Clare: Here in the sweet and same old way, I fall in love again as I did then. (The Platters)
Clare watches her daughter finish a cheer, her auburn ponytail swishing freely behind her as she whirls around. She sometimes wonders if she was ever that carefree, if she was ever as innocent, and she knows that she was. Her daughter is sixteen, the same age she was when she fell in love for the first and only time. It wasn't some fated thing, a twist of destiny that threw her with someone unexpected. Instead, she ended up with the star athlete, the Homecoming King, the guy she was meant to be with. She used to worry that her life would end up boring like Bender warned her that fateful Saturday in detention but now she knows differently. Andrew leans over and kisses her cheek. This was the live she was always meant to live.
Bender: It's here then it's gone, love doesn't last too long. (The Weepies)
A fleeting kiss when he was seventeen became the bar that all other kisses were compared to over the years. A blur of red hair and sticky lipstick defined his idea of romance, a notion too moronic and too ridiculous to be realistic for a guy like him. There were rules about these things, social norms that dicated who ended up with who. And yet, he never stopped looking for someone who reminded him of Clare. He tried to find her class in that stewardess in Nashville or her witty banter in that dancer in Louisville or her charm in that waitress in Chicago. It's only years later, after two divorces, that he realizes some things can never be recreated. Some things happen only once, regretfully, to guys like him.
Andrew: You have stolen my heart. (Dashboard Confessional)
Louisa Fisher reminds him of Allison so he asks her out on a whim the second day of freshamn year at the University of Iowa. He's a wrestler and she's a quiet French literature major with too much kohl eyeliner and not enough confidence. They got a party at one of the frat houses interested in recruiting him but spend most of the night in the only quiet corner of the backyard, talking about his favorite books and her favorite films. She tells him about her trip over the summer to Florence and he tells her about the exhibit he saw with his mom at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and there is never a moment of awkward silence in their conversation. It's different for both of them but not altogether bad so he kisses her quietly while a girl from the Beta house pukes nearby. They ended up dating for the next two years.
Brian: Now the feeling is beginning to grow, and the meaning is something only you know. (Huey Lewis)
Brian finds Allison crying in the boiler room two weeks after the day in detention on an afternoon where he elected to skip shop and hide out instead. He has his calculus book in hand, thinking he'll get a jumpstart on homework, when he spots her sobbing silently on the crate next to the water heater. It takes ten minutes to get her calmed down and another twenty before she'll talk. With a mere twenty mintues left in the period, she let's it all out in one stream – how Andrew had kissed her after detention but had ignored her ever since. Now that he is officially dating Clare, they both know it's over for good. Brian doesn't know what to say so he hugs her instead, telling her that they are both better than all the Andrews and the Clares in the world and someday they'll show everyone. She laughs, tells him that it isn't true but kisses him on the lips lightly with a soft thanks anyhow. He never tells anyone that's his real first kiss.
Allison: This is gonna take a long time and I wonder what's mine. (Joshua Radin)
Love didn't find girls like Allison easily, and it took her nearly thirty years to even figure out what the whole crazy thing meant. The only person she talked to from high school was John Bender, this guy who never really knew her until she spastically imploded in front of four strangers on a day when she didn't even belong in detention. He works as a mechanic and she puts herself through college with tips from her crappy waitressing job and they spend long nights talking on her firescape in the city while smoking clove cigarettes and drinking cheap beer. After she gradautes and makes a little more money, he visits her loft and they move onto cheap wine and sometimes discount whiskey he gets from the liquor store next door. He doesn't kiss her but spends nearly every night with her until on her 30th birthday, they both finally see what everyone else saw a long time ago. She loves him and he loves her and it's better than anything either of them saw growing up.