Dear Marty, I can still remember the first time we met all those years ago. You were looking up at me from under your worn baseball cap, wearing a goofy crooked smile. You fed me some BS line about my eyes being the prettiest ones you'd ever seen -- but you were looking at my chest.
Later that day, as I drove home from work with my sister, she mentioned you. She said you told her she had the prettiest eyes you had ever seen. We laughed all the way home about your lack of fresh pick up lines -- even when using them on people in the same family.
Every day for the next three months, you asked me out. I made polite excuses for why I couldn't go out with you for dinner that night, or the next night, or the next. I thought that every invitation would be the last. Everyday was the day I thought you'd finally take the hint.
But, instead of giving up, you resorted to downright bribery. "You like chicken? I make a mean chicken catchatorie. You should come over for dinner. How about some red wine? When am I gonna get my date?" Yes, it was shameless attempt. And, yes, I found your clueless persistence strangely amusing.
And, I suppose it paid off. I can still remember the first time we went out. Against my better judgement, I found myself sitting across a table from you one Saturday night over a cup of coffee. I could tell you'd spent all night getting ready because all the little details guys never worry about matched. A blue dress shirt replaced your signature faded T-shirts and your favorite worn baseball cap was conspicuously missing in favor of gelled-back hair. You looked perfect, but you fidgeted around nervously like a little boy forced into his Sunday best. No one had ever tried so hard for me.
Customers fluttered in and out, the hands on the clock moved, your phone rang, but I can't remember you ever taking your eyes off of me. It was the strangest feeling -- being the center of somebody's world. I remember thinking I didn't deserve it.
I can remember our last day working together. You pouted. You worried I was going to forget you when I went back to school. When I got to my car at the end of the shift, there were long-stem roses and an envelope on the hood. Inside the envelope was a greeting card with Snoopy on it. When I opened it, pages and pages of paper fell out with messy handwriting scrawled across them.
It was a love letter that I never got to answer.
I remember the day you died. I was away at school. "Drunk driving," they said. I thought it was a joke when they told me. "Hit a pole," they said. No, I thought. I still had an e-mail from you sitting in my inbox -- unanswered. No.
No matter what risks people take or watch others take, everyone thinks this kind of nightmare won't touch their lives. Everyone thinks, I'm not that drunk. I've made it home before in worse condition. It's only a few miles. I want to tell them you were only one block from home when you died. I want to say that it could be them next. It could be their friend or it could be the person they love.
It was for me.
But I don't tell them anything because the person I really want to talk to is you. I want to tell you I didn't forget you like you thought I would; I remember everything. I want to tell you that when you write a love letter, you should stay long enough to receive one back.
Love,
Caitlin
Caitlin O'Malley is a senior majoring in international politics and public relations and is The Daily Collegian's Tuesday columnist. Her e-mail is cmo160@psu.edu.
