i'd for a long time had an interesting (probably best to say difficult?) relationship with her. grades nine through eleven i didn't have any relationships or even want any, something i've since seen as a defense mechanism for all the stuff that happened to me at the start of high school. then towards the end of grade twelve, things started to change. i developed a crush on that girl. call her [rheanne]. [rheanne] and i knew each other for years through playing in the school band. i wasn't alone in my feelings for her. she moved easily from one relationship to another in one of my friend groups, and after we graduated high school, she took a summer job the next province over, and we wrote to each other sporadically july and august. when she got back we'd make plans and she'd break them, or just not show up. she'd later travel to england, take jobs waitressing. i wrote to her. i got the occasional letter back. another friend wrote to her as well. he received many more letters.
i think it was around that point where i took the hint. i remember at the time being sort of lowkey devastated, but in retrospect was i any different? while i was hoping things were reciprocated with [rheanne], i was at the same time falling for a girl from montreal; kissing someone i shouldn't; & locking fingers with someone in an old sedan as we drove through the rural night. i was moving easily too, though i didn't see it at the time. i was finding my heart and enjoying the adrenaline, and even though i was filling up with all kinds of want, i wasn't ready for anything. i don't pretend to know for sure, but i suspect the same was true for [rheanne] with her own life, her would-be men.
last fall i was out visiting my family. my brother and i had been talking about people we knew from back in the day — which was quite a few, because despite our sizable age gap, our scenes overlapped (he was friends with brothers of my friends, and knew some of my friends too). later at the cabin, my dad asked, whatever happened to... [he couldn't remember the name] ...i remember she'd come over and cook for you. she seemed sweet on you, used to give you these glances, and...
do you mean [rheanne]? he said that he did. i told him there was never anything real between us (half true). that things were kinda complicated then.
interesting that my parents still remember her, too. she and i haven't talked since the early 2000s, haven't hung out since like, '99, 2000? a long time ago. a year or two ago on facebook, we talked briefly, she mentioned how her kid was now in the same band program we met each other in thirty years ago. oh, that's wonderful!, i wrote. knowing they were likely to start feeling things the same way we did then.