When my old roommate Larry was so depressed because he got an F on the paper he stayed up all night to finish, angry that he had to blow off a date with his sweetie to write it, and was so traumatized because he was also forced to spend six hours meeting with his professor in her closet-sized office filled with Star Wars action figures and reeking of marijuana, why on Earth did he think that watching a repeat of The A-Team in our living room wearing nothing but sweats and a garbage bag at six in the morning would make him feel better?
When my best friend Todd was so depressed that the blue with red fins Beta fish he bought as a Frosh for a dollar thirty from the ecstasy-seller down the hall died three and a half years later, why in the world did he think singing "Old Danny Boy" as his li'l buddy tumbled in a clock-wise circle down the pink-fungus covered porcelain behemoth in his college dorm room would make him miss his fish "Jose Cuervo" that much less?
And of course... when I'm depressed about my girlfriend being abroad in a country 5,000 miles away for five and half months with limited access to phone and e-mail, why do I think a shot of 151 will make it all better? As I pour my shot, I can't help thinking, why have I successfully tricked myself into believing that I'll be happier since I'm giving into my depression? In the same thought, I realize that after a few shots, I won't be too concerned because I'll be lucky if I can formulate a well-reasoned thought or remember my name. So there you go, I'm not exactly succumbing to my depression, I'm just trying to hide it.
The shotglass now containing my Bacardi 151 is one Melissa bought me while we were walking around town during our first date. It's clear colored and the words "Orlando, Florida" are written in bright red on it. There are pictures of light blue colored bubbles, a green palm tree, a yellow star fish, and a multi-colored beach ball scattered around the whole cylinder.
She knows I've been collecting shotglasses for years; I have them from Alaska, Germany, California... all over. I have them mostly to remember trips I've gone on or to help me remember other special occasions (like my High School graduation). She said she had a feeling I'd want to remember this first date; I like to think of that shotglass as the beginning of our story, but in truth, it wasn't.
I first met my girlfriend, my sweetheart, the first and thus far only girl I've ever loved, Melissa, at a party a few months ago that was being busted up by a weasely little Sophomore RA named Ryan Nibot. I wasn't on duty that night, but I was playing beer pong with someone's 14-year-old brother, doing shots with sophomores, and playing asshole with girls who won't turn 21 for another 2 and 1/2 years. So naturally, I was fired if Nibot caught me.
So, when the knock came from the door, I went and hid. How did I know it was him? As a Frosh, I learned very quickly how to tell the difference between a knock from an acquaintance, a knock from a friend, and a knock from an enemy (i.e. the RA). And by going on enough rounds with Nibot this year, I quickly learned that his knock - three short, quick ones followed by a long and loud one - was easy to distinguish. So once I heard those three short, quick ones followed by a long and loud one, I high-tailed it into the bathroom and was about to shut the door behind me before I heard a young, sweet voice yell, "Hey!"
I opened the door to see one of the cutest girls I've seen in all my three and a half years at Florida State. She had short blonde hair (yes, the brown roots were showing, but either color would have looked great on her). She had small, round, hazel eyes, and a smile where you could see each of her perfectly white teeth. Like I said, she was one of the cutest girls I have ever seen. And that's all that would register with me if that's where my story ended. Wow, cute girl. That's it.
But luckily, the story didn't end there. Because if it did, I wouldn't get a chance to see Melissa when she looks hot. Or see her when she looks beautiful. Or, God help me, when she dresses up sexy. I would have lived my whole life, or at least my entire college career thinking that girl was just cute. And I would have been missing out on a lot. A whole lot.
She asked me if she could come inside. Well, she asked as she was coming inside, so it really was a foregone conclusion. I figured it would be nice to have company. We could chat about classes, I could find out what her favorite movies were, and we could discuss the political situation between the United States and North Korea.
That and I would probably need help jimmying open the bathroom window with my credit card. Melissa literally jumped inside, and I locked the door behind her. Within a few seconds, we heard lots of shhs, a lot of 'oh man I'm deads,' and even an 'oh-baby-do-it-to-me-harder' (the bathroom shares a wall with one of the bedrooms). And then there was...
"I'm Melissa, who in the hell are you?"
Yes, those were the first words Melissa ever spoke to me, I remember as I look at my shotglass she bought me on our first date only a week and a half after that night.
I smile again when I think yet again about how cute she looked and take my shot.
