed Mel, an African American from Chicago, the first evening we Encampers gathered in the multi-purpose room of our dormitory for orientation. He was the tallest student there, his yellow sport shirt stunning against his ebony skin, his big smile inviting.

Within days we were inseparable. We sat next to each other in morning classes, held hands afternoons as we walked the streets of Berkeley with surveys on employment practices, and evenings sang "We Shall Overcome" with our new friends. I still have the heart-shaped redwood pendant necklace Mel gave me on our EFC field trip to the Redwoods. He called me Princess and treated me with more tenderness and respect than I’d ever known. It seemed we had a fairy-tale romance.

If people raised an eyebrow at the young black man and white girl as we passed, I stood a bit taller. We were part of a changing society where I believed we could ultimately be accepted as a couple.

“Please come to Pasadena and meet my parents,” I begged when EFC ended. “They’ll love you too.” I’d written them about Mel and they’d raised no objections. Mother was a member of NAACP and had a dear black friend who visited in our home. Although we were active Mormons, she was adamant that the Church policy at that time of denying blacks the priesthood was wrong. Dad held the same values. I imagined they were proud of me for living the liberal values they espoused.

Mel was hesitant, but finally agreed to come and stay with another Encamper who lived near me. My first afternoon home I counted the seconds until he came to my house.

Finally the doorbell rang. My parents and I arrived at the front door at the same time. There on the porch stood my sweet, handsome boyfriend, holding a bouquet of pink carnations for me, or perhaps for my mother. When I looked into his face my breath caught. “Mother, Dad, this is Mel,” I said proudly.

Mother’s breath caught too. "He's so dark," she moaned as she took a step back from the door. "My heart," she said, her hand clutching her chest as she slumped to the living room carpet.

"Probably an angina attack. I’ll get her pills,” I said as my father knelt beside her and Mel stood watching, concern written in every line of his face.

Worry and anger mixed in me. Mother had suffered with angina since rheumatic fever had weakened her heart when she was just seven years old. What a welcome for my wonderful boyfriend!

When I returned Mother was conscious and my father and I helped her into their bedroom. Although I invited Mel into the living room, he waited on the porch.

With Mother settled in bed I went to him and reached up to put my arms around his neck. He caught both my hands, kissed them, then pressed them against his cheek. “Good-bye Princess,” he said.

“Won’t I see you tomorrow? I’ll meet you anywhere.”

Tears burned my eyes.

He shook his head. He was ready to take on the disapproving frowns of strangers when we went out together, but he wasn’t ready to take on Mother's heart condition.

Decades later I understand that societal rules taught Mother as a child, and forces still at work in 1963, were far stronger than Mother’s liberal ideas she’d developed as an adult. Today society has different rules. A black man is our president. In many cities a couple like Mel and me might be able to enjoy a happy ending to their fairy tale romance. I wish it could have been us.

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