I was in mount hood Oregon, in the summer between eighth grade and high school. I was fourteen, with no sense of direction or particularly fascinating ideas about the world except for the solemn belief that whatever I was doing, I wanted to be doing well and a vague sense that people liked me. That sense was never stronger nor has it been since.

She was eighteen. Blonde. The girl at camp that showed up and most no one honestly believed they could get. I didn’t try. I didn’t really know her and if I had, I wouldn’t have known what to say or do with her… I was fourteen.

I was with a crowd of older kids because I looked much older than I was. People said I acted much older than fourteen but just like most things that people say about others – they were wrong.

One day on the hill, my older friend from Boston – whose name escapes me and to whom I have not spoken since – told me “watch out tonight. Its over for you”. I asked him what he meant and he said that I’d figure it out soon enough. That exchange only came back to me months later.

That night the Bostonian, another girl, Kelsey (Kelsey R. was her name) and I went to a coach’s house and watched the Shining, a movie that has great significance in Mount Hood Oregon that I will not explain here. During the movie we sat under a blanket and I noticed that Kelsey, who at that point was just a cool girl and a pretty face to me, was sitting very close. Very close indeed.

Eventually, she put my arm around her and turned towards me so that she could put her legs over mine. We were very close. Although I had a good idea of what was going on I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t need to…

As we walked back to camp in the dark the others walked ahead of us. We passed the roller hockey rink where we were shielded from the cabins by a grey fifteen-passenger van. She took my hand and kissed me. It was a warm, wet haphazard of tong and lip and cheek and probably some chin; a high-school-kiss if you will. She pushed herself against me so that I was up against the side of the van. The door slid open and we climbed into the back seat.

Kelsey essentially held my hand throughout the entire thing. She told me what to do and what not to do, where to go, what to touch and when to touch it. And that my friends, was that. I am sure it was nothing of a particularly enjoyable experience for her but I still talk to Kelsey once in a while. She was magnificent.

I then for the first time began to understand the human capacity to love intensely for a finite and isolated period of time. That sense has stayed with me ever since and I have lived and loved accordingly ever since. But then again… I was fourteen.