The 151 burns like a thousand jalapeños covered in chili sauce, boiled in 300 degree water, and topped with a habañero glaze that is then shoved down my throat while someone hits me repeatedly in the gut with a sledgehammer. But- at least for a second, a half second, a quarter of a second, I forget that Melissa won't be coming back to me for three months, two weeks, and four days.
I was right before, I guess; succumbing to my depression doesn't make me happier, it just makes me forget why I was depressed in the first place. For a quarter of a second, at least. As I get ready to pour another shot, there's a knock at my door. I quickly throw the bottle of 151 under my bed and toss the shot glass back in my desk drawer.
"Hi, Lilah," I say as I answer the door.
"Ready to go on rounds, Holden?"
It has said on my R.A. application form for the last three years that my name is Holden. That's not a complete lie. It is my last name, but I treat it as my first. No, I don't want to nail J.D. Salinger against a cinder block wall; no, I don't think I'm the star of some Kevin Smith movie; and, no it's not that I hate my first name (Jon)... it's just that I've always seen myself as a Holden. Oh, and no, I don't plan on being some big name actor or rock star with just one name either.
"So, Holden, how's Melissa?" Lilah asks me, as we patrol the first floor of Wynacre Hall. Melissa is studying abroad in Sydney, Australia, this semester.
"She's good, I spoke to her a few days ago," I say. "I miss her a lot. I mean, it's another three months, two weeks, and four days till she gets back, but I'm holding on pretty good."
It's funny, when I wound up asking her out for a date a week after we first met, I barely even thought about her going to Sydney. I figured, who cares? She and I probably won't get past two or three dates, so what does it matter? My relationships always fail. We'll never get to the point where her going away could become a problem. Why should I even worry about it?
I figured I already knew the end to the story.
"How's orientation been for her?"
"She went on a pub crawl the night before last. Well, part pub crawl, part scavenger hunt."
"That worry you... her drinking over there?"
"No, why?" I ask, almost tripping over an exit sign on the ground.
"I thought she didn't like beer," Lilah says, as she jots down the broken exit sign in her trusty, little, handy, official RA notebook. I use mine, by the way, as a soda can coaster on top of my nightstand.
"She doesn't. She spent the night drinking Bacardi Breezers, Smirnoff Triple Blacks, and Mike's Hard Lemonades."
As she stops to hang up a fallen flyer advertising the musical for this coming weekend, Lilah asks, "All of that?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Just seems like a bit much."
"Nah," I say, adjusting my yellow R.A. badge that's close to falling off my green sweat paints stained with watermelon pucker (those were the shots I was doing a few nights ago).
"And that doesn't worry you?"
"Why do you keep asking me that?"
I know why Lilah keeps asking me that. I've heard all the rumors. I know the stories. The gossip. I keep my ear to the ground. I'm kept well-informed. I have hundreds of friends on this campus that are always eager to bring me in on the happenings here at Florida State's serene campus. I'm a man among men on this campus.
That and Lilah came in yakking about it to me the day she found out. Last fall, when Lilah's boyfriend Roger was abroad in Spain, he cheated on her. Except he didn't tell her until he came back. It was a one-time thing; he got really drunk one night and met this red-headed college student from California about a month, month and a half after he got there. The rest of the time, he was completely faithful to Lilah. And the thing is, Roger could have gotten away with it. The things you do over there, when you're abroad, a lot of that stuff can be covered up...or so they say. But he confessed it to her, anyway. As soon as he got back. Like, the second he walked in her door. He couldn't tell her when he was gone, he said. And he didn't want to break up with her while he was gone either, even though he knew that's what she would want to do when she found out. So he was stuck. Damned by whatever he did or didn't do about it. Maybe he deserved that. But still, I felt for the guy. He had to live a lie. Sucked for him. Sucked worse for Lilah. All those postcards professing love and talking about a future and about how much he missed her were a lie.
Or were they? I mean he loved her, he just made a mistake. Maybe he felt they could get past his stupid, drunken, idiotic, moronic, once-in-a-lifetime complete fuck-up. But if he really loved her, would he really make that kind of mistake?
"Jesus H. Christ," Lilah says, breaking me out of my train of thought, "Can they be any louder?"
Lilah motions to a room down the hall. 04A. Oh, I know 04A all right. Quite a cast of characters live in 04A.
