This hit way too close to home.
During the
summer of 1997, I was interning in a
cognitive psychology/
computer science research laboratory at
Brandeis University as part of a special summer program there. I was in the eight-week program, but there was also a four-week program that was much less intensive.
About two weeks into the four-week session (which was roughly in the middle of our eight weeks) I met a wonderful
girl named Liz. She was 15, I was 17. We hit it off instantly.
We had absolutely
nothing in common, but it didn't matter.
Sometimes we'd just sit there holding each other for hours without saying a word.
We almost didn't need to talk. I'd leave my room and go visit her out of the blue, and we'd meet halfway between rooms because she was going to do the same thing.
I'd never felt more right in my life.
Four days after we met, she told me she was leaving the program early (like, the next day) because she was due to start
crew camp in a few days.
Then, after the longest night of my life, she was...
gone.
Probably
forever. She lived in
Philadelphia, I lived in
New York. We exchanged a few letters, but I never heard from her again.
It took months for that sinking feeling in my
stomach to go away.
Not a day goes by that I don't think about her.
I'm still not over her.
I don't know if I ever will be.