I broke up with Carrie in late January. She did not see it coming. And why would she? When she was leaving for the Pacific Palisades to spend winter break with her family, I handed her an emotional card saying that I intended “to devote my love and life” to her, which she tearfully read, and re-read, on the first class flight home.
She was still in love with me.
And this, in hindsight, is confusing, too. It is difficult to imagine what was so compelling about my adolescent self that losing me could be such a heart-rending ordeal.
Over break I bought Carrie a necklace for her birthday. It was garnet, her birthstone, encircled by small diamonds. It was an extravagant gift by my standards, costing several hundred 1985 dollars, that I earned working as an office temp for an engineering firm. She loved it and never took it off.
When I told Carrie I didn’t want to date her any more, she immediately reached behind her neck to unclasp the necklace, so she could return it to me.
“Carrie, don’t,” I said hoarsely, the guilt constricting my throat.
The break-up shook the very foundations of Brooks Dorm. We didn’t ask them to choose sides — or, at least, I didn’t — but our mutual friends felt compelled to, and that schism has endured to this very day.
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Bad Sex & Good Scotch: A Reunion Story
Short Story#86 in Short Story (7/11/15) Remember your "first time?" Well, I wish I could forget mine. As a Freshman in college, I met Carrie and we fell in love. We thought we were the perfect couple. We thought we would always be together. But after we decide...
