Colorado

This story may seem as normal as any other, but what should be noted is that Adrienne and the Ninja are two different people. So, no matter how happy the beginning of this story seemed to be, it had already developed a twist from the start.

Adrienne was from Colorado, somewhere in or around Denver. She was my age, Vietnamese, and Buddhist. Months after we met, she told me that we actually had more in common than I had initially thought. I understand now how that was possible.

It did not matter to me back then that we did not know what each other looked like. That added to the sweetness of the relationship. It also did not matter that our relationship was long-distance. In a global perspective, we were not that far from each other. A state or two, and maybe the Rocky Mountains separated us, but to the minds of two young, naïve high school sophomores, that distance was close to nothing.

We actually rarely conversed with each other after that—maybe once every two weeks or even three times in a month on average. It was not much of a big deal that it turned out that way. What mattered to us was that we liked each other and were happy whenever we did have a conversation.

One day, she actually gave me a surprise. While talking to each other online, she asked me for my phone number. I obliged and gave it to her. Then, without hesitation, my phone rang. There were two phone lines at my house, and my dial-up connection to AOL was jacked into the secondary line, so when she called me, I was able to stay connected to the internet.

Anyway, I picked up the phone, and on the other end of the line was Adrienne. She had a cute, somewhat high-pitched voice that other Asian girls had at that age. We spoke for a minute or two, but I had to go—it was dinnertime. That was the only time we ever heard each other’s voices.

After we had gotten together, I forgot about all the other girls that I had ever liked up until then. I even forgot about the Ninja for a while, until, of course, we spoke to each other again a week or so later.