Closure: Based On A True Story

ONE

a boy and a girl

I NEED TO CATCH MY COURAGE SO I CAN KISS YOU, Trey declared. The ten-year-old boy raced around the basement, grasping at the air with his outstretched hands, then cupping them as if about to catch a butterfly. Got it! he exclaimed, and put his hands up to his mouth, making a gulping sound.

With big brown eyes, and the longest eyelashes I had ever seen, he gazed at me and said, I’m ready to kiss you now.

I felt the butterflies in my stomach as we walked toward each other and met at the center of the room. I closed my eyes, clenched my fists, and held my breath in anticipation. Then I felt his warm breath on my face as his soft lips caressed mine.

That was my first kiss—and the last time I was to see Trey Thompson, my childhood sweetheart, for five years.

Our moms were close friends so Trey and I got to see each other often and we soon became inseparable. He was two months older than me and we did everything together. Sometimes he would announce to his mom, When I grow up, I’m going to marry Tara! Our moms just smiled and laughed. Call it fate, destiny, kismet, soul mates—or being in the right place at the right time—even at that young age we seemed to read each other’s minds, one always knew what the other wanted to do.

There we were, two kids having to say goodbye to each other at his parents’ home in Seattle because Trey, his mom and his little brother, were moving to Arizona. They were leaving as his parents had divorced, and his mom wanted to start over somewhere new. But Arizona was so far away. It might as well have been on the other side of the world as far as we were concerned. We didn’t think we’d ever see each other again.

Saying goodbye was difficult. I was losing my best friend, whom I also had a huge crush on. While our moms were upstairs saying their own goodbyes, Trey asked me to go downstairs to the basement with him so we could have some privacy. When we got downstairs he told me he wanted to kiss me. But we were just kids and super nervous, so he decided to make a game out of it to lighten the mood. Thus, the catching courage game was born.

It was now Christmastime, five years later, and I, Tara Carter, was fifteen. My family and I had moved to the tiny town of Stonewood, Oregon, just outside Portland. We moved shortly after Trey’s family moved to Phoenix five years earlier. Trey’s family drove up through Oregon on their way to visit relatives in Seattle for the holidays. His mom, Jill, called and asked if they could stay with us for a night. I was a nervous wreck.

I hadn’t seen Trey since we were ten. A lot happens between ten and fifteen—we weren’t little kids anymore—we’d gone through puberty. I kept going through the scenario in my mind over and over of what it would be like to see him again. Would he still be cute? Would he think I was cute? Would I still like him? What would we talk about? How tall would he be now? You know, all those crucially, ever-so-important questions teenage girls ponder over teenage boys.

The phone rang. According to my mom they were about an hour away and she gave them directions to our house. I changed my outfit about five times—and then ended up wearing the first one I’d had on—a light purple sweater and jeans. My brown hair was feathered Farrah Fawcett style, and I had blue eyes. People often told me I looked like Brooke Shields, so I plucked my thick eyebrows until the resemblance was gone.

I was so excited and nervous that I couldn’t sit still. The minutes dragged on for an eternity. My head hurt from the frenzy I had worked myself into. My thoughts were chaotic: Uh-oh, I see headlights; a car is pulling into the driveway. No, I’m not ready! What do I say? Should I sit here and look nonchalant or greet him at the door? T minus five seconds … Oh, they’re walking up the sidewalk. OK be calm. No, I can’t sit here. OK I’ll stand up. Somebody’s ringing the doorbell. Oh God I can’t stand it!

MOM! I yelled. Oh good, she’s answering the door. OK, be cool. The door opens and—Hey, wait a minute! Trey doesn’t have blond hair—who the hell is that?

Hi, Chad, come on in. How was your trip? asked my mother.

Fine. Can I use your bathroom? replied Chad, Trey’s ten-year-old brother.

Sure. It’s down the hall on the left. Why is this taking so long? Where is he? I can’t just stand here. Oh! Here he comes now . . . Nope, that’s his mom. Oh no! What if he didn’t come with them? No!

As our moms hugged each other in the doorway, I walked up to Trey’s mom and blurted, Hi. Where’s Trey? All patience and politeness out the window.

Hi Tara! My, how you’ve grown! Such a pretty girl. You look just like your mother, Jill said.

Thanks, I managed. Where’s Trey?

He’s getting our bags out of the car, she replied.

I’ll go help him.

As I rushed past our moms still chatting at the door I ran right into, you guessed it— Trey! I exclaimed, my face flushed, heart racing and neck straining from looking up so high.

Hey Tara, he said, all cool and casual. How’s it goin’?

