Jose, Garrett, Eva, and I were at the Pirate Palace the weekend after homecoming. It was a Friday night, but we were gathered in the corner booth, drowning our sorrows in a comfortingly familiar nacho basket. It was a kids' size, but we all shared it, to be economical.

"What did you like about him, anyway?" Garrett asked. He was doing her job as the best friend, trying to make me feel better, by pointing out his lack of redeeming qualities. He didn't expect me to have an answer, much less an entire essay prepared on the subject.

"I love everything about him," I said. "He's the person who I care about the most in the world and who I would put above anything else. I love his melodramatics, his lack of athletic ability, his inclination for chemistry, and his blue eyes. I love his songs, and his art, and his poetry. There's not a single detail of him that doesn't fascinate me. I love his soul. I love everything about him, except the fact that he didn't stay."

"It's like the unforgivable sin," Eva said. "In the Christian faith, the only unforgivable sin is not to follow God. What if it were the same way in love?"

"What do you mean?" I knew what she was getting at, but I wanted to hear her elaborate on it.

"What if the only unforgivable sin in love was to leave someone?"

"But that's the thing. I haven't stopped loving Cal. I can't imagine the day that I won't. I wouldn't love him any more if he said he was sorry, and I wouldn't love him any less if we never spoke again."

"Are you really thinking about what you're saying, Penny? Are you sure you're not just saying these things because they sound nice? And it's what you feel, in the moment?"

"Garrett, I've thought about this. You're the one who's always making pros and cons lists. Remember, we made one when we met him? Well, I tried to make one again, the other day, to forget about him. I ended up writing a mile long pros list, like a love letter. I couldn't finish it, I had so many more things I wanted to write, but I had to stop, because I was crying. That sounds pathetic, doesn't it? It was, you don't have to lie to make me feel better. And on the cons list, it only said one thing: 'he broke up with me.' And I don't know why, and that's what kills me the most. I think I could live with an explanation." That part, I was saying because I was in the moment. I don't think an explanation would've helped at all; in fact, it would've made it worse. I liked to believe Cal didn't have any reason, and blame it on temporary insanity.

"I don't know why he broke up with you either, Penny. But I know what it wasn't about."

"What?" I must've looked like a crazy person, leaning forward with my eyes opened, dying to get ahold of whatever information he had.

"It wasn't about sex. It wasn't about Meredith. I think he was in love with you, too, and he was afraid of it. He's had lots of sex, he's had even more girlfriends, but I don't think he had ever felt a real connection before, and he was afraid of it."

"Do you really think that?" I said, hopefully.

"Yes, Penny, but that shouldn't make you feel better. That's a con. That should go on the cons list, in all caps. He's afraid of love. He's immature. He's flaky, he can't handle his emotions. That says a lot about him. It says he's a coward. Two people can't be in love if one of them is running a hundred miles per hour in the opposite direction."

"I'm never going to find someone I feel that way about again," I said, thinking of my whole life so far up until I met Cal. It had been filled with a fifteen year dry spell, and then Jose.

"You will. That's why they call it first love, Pen. Because there's always a second. And sometimes a third."

"You're getting a little too philosophical on me, Garrett," I said, but I was smiling.

"This wasn't your first relationship, though," he reminded me. "It wasn't the last either. It was just one of the ones in the middle, that no one really talks about, but one of the ones that you learn a lot from, and who makes you who you are."

"That's what I'm worried about. It wasn't significant. It wasn't my first or my last or anything. It didn't even last for that long."

"That doesn't mean it didn't matter to you, Penny. It obviously did. And you don't have to justify something mattering to anyone else."

"What if it didn't matter to Cal?"

"Something tells me it did. More than you know, and more than he knows, right now."

Jose was on the phone, and I didn't know who he was talking to.

