You know I'm such a fool for you....

During the fall and winter of 93 and into 94, I spent a lot of time writing letters and talking on the phone with a certain boy I’d met the summer before, on a road trip with my roommate. His name was Jon, and I’d stopped thinking of him as just another grunge puppy shortly after I met him. Every time we spoke, he would ask me when I was coming back to see him. Each time he asked, I would say “I wish I could.”

It was such a crazy thing to think about….trying to have some kind of a relationship with a boy I’d met once, who lived more than a thousand miles away. I basked in his attention every time he called, and I honestly did wish I could go see him, but…no. It was too crazy.

My best friend was planning a trip to L.A. in the spring of 94, and I was going to drive him to the airport in Seattle. The day before I left, Jon called and I mentioned my plans for the weekend, and he asked me why I didn’t just catch a plane out to see him. Why not? I wondered.

I asked him if he was serious.

He said he’d buy my plane ticket.

Of course, I couldn’t let him do that. But maybe, with his help, I could swing most of it myself…

The next day I was on a flight to Denver. I worried that I wouldn’t recognize him, or that he wouldn’t recognize me, or that he wouldn’t come. But there he was, looking exactly like I remembered him, and he spread his arms wide, and I walked right into them as if I’d done it a thousand times.

We got into his car and drove back to Cheyenne. I popped my brand new Cranberries cassette into the tape deck of his car, because he said he liked the Cranberries, too.

I told him he didn’t have to pretend to like my music just to get me into bed. I had every intention of going there, with or without Cranberries.

He drove faster.

We literally spent four days in his bed, only leaving occasionally for food. I could have complained that he never took me out anywhere, but it was what I wanted, too. I wanted to pack as many memories into those days as I could. I wanted to permeate every one of his senses, so that he’d dream about me for years, so that he’d never be able to forget what I tasted like or smelled like, so that he’d never be able to listen to the Cranberries without thinking of me.

By the time I left, he was talking about finishing his associates degree and transferring to a four year college in Washington, and I was talking about finding a summer job nearby. I even believed that it could happen; that somehow, we could make this work.

I actually cried when I was on the plane home. When I got back into my car, and prepared for a lonely, depressing drive back to Spokane, I realized that I’d never taken my cassette out of his tape deck.

I will never be able to listen to the Cranberries without thinking of him.