There's Jerry, the lacrosse player who's got two alcohol strikes against him; Rob, the star of this weekend's performance of "Bye Bye Birdie"; Dirk, the 4.0 pot-smoking business major; Johnny Knox, the Texan who gained at least five freshman's worth of the Freshman-Fifteen this past year; Kev, a soccer player hobbling around on crutches thanks to wrestling with Billie; and Billie, the so-called "playa of the room." All six of those guys live in 04A.
04A, the room busted up for four violations in the first five weeks of school: alcohol, noise violation, alcohol, and alcohol. 04A, the room that has made the Campus Security Police Blotter twice this year (for public urination and destruction of a kitchen table while mud sledding). 04A, the room that first coined the idea of smuggling thirty-packs inside brown paper bags from Giant Supermarkets. 04A, the room that invented Thursday Night Butter Wrestling (don't worry, they covered the living room carpet in black garbage bags first). 04A, the room any good partier loves to spend their entire weekend (from Friday at 6 pm to Sunday at 4 pm) in. 04A, the room the mean RAs love to hate.
Now, I've never busted up 04A. Actually, in three years of being an RA, I've only written up two rooms. But I've heard of 04A. 04A is the kind of room Lilah loves to bust up. 04A is also the kind of room I try to avoid.
They're loud, they drink a lot, but because of people like Rob, they actually make sure no one gets hurt. And that's the important thing in my mind. Screw the law, screw the rules, screw the administration, and screw Student Life. I just want to make sure my residents are all right and avoid waking up in the quad during a early Saturday morning tour, on the artificial turf lacrosse field right before an important game, or worse, in a hospital bed suffering from alcohol poisoning.
"Let's go bust them up," Lilah says.
On the other hand, Lilah couldn't disagree with me more.
"Where are the people that live here?" Lilah asks the first guy that opens the door.
"Dunno, I just got here," the random guy says.
"Then why does that beer look like it's almost done?"
"I'm a fast drinker," the guy says as he walks right past Lilah and almost bumps into me. "Oh, hey, Holden."
"Hey, how are ya?"
"Do you know everybody?" Lilah asks me.
"If you're gonna do this, can you just do this?" I ask, rolling my eyes.
Lilah heads further into the room as various students stupidly try to hide their beer bottles behind their backs, or pretend the red Solo cup on the table next to them is not theirs and that they've never seen it before in their life, or hope that Lilah thinks the alcohol on their breath is actually a really strong Altoid. There's maybe less than fifteen people in the room; I don't know why Lilah can't just let them go with a warning. I try to hide near the door so no one knows I'm here. Or failing that, they think that even though I'm here, I hate what she's doing. These people don't deserve to be written up.
The first time I wrote someone up, they deserved it. It was during my Sophomore year. I knocked on the door of a Senior room in Galileo Hall on a cold Sunday night just before Christmas Break. I thought I heard a girl scream, and I wanted to know what the problem was. The guy who answered it was a lacrosse player I read about in "The Florida State Informer," the school's newspaper, a week before. He had gotten slapped with his second yellow card in as many games. Anyway, this guy opened the door without a shirt, a red stain running down his chest that smelled like grenadine, and a blue solo cup in his right hand. He asked me what the problem was. I said I heard a girl scream. He said that was his "loser-ass" roommate who had just lost at a game of quarters. I told him I didn't care what they were doing in there, I didn't care what they were drinking, and I didn't care what anyone's age was; I just wanted to make sure everyone was ok. He told me to beat it. I repeated what I had just said, and still, he wouldn't tell me what was going on. So, I had to force myself in.
The girl who had screamed turned out to be the friend of a girl passed out on the couch who had just vomited for the fourth time in her sleep. I got her to the hospital and wrote up the room. Shirtless guy was thrown off the lacrosse team. I lost a lot of friends that night. But I got that girl on the couch some help.
And yet I still couldn't bring myself to write up another room until just last week.
After taking everyone's ID card and writing down their ID number, Lilah delivers the bad news: "Ok, time for everyone to go home." Luckily she's not making them dump out their beers. "And then dump your beers down the sink." Well, at least she's not making them count them. "And then start counting them all for me." Never mind then.
I really hope she's not just doing this because of Roger. Some people can handle their alcohol.
Then again, maybe she's just doing this to forget about Roger for about five seconds, just like I drink every single night to forget about how much I miss Melissa.