"Who are the guys?" He said, then waited a beat before responding, "Do you not like talking on the phone?... Oh, I'm sorry. Is Cal there with you? Is he coming tonight? You're bull shitting me! Move on, my ass.... What's Torchy's? Oh, it's a taco place? I could just get that at home.... Yeah right, my mom charges me, it's outrageous. Okay, yeah. I'll see you tonight, I'll bring the beer and the guys.... No, you hang up first! No, you! No, me," Jose said, as he pressed the red "end call" button.

"I'm sorry, Penny," he said, glancing over at me with apologetic eyes.

"Sorry for what?" I wanted to ask, but I knew it was for saying his name. Instead, I said, "You don't have to do that."

"Do what?"

"Walk on eggshells around me."

"Okay."

"Okay, what?"

"Okay, then, I won't."

"Just like that?" I said.

"Just like that," and we never talked about Cal again. That's a lie, actually; I'm sure his name was mentioned, but we never acknowledged the fact we had been romantically involved. With the rest of my friends, it was a slower process. They went from asking me if I was okay every day, to joking about it every few weeks.

"Remember when Calvin and Penny-" one of them would start, and the others would laugh before the sentence was even finished, because our relationship was such a joke. I would've known they were walking on eggshells around me if they didn't make jokes, since we always teased each other about sensitive subjects that we probably shouldn't have.

"I like your shoes," Cal told me one day, when I was wearing Keds. They seemed like shoes he would like, although I hadn't thought about him when I put them on in the morning, since it had almost been seven months. It would be seven months in three days. The wallowing gestation period was over, in the words of Ben. I had done that math: divide the length of the relationship by two. But everyone in the world telling me I should've been over him by then didn't change the way I felt.

"Thanks," I said. "They're Keds," which was stupid, because he probably knew that. "I wish I could wear Converse. I would totally wear Converse, if I could."

"I wore Converse all the time last year. Then, on the last day of school, the disciplinarian told me that wasn't okay."

"I forgot my shoes at home one day and I borrowed some from my friend. They were her gym shoes, and they were neon orange. I got a detention. But it was a great conversation starter, because everyone was asking me why I had neon orange shoes." He laughed, and then I got pulled away by my friends, who were calling my name. The friend I had borrowed the gym shoes from was Eva, and I don't know what I would've done without her. I would've walked around in socks all day.

I hated our casual interactions. I hated our casual interactions more than I would've hated never speaking to him at all, after the homecoming dance. Casual interactions made it seem like we were never anything. Someone who saw us in the hall that day would've thought we were friendly acquaintances, at most. It was obvious we weren't completely comfortable around each other, yet, there didn't seem to be any history, either. We were back to where we started, with occasional witty banter and clever one-liners scattered throughout sporadic conversations.

Sometimes he would hold the door open for me, and I would say, "thank you," but I found it difficult to completely get the words out, or to look him in the eye.

Two months homecoming, on the Tuesday before final exams, I got suspended for skipping class. It was drama class. That night, Cal got arrested for marijuana possession. Police stations weren't as foreign to him as the principal's office was to me. I don't know what was going through my head. It didn't seem like I was skipping class, at the time. It seemed like I was running late, and I would get there eventually, after I gathered the emotional strength. The principal found me eating a cupcake in the band room, listening to acoustic love ballads on my decade-old MP3 player. "Humiliating" would've been a nice way of putting it.

Cal and I lived in completely different worlds. I didn't understand his, but I wanted to. I didn't want to get over him, either, because getting over him would mean giving up.

And I couldn't get over his eyes, which were only so prepossessing because they belonged to his thoughts, his voice. Behind his eyes was a myriad of passions, terrific opinions, and unmeasured intelligence. He made the most mundane things seem endlessly fascinating because of the ardent fervor existing in his unblinking expression. I've never been particularly eloquent, but when it came to Cal, I could never say enough long, romantic, three syllable words.

He wasn't my first love, or my last, or the longest, or even the most important, but he was a love, and that will always make him special to me.