Anglerfish

She shook her head. "It's not fair to him for me to carry on with you."

"Who gives a crap about him? What about what's fair to me?"

Sharon shook her head and bit her lip. "We both knew this wouldn't last forever. It couldn't."

"You might have known," I said accusingly. "You might have told me."

"I'm sure you realized this yourself." Her hand dropped from my arm. "It was great. Better than great. You'll find that it's rare that two individuals can act out their fantasies as freely as we have."

I grew angry as I listened to her. Her worldliness grated on my nerves, especially now that she was playing the age and experience card.

"You'll find someone eventually," she continued. "Someone more your age. I know you can't imagine it now, but I hope that you'll eventually be able to remember me with something approaching affection."

"But..."

"I'm sorry, Steve. But it has to be this way."

"Go to hell," I shrieked, slammed open the door and fled.

It wasn't my finest moment, I admit.

She'd given me a whole lexicon of looks over that summer, but it was that last look -- one of sorrow, shock, and pain -- that haunted me for the rest of my life.

She didn't return to the pool. I wanted to attribute her absence to the coolness of the coming autumn, but I knew it wasn't the case. My anger with Sharon abated gradually, replaced by longing and shame. Finally the pool closed for the season and school started again. As the weeks and months passed, I would ride by her house from time to time in the futile hope that she would see me and invite me in so that we could pick up where we'd left off. Of course that never happened. Later I wished only for an opportunity to apologize for my terrible behavior.

I hadn't passed her house for several months when an errand brought me to her neighborhood. A blue Galaxie 500 had replaced her yellow Beetle in the driveway and some new children played in the snow on her front lawn. I hadn't known that she had put her house up for sale, let alone that she had moved.

I never did see her again.

I did eventually find love, or what passed for it at the time. Armed with the knowledge that Sharon had bestowed on me, I'm afraid that I acted like an insufferable prick. My girlfriend at the time was right: I only did want one thing.

Time mellowed me and I finally found my match, someone with whom I could share fantasies, just as Sharon had predicted. She was right in another thing too -- I eventually did come to remember her with affection. Great affection, in fact.

To this day, the memory of the look on her face when I made my departure still causes a pang of guilt. I was a kid then, so what could you expect? As a man, though, I wish I could thank her.