Have you ever stepped back in time to revisit your memories of the one who got away, that special somebody who earlier in your life made such an impact that when it was over you felt a piece of you had been removed? If you could rewind your time, would you do anything differently, or would it all play out the same, for better or worse? I often thought about scenarios like this; little did I know I’d soon have my chance.

I’d first met her early on during sixth grade, just as I’d become interested in girls but had absolutely no technique or comfort with talking to them. It was an awkward time for boys, when manhood was still years away but the changes were coming anyhow. One day I opened my eyes and the girls around me appeared differently. And I felt differently. The idea of talking to girls and holding their interest was a daunting proposition, and I always got very nervous. Kristie was like the other girls at school in most ways – nicely dressed, a tan face and body, and as cute as any twelve year-old making her way into puberty could be – but when she smiled it made me melt. It was like she was smiling only for me. These were the stupid thoughts occupying the mind of a twelve year-old.

My inability to talk to Kristie in any meaningful way or follow through on my desires kept her out of my life. We ended up going to different middle schools and I lost track of my dream girl until high school, when she re-appeared as a fully developed and smoking hot tenth grader. Time had been good to her. Time had been good to me too as it turned out. My seventh through ninth grade years had been spent gawking at my sister’s beautiful friends, all of whom were cheerleaders. I listened to their stories and advice on how to talk to women. They taught me how to be comfortable around them and how to look past a woman’s beauty and engage her on other grounds. They taught me how to get over my teen insecurities. They taught me how to not let a woman’s beauty be cause for intimidation. They even taught me how to dance and respond to a woman’s body on the dance floor. By tenth grade I was ready, and Kristie didn’t even know what hit her.

We dated through high school, and after graduating we split once we realized there was no way we could maintain the relationship with me going to UC Santa Barbara, and her going to Texas A&M in the fall. It was the only amicable split I ever went through. We never fought. We never monopolized each other’s time, and always allowed time to spend apart with our friends. We saw eye to eye on nearly everything. We were just another sickly-sweet high school couple in love.

I never once regretted breaking up with her. If we hadn’t, one of us might not have ended up at the school of our choice. We might not have finished with degrees. Who knows, if we hadn’t broken up maybe we’d be married right now. Maybe children would be part of the equation. None of that happened, and I am very thankful we held the cards we were dealt.

“Why again are you telling me all this shit?” asked Les, the most reserved and withdrawn of our ladykillers group of guys at work.

“You’ve never had one of these when you were younger?” I replied.

“Nope, never have.”

“Well, it was fun while it lasted. And I think it’s because of her I don’t go looking for relationships. I think that’s why I’m a regularly single dude.”

“Because you are comparing them all to her?” he asked.

I thought about the implication. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Les ran a hand across his face. “Again, you’re telling me this because...”

“Because she’s here, Les. Right here in Toronto. And she’s found me. She called me yesterday.”

Kristie had been in contact with our high school’s alumni program, on which my sister Alexis was a board member. I didn’t even know my high school had an active alumnus group, but apparently Kristie was persistent, so Alexis gave her the hotel’s number.

“Wow, that’s a strange trip down memory lane,” Les replied. “Wouldn’t it sort of creep you out, this person you haven’t heard from in ages all of the sudden calling you out of the blue?”

“At first I was a little put off, but when we got to talking it was like revisiting old times. Good times. She’s here on business and wanted to get together for dinner and some catching up.”

“Watch it dude, there could be a little rekindling of old times,” he said. He made a circle with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and put his right forefinger through it, laughing.

“Nope. She’s engaged. I think this whole meeting is so she can have closure.”

“Bummer. I’d rather have the rekindling.” Again he put his finger through the circle he made with his left hand.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Soliciting Les’s advice was all well and good, but I needed a second opinion, preferably from an older and more sophisticated mind. I had been taking daily walks around a loop on the lakefront since February, and not too long after starting I met a retired widower named Samuel. Samuel never walked; he sat on the same bench in the same spot at the same time of day, watching all the people pass. He was there when it was snowing, and he was there when it was clear. After a few days of talking with him, I persuaded him to join me in my walks around the loop. Our walks became filled with drawn-out discussions about everything from politics, to personal stories, to the weather. Nothing was off limits, nothing was taboo. Samuel had been a widower for less than a year, and I got the feeling he had been spending time at the busy section of the lakefront hoping to make a new friend. I got the feeling Samuel’s wife had occupied the majority of his life.

It had been raining continually so I stopped at Ralph Lauren and bought two umbrellas, hoping to surprise Samuel with a gift. His umbrella looked like it had been through decades of use and expired long ago, though he always had it at the ready.

“It’s no use today, it’s coming down too hard,” said Samuel when I met him. Today he didn’t have his umbrella. He instead covered his head with a copy of the Toronto Star.

“Nonsense, I have just what we need,” I replied, pulling the umbrellas from their bag. “One for each of us.”

“Good show! But I can’t accept that, it looks expensive.”

“Don’t think of the cost, Samuel. Think of it as a thank you for walking around with me every day. Not many oldsters want to be seen with the likes of me. I’m quite cavalier,” I joked.

Samuel alternated between laughing and coughing. Smoking had taken its toll on him even though he hadn’t touched a cigarette in over twelve years, he’d proudly tell you.

“Cavalier. Bah! Talking to you reminds me of how I used to be when I was young and energetic like yourself.”

“Eh, I don’t know about young any more,” I replied. “Look at all these gray hairs appearing in my sideburns,” I said, motioning to the areas.

“You don’t want to go comparing gray hairs with me, son.”