I thought I was going to die of embarrassment from running into him like that and not being able to speak, but he didn’t seem to notice. In fact, he seemed a little nervous himself. Now that I had stepped back and really looked at him he didn’t look like the same skinny kid I remembered. Actually, he was very tall—five eleven to my five three. He had broad shoulders and I could see his muscles through his light blue t-shirt (been working out, no doubt). His light brown hair from childhood was now thicker and dark brown, and yes, he still had those killer brown eyes and long eyelashes—even his eyebrows were perfectly sculpted with a little arch to them. He was now ruggedly handsome instead of boyishly cute, and his skin was flawless; not one trace of acne. Geesh, how is that even possible?

I picked up his bag and we walked into the house together, unaware of anyone else in the world, staring into each other’s eyes.

Two little lovebirds sittin’ in a tree⁠—

Chad, cut that out or else! warned Trey.

Or else what? Chad retorted. What ya gonna do big guy? Huh? Beat me up in front of your girrrlfriend?

Chad! You little⁠—

Boys! That’s enough, Jill scolded. Is that any way to act in front of Tara and her mother?

Sorry, Trey mumbled, as he kicked Chad in the leg.

Ow! yelped Chad.

That’s a warning, Trey whispered. You behave or I’ll really kick you hard.

The next few hours went excruciatingly slow as we ate dinner. Then we sat in the living room and watched TV.

Our parents didn’t make things any easier. They made us pose together for pictures and said, What a cute couple, as they cooed and talked about us like we weren’t there. We spoke little and sat on opposite ends of the couch, with his brother between us, for over an hour. I tried to watch what was on TV but couldn’t concentrate because all I wanted to do was talk to Trey, to be with him without our families around watching our every move. This night was turning into a disaster.

But then something wonderful happened. It was time for Chad to go to bed and my mom suggested that Trey and I go into the den to watch TV. Thank you Mom! I turned on the TV and sat down on the futon next to Trey.

Alone at last but we were still shy around each other. I felt like I had enough butterflies in my stomach to supply a zoo. We made small talk for a while and he told me what life was like in Arizona. We talked about school and sports and interests.

Finally, I boldly asked him, Do you need to find your courage again?

What are you talking about?

Don’t you remember? In the basement the last time we saw each other, you needed to catch your courage before you could kiss me.

Oh yeah, he grinned. I think I see my courage right here. His hand reached behind my head and closed on the air. Got it, he smiled victoriously. And then he kissed me.

We stayed in the den talking and kissing and laughing until sunrise. The old familiarity came back and we were completely at ease with each other again. It was magical—but then he had to go.

I better get back to my bed before my mom notices I’m not there, Trey said, as he stood up.

I don’t want you to go, I pouted.

Don’t worry, I’ll see you in a few hours, later this morning. We don’t have to say goodbye yet. He gave me a quick kiss and hug then turned and walked out to the living room and his waiting foldout hide-a-bed, hoping to sneak into it before his mom woke up. I dreamily walked down the hall in the opposite direction, crawled into my own bed, and blissfully dozed off with thoughts of seeing him again as soon as I woke up.

When I woke up three hours later, I rushed out to the living room and found nothing but folded blankets and a note on the dining room table from his mom. She thanked us for our hospitality and explained that they wanted to hit the road early. The note said they didn’t want to wake us, so they left quietly.

No! He can’t leave without saying goodbye! I shouted into the quiet living room.

I was devastated. My wailing woke up my mom. I was beside myself with sudden grief and longing and there was nothing she could do for me. I knew then that my life would never be the same. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew I would never forget him. If there were a way, I would see him again.

TWO

the birthday party

MY EARLIEST MEMORY of Trey goes back to the day of my 4th birthday party even though we had already been friends for about a year.

It was a rare warm sunny afternoon in May in Seattle, Washington. Typically, this area of the Pacific Northwest would be overcast and drizzling so this proved to be a good start to a great day. My friends sat around a little table on the grass, in my front yard, and watched as my mom brought over a homemade chocolate cake with four lit candles on top.

Okay, Tara, it’s time to close your eyes and make a wish so you can blow out your birthday candles, declared my mom.

I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes tight, chest puffing out. What to wish for? Mmm…got it! I opened my eyes, blew out the candles, and beamed at my friends.

What a big girl! Good job, sweetie! my mom beamed back. Then, Who wants cake? Everyone giggled and raised their hands. So my mom took out the candles, whisked the cake away, and came back with cake and vanilla ice cream on paper plates for all.

Trey sat next to me, the only boy at the party. He wore a white button-down dress shirt with black corduroy pants. I wore a pink turtleneck sweater, pink crocheted vest and purple tie-dyed pants. His gift to me was a Barbie doll with brown hair like mine and, when I opened it, the smile he gave me was magnetic. Even then.

