Author's Note: Here is the long awaited chapter 2. This chapter has taken me so long to get started, because while I have had a lot of ideas for it, I kept debating on whether or not to put it from Michael's point of view, and then go back and forth between the two, but then ultimately decided to keep it all in Katherine's, since that was how the book was written. I am tryin to keep this as close to Judy Blume's style as possible. Please read and review!

P.S. If you have seen the movie, then you can see how the flashback is taken from that. However, I don't have access to it at the moment, so I didn't get it all exactly, but I hope to fix that soon.


I held the letter half folded next to me for a minute as I thought back to that day that he had been referring to.

I had seen him riding up on his bike as I was headed across the parking lot. Before I even realized that I had done it, I waved and he rode over and stopped when he was right in front of me.

"Hi" I said, still smiling with that stupid grin on my face.

"Hi," he said, with a huge smile.

"I hope you have a good year at school, Michael," I said, a lack of anything better to say.

"You too," he said.

"When do you leave?" I asked.

"Next week."

I nodded. "I'm leaving around then, too, myself," I said.

"Oh, and by the way, I got that job in Vail..."

"Are you going to take it?" I asked, part of me hoping he'd say yes, that he wanted us to have a second chance, and part of me hoped he'd say no, that he'd turned it down, and then I wouldn't even be given a choice to think that.

"It all depends," was that all the he said and stopped.

There was a pause for a few moments while we both seemed to lack for something say.

"You know, I really feel good about things," he said.

Again, I could only nod. I wasn't sure if my voice would hold out if I tried anything else.

"Will you write me sometime?" he asked.

"Sure," I said.

Impulsively, I leaned to toward him, and he responded back with a hug.

There were so many things that I wanted to tell him, that I would never regret what we had had together, or for loving him, and that part of me still did, and probably always would. After all, they say a girl never forgets her first love.

We stayed that way for a moment, and then each pulled away at the same time. We stared at each other for a minute and then he sat back down on the bike and rode off, and I stared after him for a few minutes, thinking of all the things that I could have or should have said, and then slowly started walking home.

When I got there, my mother asked me if I had gotten everything I needed.

"Just about," I told her, thinking about how ironic those words were.

I was about to head up the stairs when she said, "Oh, and Kath…"

"Yeah?"

"Theo called."

I sighed as I remembered Theo. I thought about how I had been attracted to him, and wondered why? After growing up and realizing that it was more the idea of him than him himself, it helped me understand, but at the same time, I had always sort of held an inward grudge against him, because indirectly, that was why Michael and I had broken up in the first place, although I knew it wasn't really Theo's fault. That was why, when I returned his phone call, we ended up seeing each other twice, but I knew that it wasn't going to go anywhere from there. There was always that little fact that I had in the back of my mind, as well as realizing that he was older that I was looking for, at least at that time.

I folded that first letter back up and put it back into it's envelope and pulled out the second.

Dear Katherine,

I was happy to have received a letter back from you, and so quickly. I hope to be able to take that as a sign that we can still be friends. I know that the idea of that is probably awkward for you, because I will be honest and say that it's awkward for me. However, you were (are?) an important part of my life and a connection like the one that we had is to special to completely sever. You are my friend, Katherine, and I hope that you feel the same about me.

In some ways it feels as though we had spent a lifetime together, and in others, it feels as though ti were only a short time. I realize now that if being separated for a short time over the summer caused such a rift between us, that in the end, maybe it was the best thing for us. It's hard for me to admit that, and I don't want you to think that it means I didn't care for you, because that isn't the truth. But maybe it was better that it happened that way, and before it got too ugly for us to even stay friends.

Your friend,

Michael

It was somewhere around the end of that letter when I felt tears coming down my face. That letter right there pretty much summed up everything. Everything I had been feeling then, been feeling now. The day I had gotten that letter, I felt as though he were talking to me, directly, and understood everything he said in it. I too was glad that we could at least be friends on some level. Maybe not best friends, but at least friendly. After all, he was the first guy I had loved, who I ha given myself to, body and soul. How could I ever forget something like that?

"Well, this is it," my father said as he helped me with my things into my dorn. I couldn't believe that I was all the way in Denver. In a way, it didn't even feel quite right for me to be here, because after all, this was part of my old life. What was I doing here, really? So far from my family, from my friends? Would I really be happy here?

I didn't know it then, but going to Denver would end up being the best thing that had ever happened to me.