Susan

I met Susan in high school. She and I were working together at a fast food restaurant. I had a crush on her the instant I saw her, and though she rebuffed my awkward attempt at asking her out, we soon became fast friends. We spent a lot of time together over the next year or so, cruising around in my Gremlin with the windows down and the Beatles blaring through cheap speakers.

Susan was a girl with a "reputation", and while I knew her she had a series of relationships with men who abused her emotionally, and in one case physicaly. I suppose that was part of the attraction for me. She brought out my "White Knight" complex like no one before or since.

In the summer after I graduated from high school, Susan and I became involved. I ended up staying in her parents house for a while (needless to say, my mother did not approve), and she was the girl I lost my virginity to. We had a great time for a while, but in the end she couldn't deal with being with someone who treated her well. She left, and it was awhile before we could be friends again.

Over time, we drifted apart. I had not seen her in six years or so, when my ex-wife and I moved back to MD from NC. I was working with someone who had gone to high school with her, and he told me she had been killed in a domestic dispute earlier that year.

That was ten years ago. I still think about her sometimes. I think about the rough and rather unhappy life she had led, and I am saddened. But what I think about most of all is how frightened she must have been at the end of her life. I wish that I could have been there to protect her, or at the very least not let her die alone. Even now, she brings out my white knight.

I am sorry, Susan, that I couldn't protect you when you really needed it. I miss you.