That first weekend is still kind of a blur. Drinking, making out. How I got from one place to another, whose house we were at, how I got home: I have no idea. Even at the time I was in a haze. But over the next week we began talking more and more: on the phone, at school. I remember kissing in the hallway in front of everybody between classes. If anyone hadn’t heard the news by then they knew now. I think we both relished the thought that we were the talk of the school. We were an unlikely couple, and we were both well-known. It had everyone speculating. Our friends congratulated us.

The surprise for me was the nature of our private conversations. Shelly was brilliant and articulate. Whereas I didn’t even last one year in Catholic school (see the thread “From Boom to Bust”) she had thrived there. She was a great student and the nuns loved her. She loved being Catholic and was fascinated by all the theological and ritualistic aspects. She sang in the church choir and relished the music. As you may recall, by that point in my life I had become an atheist and felt completely alienated from my Catholic roots. She had taken an additional middle name at confirmation and now her initials were SASS. I kid you not. Shelly was athletic. She played field hockey and swam. She was adventurous and assertive, and when she played field hockey it was “banzai!!” as she rushed into the middle of the action. She worked after school, reading for a blind woman and assisting her with her personal and professional paperwork. She had been saving money all through high school and planned to backpack through Europe alone during the summer after graduation. She had her airline tickets, passport, and Eu-rail pass all ready to go two months early. In the fall she was entering UCLA. I learned all this very quickly.

In the process, I picked up on the fact that her energy and quick wit masked a great deal of anxiety. She worried about everything, all the time. She was actually quite insecure. Her way of dealing with fear was to just go balls-to-the-walls all the time. She told me she had trouble sleeping, for years. It’s possible that the only time she relaxed at all was when she was drinking. This explained a lot.

Our make-out sessions were passionate and intense, but even a week in we were fully clothed. It was just kissing and hugging. Whenever my hands would wander anywhere on her body I could feel the anxiety flow there. Touch is my “element.” When I touch anyone, I feel things inside the body. Like a sixth sense, I “see” what’s going on with the person. Many years later this natural gift made me a very successful massage therapist. At the time I didn’t reflect on it at all, I just knew what I knew. But I could tell something was up with her. We got to talking about it.

Turns out kissing and hugging is all she had ever done with a guy. The rumors about her being a “huge slut” were based on the fact that she had made out with a lot of guys at parties, but she told me she had never had a boyfriend and had never done anything sexual with anyone. In fact, she said, “I’m actually terrified of men.” The reputation was a cover, a magic spell to ward people off. I smiled, laughed, and said, “I get it.”

She then told me about her night terrors. I asked, “What is it you are afraid of?” She said, “I wake up in the middle of the night terrified that I am going to die unexpectedly.” I said I thought that was strange for a person so young, and she replied, “It started when I was eight.” That intrigued me, so I asked more questions. She said, “Well, there was this older man who lived alone in our neighborhood, retired. He had a nice house and a swimming pool, and all summer long all the girls from the neighborhood would hang out there all day. Our parents were fine with it. He was really nice and didn’t mind. We had a lot of fun there. But then one night he died unexpectedly in his sleep. That’s when I began to wake up in the middle of the night afraid that God would take me too. I would run to my parents’ room and climb into bed with them — that’s the only way I could sleep. Until one day Dad said I was too big to sleep with them anymore, and since then nights have been dark, cold, and lonely.”

As this story sank in I had one more question. “Did anything weird or inappropriate happen with the neighbor?” I asked. “Not that I can remember…” she trailed off. “But of all the girls that hung out at his house, I think I had the most close and special relationship with him.” I took a deep breath and decided to leave it there.

It turns out that I was the first guy she ever felt safe with. There was something about the way I listened, the way I touched her, and the way I articulated my own emotions that put her at ease in my presence. And now I understood that fate had brought us together so we could walk through our anxieties together. I sensed that we stood at a threshold.