I remember when I was a little girl very vividly. I was a genial redhead with about ten-thousand too many freckles. And, oh yes, I was a redhead in every way imaginable. The type of redhead that has to wear SPF 700 or I would be one huge blistering sunburn. And my hair was red. Fire truck red. Dita von Teese lips red. Mark left by the hardest slap on the face ever red.

   I remember that during summers when the baby sitter was on the couch fast asleep to some people screaming on Jerry Springer I would creep into my mom’s room and pull out her best supermarket check-out line romance novels. They would have titles like “The Captain’s Maiden” or “The Prince’s Destiny.” And the heaving bosoms. Shirtless Fabio-clones ravaging a busty maiden with a passion that was more than laudable.

   There are many other things I remember about my childhood—but it was the romance novels that got to me. They got under my skin and into my brain. I secretly always used to think that someday I would be stolen by pirates or get lost in some foreign country only to be rescued by the perfect man and we would have our moment of perfect bliss. I knew this was dubious, and frankly ridiculous, but that didn’t stop me from looking for my own One True Love every chance I got.

   But life didn’t really work out like that. I graduated high school never having been kissed. I figured I would be the always-a-brides-maid-never-a-bride, “I like you, but I don’t like you like you”, “I just think of you as my little sister” type of girl for the rest of my life. Especially going to college and seeing ubiquitous couples and hook-ups, I guess I just started to give up on the putative “happily ever after” type of love.

   That was until my sophomore year when I met Jackson. He was by no means a model. He was more of a pallid, lanky, awkward kid with a few too many opinions. He was the erudite kid who sat in the back of the room mysteriously and was always able to answer the professor’s questions. The type of kid who most would never really give a second glance to, but far from ugly. In fact, he was incredibly beautiful in a delicate sort of way.

   I spent the better half of a semester trying to get to talk to him—well trying to build up the courage to actually confront him and introduce myself. He seemed too imperturbable—too completely out of reach. So instead I completely engrossed myself back in the fantasies I knew as a child. I mentally opened back up the romance novels and put myself and Jackson as the lead characters. I would be trapped in my made-up step-mother’s tallest tower forced to spend my days looming and he would be the prince of the neighboring kingdom who was looking to escape a life he never chose or wanted. Or else I was a colonial general’s daughter who was captured by a Native American tribe and he was the mysterious chieftain’s son who I secretly developed feelings for. These thoughts would get me through the class while the professor droned on.

   My friends didn’t get my near infatuation with Jackson, but I didn’t care. It was the type of day dreaming that got me through the day with a smile on my face. I knew the odds were against anything actually coming of this crush between me being too scared and him being too reticent, but just the thought that a love like that in my favorite stories.

   Then came Valentine’s Day in the spring semester. Some local fraternity was throwing a “Singles Awareness Day” party at their house.  I didn’t really want to go but I had been having a few rough weeks so my friends dragged me out of my room. When we got there, well, it was almost like some sort of cliché fate. The first thing I saw when I got in the room was Jackson talking to some guy. I hadn’t seen him since the final for the class we had the previous semester. I guess it was due to three months of fantasizing and pining, two glasses of boxed wine before we had left, and the silly idea that our chance encounter had been written in the stars, I walked over to him.

   I tried to introduce myself, but he stopped me to tell me he already knew who I was. And then we really talked. It wasn't the type of conversation comprised of "How ya doing?" and "What's your major?" but the true essence of communication. We talked about his family and that he was going to be the first person to graduate from his family. We talked about what we wanted out of college and what we wanted out of life after college. We talked for what felt like hours. Honestly, it was the type of conversation that scarily comfortable. I mean, I never thought that I would be able to open up completely and fully to another person like that, and we talked about that too.

  All he said was, "I know."

  After a while everyone started to leave the party. I told my friends that I wanted to stay a little bit longer, so they headed back to our apartment. I didn't want to leave what had been the best conversation of my life.

   When it was just me and Jackson left in the living room of the fraternity house, we found ourselves in the first silent moment since I had gotten there. It wasn't an awkward silence nor was it because we had nothing else to talk about—it was just a silence.

   Jackson took my hand and asked me if I wanted to go to his room. I feel like I should have had a few more concerns but this was the boy that I had dreamed about. Maybe not the stocky, muscle-bound Adonis, but something else.

   In his room—well, I became the chaste maiden succumbing to the handsome pioneer. But it was far from what Danielle Steele ever could've gotten right. It wasn't a fairy-tale night—but rather one full of false starts and fumbling hands. Between the moments of passionate ecstasy were giggles and smiles. We didn't necessarily roll around in delicious sin. In fact, the one time he tried to roll us over, it took about three strong pulls and a lot of elbow grease on my behalf.

   But it was more magical than some storybook lover could ever have known. It wasn't a fantasy. It was the type of esoteric love that couldn't be explained. Trying to explain it would be like asking the first person who ever saw the Northern Lights to tell you why they were so beautiful or explaining what the color red looks like to a blind man.

   At that moment I knew I could never read another romance novel again, cause all the heaving bosoms in the world could never come close to being as perfect as that night.

(All stories are copyrighted to the Collaborative Learning Center and are not available for redistribution without explicit conset. For more information please e-mail PapeD@ripon.edu. The 100 Words Projcet is property of the Collaborative Learning Center, Ripon College, Ripon WI. All rights reserved.)