I found my soul mate before I knew what a soul mate was, before I even started looking. But life has a funny way of working out and things are not always as they seem. Our journey is about love—the purest kind in existence; the kind that, if you’re lucky, you get to experience once in a lifetime—innocent, trusting, selfless, unconditional . . . first love.

First love stays with some people and changes them forever. It is the love we compare everyone else to. We don’t quite get over it because it is so profound, so all consuming, intoxicating, forgiving; the term lovesick comes to mind. This is my story, about a couple of kids who fell in love, while life happened, nonetheless.

THREE

pen pals

OVER THE NEXT few months after that fateful visit, I began to think of Trey less and less. That summer I met someone new, older and exciting. He was a twenty-one-year-old college student with a summer job at 7-Eleven. I met him at 7-Eleven as I also had my first summer job there. I had just turned sixteen, received my driver’s license, and thought I was pretty cool. Everything was going great and I almost never thought about Trey.

But one unusually foggy, windy and rainy day in the middle of July, something life-altering happened; something that shook me to my core with an intense fear I had never known. Yet my fear quickly dissolved into peace and the only way I can describe it is as a religious experience. I put this in quotes because my family was not religious. We did not go to church, and I had never read the bible.

I was on my way to work in my mother’s baby blue 1975 Volkswagen Rabbit. I had been a licensed driver for all of one month.

The pavement on the freeway was slippery and the rain came down in sheets. I was in the right-hand lane of a three lane freeway, traveling north on I-5, driving under fifty miles per hour, and following a slow-moving pickup truck. I signaled to pass him and was proceeding into the center lane when a giant black truck pulled out from behind me and sped up, deciding he wanted to be in the center lane at the same time I did. Only he was driving over seventy. If I had continued to veer into the middle lane, I would have hit his passenger door. To avoid a major collision, I swerved.

In my inexperience as a new driver, coupled with the heavy rain, I over steered and ran into the embankment on the right side of the freeway. Bouncing off the concrete edge, my car then spun around as it hydroplaned and careened sideways across all three lanes of traffic. The front end of my car crashed into the median barrier and crumpled like an accordion. The sudden impact caused the car to move with rapid force across the freeway again—this time backwards. I felt like a pinball in a pinball machine ricocheting from side to side.

I landed on a steep grassy hill and began to roll forward. I snapped out of my reverie, stomped on the brake, yanked up the emergency brake and turned off the ignition. Then I took out the keys and threw them on the floor just to make sure the car wasn’t going anywhere.

While the accident was happening, time seemed to stand still. I went from feeling fear and complete helplessness, to feeling calm and observing myself going through the motions. I became a witness in my own car crash. I remember vivid details. I could see the looks of terror on the other drivers’ faces as I passed them by; I could see sheer disbelief in their eyes. It’s as if it was all playing out in slow motion on a TV screen in front of me. I felt like I could even see myself. I consider what happened to me to be an out-of-body experience—I left my body and watched the whole thing from outside, from above the car.

My mom’s car was declared totaled and I walked away with minor whiplash and a faint red seatbelt burn—otherwise unscathed.

Miraculously, there were no other cars involved. Let me say that again—NO ONE hit me while I was bounding across the freeway—not once, but twice, in traffic and heavy rain. They said I was lucky to be alive. Was it luck? Divine intervention? A guardian angel? What about the out-of-body part? I didn’t know and I couldn’t explain it, but I felt like I’d been given a second chance. And what did I do with my chance? I’d love to tell you I invented the cure for cancer or some other amazing, wondrous achievement, but no, I was sixteen. I did what kids my age did: I put it out of my mind and went back to my self-absorbed, angst-filled teenage life.

Two weeks after the accident, my ultra-cool older boyfriend pressured me to have sex with him knowing I was a virgin and knowing I was very naïve and innocent. He took my innocence against my will. When it was over, he threw his bathrobe at me and told me to cover up. He said he couldn’t stand the sight of me cold and shaking.

I stopped believing I had a guardian angel looking out for me. Whatever seed of faith I had was crushed that night. I broke up with him the next day and never saw him again. I heard he dropped out of college and joined the army. I remember secretly hoping that wherever they’d sent him, he’d been shot.

Summer had ended and it was time for my junior year of high school—yay, not. I got the mail after school, like I always did. Two weeks into the school year there was a letter addressed to me with handwriting I didn’t recognize. The return address was from New Mexico. Who did I know in New Mexico? No one I could think of.

I stared at the envelope for a while before opening it. Then it dawned on me . . . it was from Trey.

I was almost afraid to open it, feeling nervous all over again. My stomach felt queasy and my fingers were shaking by the time I decided to open it, making it difficult to get the letter out of the envelope. I read it slowly, savoring it. Then I read it over and over again before I was able to write back.

