Unhappenings Read Free

got to know her, however, the less it seemed to matter. She had an outspoken maturity that belied her youth, and she was easily my intellectual superior. Just as I was about to relent, and had worked up the nerve to ask her out, she beat me to it.
    Over the next two months we were inseparable. My friends all adored her. I got to know her brother, who was a year older than I, and we became close friends. More than one of my teachers referred to us as a cute couple within my earshot. It was one of the most joyous periods of my adolescence.
    One day, in a van on a way to an important meet, Leslie was sitting between me and Stan Rosen, one of my best friends. I wish I could remember what we were talking about. All I do remember is at some point I made a joke to Leslie that was overtly flirtatious. She got uncomfortable. Stan accused me of hitting on his girlfriend. I tried—and failed—to laugh it off.
    My entire relationship with Leslie unhappened to me, and happened to Stan, all in one, smooth, agonizing motion. It cost me my friendship with him, not out of some kind of jealous confrontation, but simply out of my depression over it. I withdrew from my entire social circle after hearing them ask me what had gotten into me one too many times. Ultimately, I quit the team without explanation. Neither Leslie nor Stan expressed any misgiving over that decision.
    At the end of that school year, at a time in my life when I felt more alone than I could ever recall, Carrie Wolfe spontaneously kissed me. We had been friends, on and off, for years. I had no idea she ever had feelings for me, and she admitted she hadn’t realized it either. We had both had difficult years, for different reasons, and we sort of stumbled upon each other in our times of need.
    Carrie was my first summer romance. As far as she—or anyone else—knew, she was also my first girlfriend. It got very serious, very quickly. We started planning a future together, applying to all the same colleges as a precaution against becoming separated when high school ended. Our parents had all known each other since we were children, and were all pleased with this turn of events.
    In October, we had our first major fight, and broke up for an entire week.
    In December, we lost our virginities together.
    In April, I asked her to marry me. We agreed to a five-year engagement, long enough for us each to earn at least one college degree. Our plan was to keep this betrothal secret from everyone for those five years, but we each told one person, and after about two days, that was that. Our parents expressed the proper level of concern, but generally supported us.
    One Sunday morning in late May, the day after our senior prom, one of the most glorious nights of my entire life, I called Carrie’s house and asked her mother if I could speak to her. She hung up on me without comment.
    It took me three days to find out that Carrie Wolfe had died in a car accident when she was twelve years old. My subsequent mental breakdown terrified my family, and what few friends I still had left. That I would fall apart six years after an event I had apparently been fully aware of at the time without ill effect baffled everyone. I ended up hospitalized and missed my own graduation ceremony. Eventually, more from a unique sense of understanding my situation than anything else, I pulled myself up from my despair, and soldiered on to MIT.
    I did not have any girlfriends in college.



y freshman year was peppered with more unhappenings than almost any other time in my life, before or since. Sometimes they came so quickly I began to think if I were observant enough, I would actually be able to see the changes in real time. That never worked out to be the case, though. Invariably, the people in my life whose memories of me fluctuated never had that experience in my presence. There were times when I discovered a classmate was unaware of a conversation from only an hour before, or I would first meet someone