Anyway, we do this for a while. Maybe a month or two. Then she stops talking to me and it’s like this major turning point in my life. You know how you look back and say well, that didn’t cause everything, but if it hadn’t happened, I’d be a totally different person?

She stopped talking to me, and right about this time, everybody stopped liking me. You know how kids are like that. All of a sudden, all your friends - alright, I guess they weren’t really friends anyway - but all your friends will just stop liking you. You take a kid like that, well, you take a normal, well adjusted kid and make him listen to Black Flag, and he’s like, yeah, whatever. But you take a kid who hates everybody and they hate him and it’s like yeah, right, yeah.

So I start listening to hardcore music, and you know the story. How I become the human tornado and all. But she moves away, since her dad was in the Marines, and she sends me this letter in ninth grade. And of course I throw it out, but it’s like, "Look, I really care about you." I’m like, "Yeah, whatever."

But I’m thinking about her every day. I know I’ve never told you anything about this. By tenth grade I’m only thinking about her maybe twice a day and by college, maybe only once or so. Then two months ago, me and Meredith are sitting here at three in the morning, and you know how I tell Meredith everything. She’s telling me about how she’s looking on the Internet for this guy she used to know, and all of a sudden it’s like, "Look, I’ve got to use your computer." She’s looking at me, and it’s like, "Trust me, I’ve got to do this," and I tell her the whole Tonya Danielle Smith story while I’m on the search engine.

I knew she moved to Virginia, so that narrows the search. I get fifteen addresses, and I write them down. The next day, I write this email that says, "Hi. I’m looking for Tonya Danielle Smith, and I’m not the same kid with the greasy flattop that you broke up with back in eighth grade. If you’re not who I’m looking for, I’m sorry, but if you’re the right person, I’d really enjoy talking to you again. I’m not trying to be weird or anything, I was just thinking about you."

I get a letter about a week and a half later, and it’s like, "I’m Tonya Danielle Smith, and I think about you, too. Only I’m not Tonya Danielle Smith anymore, I’m Tonya Smith Simpson." Of course my jaw drops because she’s my age, but it’s like, OK, whatever, that’s fine. She’s a junior at college, and she’s on the swim team and all this other stuff.

For about a month, we email almost every day, and it’s like I get the chills every time I read the page. It’s like I have to yell every time I stop looking at the screen. I just bounce up and down on my bed, yelling and laughing. Not even words, just syllables.

Well, we keep it up, and all the time there’s no word about the marriage. Then she sends this email that says, "Look, I feel guilty, but I have a lot of feelings for you." I send her back a message like, "Great, and you know, I don’t feel comfortable that you’re married and all either, but I feel the same as you do." Then she calls me the next night and we talk for two hours and I’m late for band practice. I’m never late for band practice. But I sit the guys down and it’s like, "Look, here’s how it is."

Then I get home a week or so later, and there’s all these messages like, "Look, I’ve got to talk with you." She sat down with her husband and said, "I believe in being honest," and told him the whole story. They’ve only been married a year, and he was like, "It’s my way or the highway." The human tornado highway. So she hits it and I call home from band practice that I’m on my way to my dad’s because it’s his birthday. Bill says, "Look, there’s someone here to see you, you have to come home quick." And I’m like, "Look, it’s my dad’s birthday and I’m in a hurry." But Bill says, "Trust me," and all of a sudden I know it. I walk in and she’s like, "Hi, sweetie," right there in my own house.

I’m telling you, I thought I’d won. I’ve been waiting all my life. Then it finally happens, and it just drops a bomb on everything you thought it would be. I just ran to my bed and lay there on my back, kicking my legs and yelling. Then I took her over and introduced her to my parents.

She came with bags, suitcases, everything. She stayed in my house for a week. I introduced her to all my friends and we just sat around and talked a lot. I mean, it was everything I ever thought it would be. There were some little logistics problems, but we knew we had to be together. I thought I’d finally won.

Oh. She left. She changed her mind, and she packed up and went down to her husband. She’s making a mistake, going back to that guy, but whatever. You know.