That letter changed my life, as well as the months that followed upon receiving his initial correspondence. Over the course of that year we became pen pals and best friends. We told each other everything—our secrets, fears, and dreams. We became closer than I thought two people could—especially long distance. Here’s that first letter:

Dear Tara,

Howdy! I’m not really sure why I’m writing you, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, so I decided to drop a line and see how you’re doing. It’s been almost a year since we stopped by. There sure have been a lot of changes in my life since then. Right now, I’m away at school in New Mexico, a military high school. Can you believe that? Life is a whole lot different here. We get up at 5:30 each morning and don’t stop working until 10:00 at night. It was hard to adjust to the schedule at first. But the place kind of grows on you. Either the place grows on you or your first sergeant does.

While I’m here, my only contact with the civilian world is through the mail. There are a lot of things I miss, but the thing I miss most is girls. I haven’t seen a civilian girl since I got here seven weeks ago. I must admit that’s one of the reasons I’m writing you. I’d do anything to get a girl to write me. Most of my buddies had girlfriends when they left, so they get letters regularly. It’s starting to get depressing.

It’s a challenge to stay here because I have no rank. I’m an official R.A.T. (Recruit-at-Training). I won’t get a rank until the end of my first year. Until then, I take orders from anyone, from private on up. I must get permission to rest, eat, walk, talk, sit down, stand up…etc. The only privacy I have is during my two-and-a-half hours of forced study time. Some nights I use all my time doing homework. Sometimes though I find time to write letters, like this one.

I’m sending a picture of myself, as you would recognize me, with long hair. When I got here, they chopped most of it off. It’s grown back a bit now but not nearly as much as I had in this picture. I’ll send you a better picture when I get one, whether you write me back or not.

This letter is only me saying ‘Hi.’ Don’t feel like you should have to write back. You probably have a boyfriend who might object to it. You would if I lived there. Tell your folks I said ‘hi’ to them too please.

Love,

Trey

Well, what do you think I did? After receiving a letter like that of course I wrote back—the same day, complete with pictures. I received his second letter a week later. We continued to write to each other for months. Sometimes I’d get a letter every day. As the weeks went by our letters grew more and more serious and we declared our love for one another. We began planning when we’d be able to see each other again.

His letters were descriptive, detailed and well-written. I would read them over and over until I had them memorized. I could picture him at his military school. I visualized myself sitting in the stands at his football games, cheering him on—his number was 38 (his buddies called him 38 Special). He played linebacker.

The letters soon became more personal, complimentary and romantic. Occasionally he would even write to me in French, since we were both taking high school French at the time, Tu es tres belle et tu as les plus belles zeux. Je t’adore! Nous avons été fait pour chaque autre. (You are very beautiful and you have the most beautiful eyes. I adore you! We were made for each other). Not bad for a first-year student, eh?

Actually, the French writing impressed me—Trey knew I was planning to go on a trip to France and England that summer. I was saving all my money, taking French in high school, and excited to go. His writing French in his letters just showed me how thoughtful he was and how well he knew me.

It was uncanny how he could read me, and he always said just the right things. He was quite the flatterer too, As soon as I got your letter it felt like the sun came out from behind the clouds. Now I’m having a great day and I won’t let anyone or anything get me down.

In another letter he took a more serious tone:

I love you! I’ve loved you all along. I would have said so earlier but I didn’t want to scare you. All I’ve done since last December is think about you. I am so glad I got up enough nerve to write you. If you really love me like I love you, then nothing can keep us apart too long. I can’t stop thinking about you and how much I want to be with you.

Then another:

I want you so bad. Well, I really want you good, but I’ll take you anyway I can. You are very special to me and I feel more for you than any other girl that ever existed. I use you for my motivation when I do something that takes effort, like weightlifting. I love you. If not for you I would feel empty. Like you said, I don’t have any patience, but I would wait for you forever if I had to. Thank God I don’t! We will be together before long, I promise. T–N–T is perfect. You light my fuse! I’ll write you again tomorrow just to show you that I would do anything to make you happy.

Until then,

Love,

Trey

He would often recite lyrics from songs he knew, "I’m listening to the stereo thinking about you. Again. I love to put the thought of you to music (quoting ‘Stay with Me’ by Foghat.)

And then there was the dream he had repeatedly about being late for our wedding because he couldn’t find the church. Or the one where his best friend picks him up in a tux and takes him to the church. He sees me in my wedding dress and is too speechless to say, I do.

The fact that he had dreams of us getting married showed me how real our relationship was to him. We were much more than just pen pals, more than a couple of teenagers