Once upon a time, when I was a sophomore in high school, I had a crush on a girl named Emily Rogers, whose family just moved to Milwaukee. I used to sit behind and across the room from her in Math at the beginning of the day, and History at the end of the day. I used to stare at her while she twirled her beautiful, dark brown curly hair as she intently listened and took notes on whatever the teacher was talking about. On my walk home from school, I would imagine myself gaining the courage to talk to her the next day and ask her out, then I would imagine myself going out to dinner with her, walking on the beach with her, gently kissing her on the lips every time we said bye to each other, and eventually getting on one knee and asking her to be mine forever. The next day, I would see Emily and I would freeze, unable to even blurt out a simple 'hi' to her.

One day, I noticed Emily to talking to Riley and I had a really great idea.

"Tell her that I'm the funniest person you've ever met" I casually said to Riley at lunchtime in the cafeteria

"But you're not" Riley responded, "I like this girl, she seems really sweet so I don't want to lie to her"

"Well, just find out if she's single" I replied, "Find out if she's seeing anybody and if she's looking for someone to hang out with"

"Do you want me to tell her that you're interested"

"I don't know" I replied, "That might be weird, I see her everyday. Just check the temperature, find out what's going on in her life, casually drop my name a few times and study her reaction"

"I'll see what I can do" Riley responded.

The next day, Riley was beaming as she sat next to me in the cafeteria.

"I've got some great news for you" Riley said, with a bubbly demeanor

"What's up?"

"I talked to Emily yesterday. She knows who you are and she is very interested in going out with you"

"Really?" I was a little taken aback by what I just heard

"Yeah" Riley replied, "In fact, if you asked her out during or immediately after History, it's almost a certainty that she'll say yes"

I sat in History class and watched as Emily walked into the classroom. She glanced and smiled at me before she sat down and started twirling her fingers in her hair again. This time, there wasn't anything endearing about that. The vibe was different, and all of a sudden, I had no interest in Emily Rogers.

The bell rang, Emily gave me another quick glance, and then walked out of the classroom without hearing a conversation-stater from me.

"Did you ask her out?" Riley asked me after school was over.

"Nope"

"Why?" Riley asked, "I told you she would say yes"

"I don't know Riley" I responded, "I'm just not into it"

"How can you say you're not into it. You were talking to me just yesterday about how much you liked her"

"I know" I replied, "I was looking at her from time to time during History and I just didn't feel anything anymore"

You can attribute it to my low self-esteem or an inability to make myself happy, but I start to lose interest in girls when I find out they have a level of interest in me. I start to wonder why a pretty girl like that is single, I think about potential flaws that they might have and start magnifying them.

I don't love myself as much as I probably should, which leads me to question the judgement of anyone who would like me. I began to think that prospects of me falling in love were really slim because anyone that I was into would either not have any interest in me, or they would, which would lead me to not have any interest in them.

This mindset changed on the night that I met Hailey.

I don't blame you for not being able to notice this when I was talking to Hailey at the nursing home, but Hailey is a pretty significant person in my life.

* * * * *

Five years ago, Kevin was hosting a house party with his new roommate, Michael. Michael was a little bit of a mystery to us since none of us had ever met him before. Kevin had found him on craigslist when he was looking for a new roommate.

Let me give you a better understanding of our living arrangements at this time. Kevin was the only person in our group who was 21, the rest of us were all 20. Davey and I were renting an apartment, Riley lived in an apartment with her roommate, Elizabeth, who was dating Javier, who was Kevin's roommate. Davey, Kevin, Riley, Javier and I were all in the band together and were a part of a small clique. The band was going to be broken up because Javier had made the decision that he was going to join the Army, and he was informed that he was going to be taking off in the fall. Kevin would not be able to afford living by himself, he needed a roommate and he found Michael.

Kevin was always really popular. If I hosted a party, you would be able to count with your fingers all the people who would show up. That's not the case at one of Kevin's parties. Even though he didn't have the biggest house in the world, he was still able to cram about 60 or 70 people in there. It seemed like almost every room in his house was crowded and the garden area wasn't any better.

I don't really do well with large crowds. I don't do well with strangers either so I found myself awkwardly walking around his house with Davey and Riley.