And speaking of that... uh... OW! That 151 is really starting to burn, and I suddenly don't feel so well. I start leaning against the entrance for support as disgruntled Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores, and even Frosh start walking by me to leave. Some Frosh is even holding the hand of their teenage brother.
I feel bad for Lilah. I do. Lilah was completely faithful to Roger. She even had opportunities. There was that Senior she was completely in love with last year that just wanted one hot night with her when he was completely bombed out of his mind. And the guy who bought Lilah a single rose every day for twelve days just so she would go out to the movies with him. And then there was the guy visiting from Princeton that was a friend of Lilah's that just wanted to make out a little bit. But Lilah would have none of it.
Heck, at a Mardi Gras party she went to (this was back when she used to go to parties instead of breaking them up), she wouldn't let Todd lick whipped cream off her neck because she considered that cheating. And all the while Roger was living the lie of making a stupid mistake one drunken night.
I wonder if living that lie was punishment enough. I start to think about what if Melissa did that…no, it wasn't punishment enough.
That whipped cream actually reminds me of the second and only other room I've ever written up: the one from last week. I was on rounds with Nibot and I was bombed out of my mind. I was halfway through a vodka-cranberry after doing three concurrent shots of jolly rangers with a friends of mine when Nibot called me and said he wanted to go on rounds. I said sure, buddy boy, let's rock and roll.
Things were going fine at first and I was actually feeling ok enough, and he didn't notice (though he probably was wondering why in the world I was carrying around and drinking out of a half-gallon thing of milk filled to the brim with tap water that had a brown afterglow). Anyway, we got to Jules Dormitory when Nibot said he smelled smoke coming out of a room. Cigarette smoking is banned in all dormitories, along with candles. But most RAs never write people up for it unless they're already in the room for something else. Yet even then, they usually won't do it unless the students are acting like jerks. Not Nibot, though. He'll do it. And that night, he wanted to go in.
Lucky for him, the door was unlocked, and he decided he needed to make sure there wasn't a fire. So we go in, walk all the way to the back, pass a kitchen table with an empty bottle of wine and two half eaten dinners on the table, and find no one until we come across a closed bedroom door. At this point, I'm gonna knock, I thought to myself. Nibot, apparently, didn't have that same thought. He opens the door and found lying on the bed in a dark bedroom filled to the brim with beautiful candles and an aura of romantic music, a beautiful naked girl covered in whipped cream. Her boyfriend, holding the canister nearby, was wearing nothing but a pair of candy-cane boxer shorts. I can't possible describe my face, or the couple's face, but I can describe Nibot's: a disgusting, sleek smile made up of yellow teeth. He forced me to write up the room. It wasn't pleasant, but I think it made people laugh at me more than want to kill me, like they did 2 years ago.
As everyone continues to leave 04A, I realize these kids, despite what Lilah thinks, don't have a problem with alcohol. And despite what Lilah might say, neither does Melissa just because she likes a Bacardi Breezer after a Triple Black. As the 151 makes my stomach take flip after flip, I realize, I'm the only one with the problem. After everyone leaves 04A, I turn to Lilah and say, "You asked me if I worried about Melissa drinking over in Sydney, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I don't."
"Why?"
"I have faith in her."
"Faith that she'd tell you if she cheated on you?"
"No," I say, "Faith that she'd never have to. Faith that she never would."
I exit, and as we continue walking, Lilah turns to me and asks me, "So you really trust her with the alcohol?"
"Unless she's pounding down the Fosters instead of doing her homework, I shouldn't be worrying about her. Because if I'm worrying about her because of alcohol, I'm just using that is an excuse. Here's the thing about alcohol: I've gotten drunk a lot. I've gotten drunk around other girls. Really drunk, Lilah. But I've never, ever wanted to try something with them. See... the alcohol, it's just an excuse.
"One, it's an excuse people use to try and explain why they cheated. 'Oh, I was just drunk, I had no idea what I was doing, I'm so sorry, baby.' Yeah, whatever, it's a lie.
"Two, it's an excuse people use when they're doubting the relationship and won't admit to it. 'Honey, I really think you should cut back on that alcohol; I'm afraid you might make a mistake one night.' No, you're afraid they'll make a mistake every night, regardless of the alcohol, because you don't think they love you, despite the fact they say it all the time.
"Roger used excuse one. He didn't cheat because of alcohol, he cheated because he obviously didn't love you the way you love him. He's more of a liar than you think he is. He lied to you for months about cheating, but worse, he lied about how he really felt about you. Because if he had been honest about that, he never would have cheated.
