Baby, I Get So Weak in the November Rain

I'd remember the title of "our song" even if it weren't written in the half-page love letter my high school boyfriend inscribed in my Sophomore yearbook. He'd graduated that year- 1994 -and unlike our less fortunate civilian teen counterparts, not only did we have to contend with graduation and uncertain matriculation- my family was moving back to the states. His was not.

We met at Naples American High School, a Department of Defense Dependents' School, or DoDDS if you're into acronyms. He lived there near the Naval Base, I lived two hours north in the small seaside community of Gaeta that hosted the Sixth Fleet's flagship, the USS Belknap.

I'd made friends first with his sister. I remember the day we were waiting on a coach to show up to Cross Country practice when I saw a guy sitting off by himself, with a notebook and a pencil and clearly in his own world. He looked older than the rest of us, and angry, so naturally I was intrigued. When I mentioned him to the group I was with, Becky piped in... "Oh, that's my brother. He's angry at the world."

Most kids would be angry about being moved to a foreign country just in time for your senior year- who could blame him? We didn't have any classes together, and I didn't think we'd have much in common, but I still felt the slightest twinge of a crush coming on when I noticed his name on the old-school nod to social media, a computer science message board. It appeared we did share a class, but attended during different periods. There was a community board where classmates could form groups and work on projects, as well as "text" each other. I've been a big fan of the indirect written-word conversation long before it was an everyday thing. I sent him a message, I don't remember what, exactly. Probably something about the unfortunate fact that he was taking that class too and a witty quip about the teacher's creepiness and suspender choice that day. I wasn't sure he'd know who I was, even though I'd recently spent the weekend at his house with his sister and a bunch of much more interesting teenage girls for her birthday. I'd met his mom and dad, and his dog Schroeder. He appeared and disappeared that weekend the way a good brother is supposed to, and I noticed. So in a way, I guess I'd become a stalker.

To my surprise, he answered me. And we got to know each other through a class we didn't even have together. I started going to the computer lab before and after school, eager to check my messages and hoping against hope that I hadn't somehow said too much, been too much, or that he'd managed to land a girlfriend and I wouldn't be interesting anymore. I was awkward in high school- I would not have been surprised if he couldn't pick me out of a lineup. I thought I perfected the art of invisibility. I may have sold myself short, though. I don't remember exactly how it all happened, but he eventually introduced himself to me in person, outside of the context of his sister or family.

After that, we were inseparable.

Our high school romance had a soundtrack- one that would later feel a little ominous in light of the fact that the Hollywood ending didn't happen. The first time he told me he loved me, we each had an earbud in one ear, connected to a yellow Sony Sport walkman that was playing November Rain. We were on the track team together, so we got to travel around Italy on a bus chaperoned by adults who had no real interest in chaperoning. We listened to Babyface, Shai, SWV, Boyz II Men... R and B was his speed, and I wanted him to love Guns N Roses, Bryan Adams, Firehouse and Poison. When he made me mixtapes, every song had a moment attached to it.

I went to Greece with his family for his Senior Trip. We rented a moped and sped around the island of Corfu like we'd never have anything to lose. I trusted him implicitly, back then.

My family moved to New Mexico and I blared GNR's "Don't Cry" when I missed him. Life got sticky when it was my turn to be a Senior, at a new high school, without the illusion of perfection so aptly created by living on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. I remember making a mix tape before I broke up with him, subconsciously including songs I thought he'd hate, songs that made me feel more acutely how I felt- The Tony Rich Project- "Nobody Knows" and obscure tracks from artists like John Berry, whose haunting song "You and Only You" seemed to embody what it was like to have a boyfriend whom I loved dearly but had no idea how to be with. We had no money, no support, no future.

I was walking around in the BX one day (Base Exchange, which is kind of like a military Wal-mart) when the song "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough" by Don Henley and Patty Smyth came on. I stopped in my tracks, no pun intended, and listened. I'd heard the song before but never really listened. It was in that moment that I gave up and knew what I had to do.

Flash forward twenty years and a Facebook culture later...

At some point he accepted my friend request. At some point, I sent him a text to say Happy Birthday. At some point, we managed to put the teen angst behind us and wound up as friends. For that, I am grateful.