"Hey, do you guys want to jam?" Kevin said the magic words to us. The best thing about hanging out at Kevin's house is that he has the drums, so it's really the only place we can all get together and play music. Another thing that was great about him wanting to jam was that it meant I didn't have to interact one on one with these strangers anymore.

"Yes Kevin, let's do that" I replied. We were a little bit drunk by this point but we've played all these songs many times before that it became a part of our muscle memory.

"EVERYBODY, CAN I HAVE YOU ATTENTION!" Kevin stood on top of a table and yelled at the crowd in the garden. "MEET US IN THE GARAGE IN 20 MINUTES, IMPROMPTU NUCLEAR FAMILY SHOW" There were a few cheers and admittedly a few people who didn't what Kevin was talking about.

Kevin, Davey, Javier, Riley and I took our spots in the garage. Everyone gathered around in the garage and the driveway. Kevin had a lot of money from his parents and he had spent a lot of it on getting a really nice sound system for us to do garage shows.

"I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE!" Kevin yelled into the microphone "WE ARE CELEBRATING TWO THINGS TODAY, FIRST OF ALL I WANT EVERYONE TO MEET MICHAEL" Kevin was too drunk to realize that a lot of people there were Michael's friends and they were actually meeting us "AND SECOND OF ALL, JAVIER IS GOING TO THE ARMY TO FIGHT FOR ALL OF YOU, SO MAKE SURE, AS YOUR DUTY AS AN AMERICAN, THAT JAVIER HAS MORE FUN THAT HE'S EVER HAD AND GETS FUCKED UP TONIGHT!" The crowd cheered, Javier acknowledged them, played the opening riff to "Fine" and we got the show started.

The show lasted all of twenty minutes until the Police showed up because one of the neighbors had made a noise complaint. We weren't planning on doing a show anyway so I wasn't too upset about it, but Kevin was.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" He said to the Police Officer, he pointed at Javier and said "This man is going to fight for you, we are trying to give him a going away party and this is how you're treating him?"

Javier intervened and told the Police Officer that it was alright and we were going to stop playing. It's quite possible that if not for Javier intervening, Kevin would have been spending his own party in a jail cell.

The night went on and for the most part, everyone continued to have a good time. Kevin and a couple of his friends built a fire, and since we live in Milwaukee, people huddled around it because even in the summer, it can get a little chilly at night.

All of a sudden I looked around and came to the realization that I was alone. I was looking at Javier on the other side of the fire snuggled up with Elizabeth. I thought about all the times that I had spent with him and all the memories that we had and how much I would miss him when he leaves. Kevin was probably in his room having sex with whoever the prettiest girl at the party was. Riley was the center of attention among a group of boys who all thought they had a chance. Davey was probably passed out and asleep on one of the couches inside.

"There's a party going on around these parts and you're invited" I heard a friendly voice say to me. I turned to my right and saw a girl with long straight blonde hair, black skinny jeans and a silver Mayday Parade sweatshirt.

"I'm sorry did you say something?" I asked her

"There's this really fun party going on right now" She replied, "I know that you're the singer from this up and coming band so we would be honored if you would join the party"

"That's funny" I responded and I laughed to myself.

"I was semi-joking" she replied, "I thought you guys were great for the brief 20 minutes you guys were playing"

"Thanks a lot, I appreciate that"

"So why are you out here sitting by yourself?"

"I don't know" I responded, "I don't really enjoy things like this so I was thinking that I might get ready to leave soon"

"I wish you wouldn't do that" she replied, "I mean, you can do your own thing but I was hoping we could chat and I could get to know you a little bit. I'm here with a friend but I got ditched"

"Who's your friend?" I asked

She pointed over to Michael who was making out with some girl. We watched as he grabbed her hand and they walked inside. Presumably to his bedroom.

"Oh, do you know Michael?" I asked her

"No not really" she said. "That was my friend he was with. She told me to come with her to this party and I said I didn't want to because I didn't know anyone. she replied by saying said 'You know me' and ever since we got here, she's ditched me and hung out with Michael the whole time"

"That's pretty shitty" I said "But why did she want you to come out so bad?"

"I'm leaving Milwaukee tomorrow night, I'm moving to Miami and I'm going to stay with my Dad for a little bit"

"Miami?" I asked

"Don't get me wrong, Milwaukee is great. It's just that I've lived here for 20 years and I'm starting to get the feeling that I've peaked here"

"That makes it even more shitty that she left you, but my friends ditched me too, so yeah, we can hang out"

"Great" she replied

"My name's Torrey" I said

"Like Tori Spelling?"