"As for excuse two, you're now trying to convince me to use it. Alcohol is just one of many excuses I could use for why our relationship will go sour. So is distance. So is time. So is me doubting it for no other reason other than the fact no one has loved me like she has.
"But I won't doubt our relationship. For three reasons. One, I'll hurt the feelings of the one I love, and swore to never do that to her. Two, I'll wind up losing what I doubted I even had in the first place and that's just stupid. Three, I don't doubt. I don't doubt her."
Lilah's silent for a moment.
I think she's getting what I'm saying.
Then...
"Holden," she says, "Do I smell alcohol on your breath?"
Lilah heads back home at about 11:40, leaving me at my apartment. We decide to do rounds again at one. One bust is plenty for me, so I'm definitely not looking forward to going on rounds with her again.
Back in my room, I sit at my desk and shake my mouse to bring my computer out of the screensaver. I see that I have three unread e-mail messages.
Maybe one of them is from Melissa.
The first is from my sister Rebecca. She's fourteen years old and she's writing to tell me that the fat blonde-haired boy who used to push her around the playground only a few years ago is now her brand new, "spanking" boyfriend. They went on their first date to the ice cream "parlour" tonight, and he bought her a triple-decker vanilla, strawberry, and bubble gum ice cream cone covered in Reese's Pieces, gummy worms, and red, blue, and yellow sprinkles only (Beck hates black sprinkles).
The second is from my Mom reminding me that she and my father won't be back until Thursday, which I should be aware of should I decide to come home early for Easter break (which I can't do anyway, since I'm one of the R.A.s who will help close the dorms for the weekend). I write back, "Yes Mom. Thank you. See you soon." No love Mom. I don't put that kind of stuff in my e-mails. It's so contrived and fake and corny. It's kind of phony, too. Even though I love her, I don't write it to her. But I'll write that to Melissa; I write her all the time that I love her. Why? I guess because I need to constantly remind there that I love her even though she's over 5,000 miles away. She might forget otherwise. Moms never forget you love them. I've never had a girlfriend before Melissa, so I don't know if girlfriends do.
The third is a spam e-mail suggesting I try a brand new pill just approved by the FDA for increasing the size of my penis. For half a second, I consider forwarding it to Melissa as a joke, but I'm not sure she'd appreciate it. She'd probably think I had a hidden meaning behind it. Like, please reassure me you like it. Or, buy this for my birthday in May. Or, let's have sex when you come back. I definitely don't want to open up that can of worms. Long story short, I want to have sex, she thinks she does too, but she's worried about it. I thought about it a lot when she was here. How much I wanted to do it. But now that she's gone, it's funny... I never think about it. I just think about her. Her smile. Her face. Her laugh. I don't think about sex anymore. Anyway, I decide not to forward it to her; I don't think she'd see the joke behind it. So I quickly delete it.
I check my watch. 11:55. I gotta meet Lilah in about an hour. Even though she makes me mad when she wants to write up so many people, Lilah's been really great since Melissa's been gone for these past three and a half weeks. She listens to my rants of, "Does she really love me?" and "Is this going to work out in the end?" and "Should I go and visit her?" And every time it's, "Yes," "Yes," and "Yes." But I still always ask all three questions.
The only reason I have trouble doubting Melissa's love is because no one has ever loved me before. No one. I've never had a girlfriend before and every other time in my life, I've "lost" with a girl. Every crush never panned out. Every girl I asked out always turned me down. And every attempted drunken hookup at a party wasn't worth remembering in the morning.
The story always ends the same way. It ends with, "Oh wow, I wish I got a chance to buy her flowers" or "Oh wow, I wish I could have taken her out to a nice dinner" or "Oh wow, I wish I didn't remember what she looked like." The story always ended before it even got a chance to begin.
So, I'm sorry that I doubt her. Well... it's not that I doubt her. I doubt myself. I doubt my own luck. My own dumb luck.
But then again, my own dumb luck brought Melissa into that bathroom that night so long ago.
My own dumb luck helped me convince her to let me walk her home where I gave her our first, but not last, drunken kiss (I wasn't drunk, but she was). As she was opening the door and completely ignoring my pathetic attempts at jokes, I started kissing her neck to try and get her attention. It actually started to work, and after she unlocked the door and popped it open, she turned around and we kissed. I felt a small bit of the tongue. Over the next four months or so we constantly argued over who kissed who first on the lips. I admitted to the neck kissage, but I couldn't get her to admit that she turned around and kissed me on the lips before I could. Regardless, I did get her to admit her tongue went into my mouth first.
