I loved feeling sad with her. Her teenage heart ached with mine, and I think we loved how it felt when we felt it together. That kind of burrowed in sadness that envelops like a blanket when you are alone, but reaches a higher level when it's shared. It's a kind of feeling that can't last long, it's too delicate and too destroying to hold on to for long - but when you're 16 it can last through a few warm summer evenings - and stay with you long after.
Her name was Sara and I don't remember how we met - just the type of detail that frustrates me in its elusiveness. Maybe we met at a party, a throw away hello through a friend of a friend, where hers was one of a sea of faces that somehow lives vibrantly in my memory. I do remember that she was beautiful. She had brown skin, long straight black hair and a little nose that fit with how delicate she was. And her eyes - the most beautiful, rich brown - were so full of feeling. And they always gave her away, no matter how she tried not to let them - I bet they still do.
I want to glide through those brown eyes dreaming
Take you from the inside, baby, hold on tight
I don't remember when we discovered how happy our sad made us, but it became us that summer. We started on AIM, pirated music suggestions and teenage angst were our first chapter, then meet ups at her parents house when she was home alone, where the warmth of bodies and the delicateness of kisses felt so dimensional that I swear I can still feel it 2 decades later.
I want to hold you in the Bible black pre-dawn
You're quite a quiet domino, bury me now
One summer evening I picked her up from her house and we drove to the mall to get the new Wilco album - our plan was to listen to it in the car and watch the sunset. I remember holding her hand on the way to the mall. In a Swiftian detail, I ran a red light because I couldn't keep my eyes off her. I remember moving the car further from the entrance after our purchase, finding a place to be together in the empty space of the empty parking spaces.
The album for us was profound, we barely talked the whole time. But I could feel her energy changing next to me with each track - her hand holding mine in anticipation of the hums and off kilter cymbals and snares that start the album, the way we fell into each other during Ashes of American Flags or the way the chorus to Reservations seemed to capture our every insecurity:
I've got reservations
About so many things
But not about you
And I remember the silence when it was all over too. I know we loved the record, I know I still do and I know it will always remind me of her.
I worry sometimes that Sara was some kind of dream and never really existed like I remember. She was just so ethereal and dimensional that I worry I've made her up entirely. But the truth is she was real and she came to me at just the right time. She indulged my sadness, and made me feel whole for the first time in my life. I hope she remembers me every now and again. If she still feels that sadness, I hope this memory makes her feel a bit warmer like it does for me.
I am trying to break your heart
I am trying to break your heart
But still I'd be lying if I said it wasn't easy
I am trying to break your heart
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