"No, like Torrey Smith"

"I don't know who that is"

"He plays football"

"I don't know him"

"He's a wide receiver"

"Never heard of him"

"He plays for the Ravens. Never mind, it's alright. What's your name?"

"Hailey"

"Like Eminem's daughter?"

"No"

"Do you want to go inside? Maybe get a drink"

"Sure" she said and we walked in.

Hailey looked so pretty that night. I wasn't used to receiving attention from someone that looked like her.

We settled on the stairs and we got to talking. After a few minutes of initial awkwardness things started to move along pretty smoothly. It was about 9 o'clock when we started talking and five minutes later it was close to 2 o'clock in the morning and most of the people at the party had gone to secondary locations or home.

Hailey told me that she liked my voice and she liked our music, I told her how not many people do, but I like doing it so I do it anyway. She told me about how nervous she was to be moving to Miami and how she's not going to know how to feel when she sees her Dad who she hasn't seen in years. She took her phone out, found me on Facebook and said she'd like to talk to me when she moves to Miami, and I was only too happy to oblige.

After a few hours of talking to Hailey, I realized that I had never felt this comfortable, this early talking to anyone. Hailey was the opposite of me. I'll say that I'm good at many things but being friendly and approachable isn't necessarily one of the things that I am good at. She had so much warmth and love that was naturally being poured out of her and it was shared with everyone in her presence. I'm uncomfortable around social situations like this, Hailey was built for them.

We talked about music and the words of songs that she liked. I borrowed headphones and I played songs from my phone that I liked. One of my biggest pet peeves is when you have someone listen to music that you like and all they do is hear it, instead of listen to it. Hailey wasn't like that. She made the effort and she understood what Jesse Lacey was trying to say.

I'll admit that it didn't take much but the more I talked to Hailey the deeper I fell into her. The more she talked to me, the more that time flew by, the more I realized that I wished I had met Hailey sooner and was upset that she was leaving the city a few hours after I had the Hailey experience.

Hailey arrived with the girl in Michael's room so I knew that Hailey would have to be sleeping over. I decided it was time for me to take the leap.

"My roommates passed out the couch here" I said, "Do you want to hang out at my place for a little bit"

"Where do you live?" she responded

"Just a few blocks away"

"Torrey" she smiled "You've been drinking, we shouldn't be driving anywhere. We can hang out here if you'd like"

"Alright" I agreed. "There's a futon in the basement. I can close the door and we can hang out down there"

"Torrey" she smiled again "I've really had a good time and I feel like we've really connected here, but I don't want you to get the idea that something's going to happen out of this. I'm going to Miami tomorrow and I don't want to feel like I'm leaving something behind"

"Okay" I said "I can understand that"

"We can still go to the basement and hang out on the futon, but nothing's going to happen after that, I need you to be clear about that"

I nodded in agreement and we headed to the basement.

Hailey and I talked for a little bit longer. There wasn't a lot of room on the futon so while I was laying down, she was semi-laying on top of me. She lifted her head and kissed me. It was the softest, most tender kiss that I have ever had. There was no one around, so one thing lead to another and over the next few minutes, our clothes were laying on the ground, and then she said the worst words she could have possibly said.

"I had a lot of fun with you tonight Torrey. If I wasn't moving to Miami tomorrow, I would have loved to have done this again," and just like that, the next morning she was gone, and that door was closed.

That night changed my life. For the next five years, I wouldn't date a lot because no one made me feel the way I did that night. I would hang out with a few people, who at any other time I would have thought were incredible, but they were nothing because they didn't compare. It may have been strange to feel as strongly as I did after just one night of hanging out but it didn't matter. No girl was ever going to be good enough for me because no other girl was Hailey.

When Hailey moved to Miami, I was too nervous to message her on Facebook so I never did. The years flew by and she was living an eventful life in Miami and things never really changed for me. It's a possibility that that night was the highlight of my life and it was a blip on her radar. When you consider the fact that we were both pretty drunk that night, It makes sense that 5 years later, she's forgotten about me.

But Hailey was back. I was going to get her back. The door was open again.

A Nuclear Family - So Bad

A Nuclear Family - Hailey (Bonus)