"That's how I kiss," she would always say.
And finally, my own dumb luck let me run into her a few days later when I was able to ask her out.
On my nightstand is an empty Yuengling bottle from that week I met Melissa. It serves as a reminder of my dumb luck and how I doubted it so much that week. After that kiss with Melissa, I spent the next entire week sitting on top of the bench outside my apartment drinking a Yuengling, just thinking of that moment, replaying it over and over again in my head. That little moment led to me laying up at night for an entire week thinking about that kiss. That little moment, in my mind, shouldn't be the end of the story, but the beginning.
I look over at my Yuengling bottle and notice the voicemail light is blinking on my phone.
Maybe Melissa called!
"Hey, Holden, it's Lilah-"
It's probably better that it's not Melissa, because, I know this is ridiculous, but sometimes, after I talk to her on the phone, I actually get more sad, more lonely, and more depressed. ... "maybe we should get together a little-" I'll be doing fine before she calls: I'll be watching TV, hanging out with Lilah, working on a paper, or whatever, and then she'll call and we'll have such a great conversation - an amazing conversation - and she'll be happy, I'll be happy, and then the second, the second, that dial tone clicks on after we hang up, I'm ready to start taking shots.
"...I'm thinking we can patrol around the fourth floor of-"
Why?
I love Melissa more than anything. And nothing makes me happier than to know she's happy. But I guess it's just hard to hear how happy she is because I start to think that maybe she's happier over there then when she was over here with me. I know it's crazy, it's insane, it's completely not true... but when I see pictures of her from over there, I sometimes think it. I sometimes think she's happier there than she was here. And then I think it's because I wasn't a good enough boyfriend for her.
"... so I was thinking I could swing around your place-"
She's been gone for three and a half weeks and isn't coming back for three months, two weeks, and four days. It's going to be a long time until I see her again, and it's going to be hard not to think about her until I do. I can be on duty, hanging out a party, watching a baseball game on TV, drinking a beer with friends, and maybe she enters my mind for half a second in a good way (like I wonder what Melissa is up to or what she's probably eating for lunch that day). Other times, I'll be in class and we'll be talking about something, and she won't even enter my mind; I'm too occupied. Of course, once we move onto another topic, there she goes again, taking up full residence in my cranium.
And then there are the times when I'm sitting at home.
"...See ya soon. Bye."
Alone.
Unfortunately, I'm alone frequently because I live in my own room. The worst is when there's nothing on TV, I have no homework to do, I don't go on duty for another three hours, no one's around to instant message, and she's just on my mind and I can't call or talk to her because it's 4:00 am over in Australia.
God, I hate being alone.
There's a knock on my door.
Lilah's always right on cue.
"Todd wanted to know if you wanted to grab a drink tomorrow night?" Lilah asks me.
I think for a long time about that answer, which would practically always be yes. Even if there was a really good football game on TV or I had a really important test the next day, that answer would always be yes. But right now, I don't want it to be. That 151 is now causing my head to throb, and I need to start actually believing what I told Lilah before. I'm not scared of making a mistake while drinking, because I know that's just a lie people use, but it's that I don't like the reason behind my drinking. I'm drinking because I'm unhappy, I'm depressed, and I'm lonely. And I'm drinking because I doubt. I doubt Melissa and I doubt us. And I need to stop all of that.
"No, that's all right," I say, "But we can go see a movie if he wants."
Stories don't end because of time or distance, and certainly not because of alcohol as Roger or Lilah would like to believe. They end because there's no love there.
And there's plenty of love between me and Melissa. There's that bathroom night and that shotglass and so much more. Our story won't end here. It won't end as this point just because she's 5,000 miles away. And maybe when she comes back, we'll find out if it's going to even end at all. I hope not.
It's strange. I saw Melissa one last time at her house in Pennsylvania the day before she was going to leave for Sydney. She cried.
She told me, "Nothing makes me happier than being with you." She then cried some more. I didn't. I don't cry. And I tried to work out some glorious speech, but I couldn't come out with anything. All I could say was, "This won't be the end of our story, Melissa. Don't you worry."
She believed me.
And tonight, I'm starting to believe it, too.