“Good point. But there's a portrait of me sitting in some attic that's growing older as we speak.” Samuel laughed at the Dorian Gray swipe.

We strolled along the shoreline as the rain continued its downpour. Usually I avoided the water when wearing dress shoes but today I didn’t care. The positives far outweighed the negatives.

“When do you go home?” asked Samuel.

“I don’t know. Every time I think it’s getting close, our project gets extended. Actually, delayed would be a more accurate term. I don’t know, maybe mid-May?”

“Would anything keep you here longer?”

“When I first arrived I spent January and part of February pining to go back home. I dreamt up ways of getting sent home. I think I was still getting over the shellshock of being relocated and dropped into a foreign place in the dead of winter. In the past month or so it’s swung the other way. I like it here, I like it a lot. If there was a way to stay, I would. But I'd need to hook up with another long-term account and get a permanent transfer.”

“You should look into it,” he responded.

“Why? Are you going to tell me you have a hot, twenty-something granddaughter you want me to meet?”

Samuel laughed. “No, I only have grandsons. I ask because maybe this city is good for you. I’ve listened to your stories about Los Angeles and your life there, and it seems like you are not a happy person. It seems like there you are trying to perform to somebody else’s expectations and not your own. Here it feels like you’ve been able to be the real you.”

“And what’s the real me?” I asked.

Samuel stopped and shrugged under umbrella.

“Well, it’s an interesting thought nonetheless,” I offered. “Let me ask you something, drawing upon your years of knowledge,” I said, changing the subject. Samuel again alternated between laughing and coughing as I continued. “Did you ever have a first love or a special someone who had a big impact on you and the way you lived out the next ten or so years of your life?”

“Sure did. I married her, too.”

It was my turn to stop walking. “You mean your wife was your one and only?”

“That’s right. Minerva and me, we were high school sweethearts. After I did my two years in Korea following secondary school we got married.”

“Huh, how ‘bout that,” I replied. “How quaint. You never hear about it happening like that anymore.”

“That’s because people are so consumed with fear and doubt,” Samuel replied. “They don’t have enough faith in their emotions and the ability to make a decision. It doesn’t even have to be right or wrong. That’s how we learn. Just make a decision you can stand behind with conviction.” This guy was old school, and I admired him for it.

“Any doubts?” I asked. “Did you ever stop and think years down the line about what in your life would have been different had you not done it like that?”

“No, mainly because I never once thought I was making the wrong choice. I’ve seen a lot of things in life, and there’s always been one constant: People do not want to be alone. If you can find that one person you want to be with for the long haul, then be with them. That’s why I never thought twice whether I was doing the right thing or not. There wasn’t anyone else I wanted to be with.”

I’d gotten ahead of Samuel a bit so I stopped while he caught up. “Wow, Minerva must have been some woman,” I said.

“One of a kind,” he said, smiling. “They broke the mold after they made her.” He paused and looked out at the lake. “It’s choppy today because of the rain. There’s something brewing below the surface. Sort of like you today. Why are you asking me all of this?”

I told him about Kristie and our time together in high school, the reasons for our split and how I’d been since. I told him she was here and how she had tracked me down, wanting to get together to catch up over dinner.

“Hmm. Where are you having dinner?”

“Three Crowns.”

“Oh, I’ve been there. Good steaks. Always busy.” Samuel stopped walking and scratched his forehead. His wool slacks were growing damp. All I could think about was Smauel catching pneumonia and how it would be my fault because I had to walk him around in the rain while I asked his advice about my high school girlfriend.

“Revisiting the past always has its risks,” Samuel continued. “You want to remember only the good things, but in time you begin to recall other memories and all the frayed edges you didn’t focus on before. You remember why you broke up, and then the mind starts wandering off into ‘what if’ scenarios. You can’t do that. You can only occupy yourself with what did happen, not what could have happened.”

“So should I go see her?”

“What are you expecting will happen – you’ll rekindle some old flame and she’ll swoon in your arms, begging to pick up your romance where it left off? You were both children then. How long has it been again?”

“Almost seven years,” I replied.

“So what do you want out of this?” he again asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe I just want to see that she’s doing well and going our separate ways was the right thing to do.” I stopped and sat down on a wet bench. The water immediately began seeping into my slacks. I was going to have a fun time explaining my wet ass back at the office. “Maybe I just want to thank Kristie for her part in molding me into what I am today.”

Samuel stroked his chin, gruff with stubble from not having shaved this morning. “It’s a tough call. Wait until you hear that little voice inside you. You’ll know when you hear it. It rarely lies.” He looked up at the sky. “The rain is slowing down, so I’m going to make a run for it. Well, as close to a run as I can make. Same time tomorrow, Reed?”

“Like the postman, I’ll be here – rain, snow, or sun.”

Samuel laughed. “Sun. Let’s not get our hopes up.”

He was right about not getting my hopes up. I shouldn’t when it came to Kristie. Maybe she and I wanted the same thing, the satisfaction in seeing we each had made it into adulthood unscathed and for the better. And that’s when I heard it, that voice that resides somewhere inside us all. It told me she was doing well and living life on her own terms. She’d always been strong that way; she wouldn’t have changed. And I knew the moment I saw her my memories would be replaced with the vision of a woman seven years older, seven years a little more gray around the edges. And she would be seeing an older and gruffer version of whatever happy memories occupied her mind. We would no longer be peering through the looking-glass, we’d be shattering it. The best place for Kristie to stay was inside my head where it would always be 1998, where she would remain untarnished, eternally young and beautiful, and forever my high school love.