David.

Well, this is getting into the hard stuff for me. There is a reason that I'm writing this now - but that will come later.

For now...let's just start with David. The first David. The only David that ever should have been. My David.

He was a piano player at Interlochen Arts Academy. I saw him, heard him play before I ever met him. He was phenomenal. In the small concert hall, all blonde wood and cozy. One of the newer buildings. I was wearing my favorite sweater in the whole world - even until this day - my white angora sweater with a slightly low neckline and little heart buttons. The heart buttons sound tacky, I know, but they weren't. They were subtle and pearl white, you wouldn't even notice they were hearts unless you looked closely. Those girls in the 50's knew what was up. Every time I wore that sweater, people wanted to touch me.

Anyway. That was the night David came to my attention. I fell in love with the way he played, with the way he looked, carried himself, the shy smile that he barely threw to the audience as we were applauding madly. I knew who his sister was - and I couldn't BELIEVE she had a brother! A CUTE brother!!!

So, I did what any smart girl at IAA knew she had to do to meet the cute, shy musician of her dreams. I became his secret admirer.
For months I wrote him notes and left little things at the altar of his locker. For months I tortured over the question of whether he knew who I was and was ignoring me - or whether he could REALLY be so clueless as to not figure it out, already. Maybe he was gay. Half the guys there were....who knew?

Finally, with the support of my girlfriends, I left him a note asking him to meet me down by the lake. I had no idea if he would come - but I couldn't wait any longer.

It was a foggy night. I suggested we meet down by this little abandoned shed where kids used to go to sneak a cigarette. We had a name for it - but I forget what it was called. I was really, really nervous as I came around the corner and through the thick fog. Butterflies in my stomache, flutterbies in my head - the whole nine yards. As I looked around, my heart sank like a stone. He wasn't there. My ego was crushed, all my little fantasies deflated. He probably had a girlfriend - what was wrong with me? I had sent my spies to grill his sister - but she was in her own world, anyway - maybe she didn't know...?

And then, just as I had begun to believe the worst, I saw a tall, dark figure coming towards me in the fog. The fog was so thick that night, he looked like a ghost. I couldn't even see his face until he was 2 feet away from me...but there he was!

I was so happy that he had come. But this WAS the big reveal. Maybe he would be disappointed that it was me. Or maybe he already knew. I was so nervous. And it seemed like he was, too, because the first few minutes were very akward, and the akwardness was fueled by the romantic fog and set on fire by the sexual tension. I mean, before we had even touched each other.

David pretended that he had no idea it was me sending all those notes. But he did say he recognized my perfume from them when he leaned in to kiss me.

We kissed in the fog, on the beach, for as long as we were allowed to before we would have gotten into trouble.

I actually remember leaving David for the first time that night. It was the first time we had ever been together (in any way - except notes) and it was the first time I ever had to leave him. It was wonderful and horrible all at once. He sent me back to my dorm room on a cloud for the most part. I was singing, dancing, hugging myself - off my noggin to tell my best mates all about it.... But it was a little horrible, too. Even that very first night, when all we did was try to fit a little talking in between the kissing, I felt like I never wanted to leave him. It felt like something was ripped away from me - physically. And mentally. And spiritually.

Little did either of us know that night how close we would become. What we would go through together. Little did we know then - safe at Interlochen - what crazy hell ride through my past and present we would be experiencing together.