Remember When 2: The Sequel
T. Torrest
Prologue
ALMOST FAMOUS
You know how sometimes, your high school crush grows up to become an insanely famous movie star?
Okay, probably not.
But I do.
Trip Wiley wasn’t always the gorgeous young stud you see these days on the movie screen. In fact, he wasn’t always Trip Wiley. When we were teenagers, he was known by his given name of Trip Wilmington.
He was always gorgeous, however.
But back in high school, his fanbase only encompassed the denizens of our shared little suburb of Norman, New Jersey. More specifically, the female members of it.
I don’t think there was a girl in our town that didn’t drool just the slightest bit whenever Trip came swaggering into a room. Sitting there at our desks, watching that beautiful blue-eyed creature enter our realm... It brought a smidge of sunshine into our otherwise uninteresting lives. Thinking about Trip as he was then is enough to bring a curl to my toes, even after all these years.
I mean, he was That Guy. You know the one. That guy who could raise your blood pressure just by passing you in the hall. That guy who could melt you with a single look aimed in your general direction.
Trip always had a way of talking or smirking or leveling his eyes at you like he was harboring some big, life-changing secret. Some huge private joke that kept the rest of us mere mortals wondering what the punchline was. He always carried himself so effortlessly, so self-assured, like everything was going to be okay, like the world was his for the taking.
As it turns out, he was right; it was. It is.
I suspect Trip may have known he was destined for bigger things than what our nothing-little-town of Norman could provide. Maybe it’s what made him move to La-La Land and take the entire city by the balls, throwing a sucker punch at the Powers That Be and transforming himself into the brightest new star this side of the moon. With his charm and good looks, it was predictable that he’d get noticed.
Mostly by women.
That consequence was nothing new, of course. Women always lusted after Trip. Hell, I was one of the worst offenders.
After crushing on him my entire senior year, I somehow managed to make that boy mine, and we spent a glorious summer together until I had to leave for college. Although we’d parted ways, we still kept in touch through letters, cards and the occasional phone call. At least for a little while.
I was going to school in New York, but Trip was aimlessly bouncing all over the globe. I would mail my letters to his parents’ house, where they’d get forwarded to his vacation destinations eventually, and get ones sent back bearing exotic, beautiful postmarks from places like Bali and Cairo, Zimbabwe and Nepal.
In between his voyages, he spent his autumns and winters playing hockey with some big deal, travelling MVP team. He’d written once from Minnesota, relaying the news of how he’d been asked after a game to be an extra in the Mighty Ducks movie which was filming right there in town. He seemed confused by that, but come on. He was so beautiful, of course he’d been singled out. His scenes wound up on the cutting room floor, and silly me, I thought that would be the end of his professional acting foray.
But then just a couple years later, I received a letter from him, telling me that he was headed for Los Angeles, where I guess he’d decided to stay.
Back in his early Hollywood days, all that appeal lent itself to a flood of attention from the opposite sex, even before the inevitable fame. Everyone from mere citizens to young starlets to seasoned veterans wanted a piece of him. He’d been spotted with a multitude of different women over those first years, but why not? There was virtually a line out the door and Trip was practically giving out numbers. The sheer volume of girls throwing themselves at him was staggering. He was young, unattached and met with opportunity at every turn, so who could blame him?
Certainly not me.
Certainly, I’d been living my life during that time, too.
Well, sort of.
It was excruciating at first, getting over Trip. Not that I ever really did, mind you. But during those first years, I had no other choice but to go on with my life. Because do you ever really get over your first love? Even during your twenties, when you experience that initial taste of being a grown-up… that teenager still lives inside you. That person you were before the world started telling you how to be, what to say, who you should be with. Before you lost yourself in expectations and plans, and could just be a work-in-progress with only the vaguest of results in mind.