Rusty had come to me when I’d been studying for a history exam. The air in the library was full of that beautiful combination of dust and paper. I sat in a cubby in the far back corner, my hair in a ponytail, a pencil under the rubber band. I was lost, reviewing the Battle of Waterloo, when Rusty Calvin tapped my shoulder. “Hey, cute Ellie.”

He always put the word cute before my name; it made me blush. I knew him. Everyone knew Rusty. He was from the frat-boy party set; the Atlanta elite; the boys who allowed only the most beautiful into their crowd. He’d dated well over half my sorority, and I knew him only on the periphery of my life. He needed a pencil. He needed to know if I had the outline to chapter 4 for the test. I gave him both.

He studied in the desk cubby next to mine, and when I folded my papers and books, when I packed my backpack and stood to leave, so did he, casually inviting me to the party he was on his way to at that moment.

Crossroads. We all have them, and they are so often seen only in hindsight. This was mine. Hutch was out of town for the intramural rugby team he played on, and I’d finished studying. Nothing complex. Just that, and then everything changed.

Being inside the beautiful group was never a goal; it was never an aspiration or even a need. Then the seductive need to be there again and again crept into my life. The slow ruination of my relationship with Hutch was never about diminishing feelings for him. Or maybe it was, but I claimed it wasn’t. I’d said that our distance was only about me spreading my wings, wanting to do new things and have new friends. Newness.

Rusty was patient during his relentless pursuit of my heart. He said he accepted that I loved another and that he just wanted to be friends. He invited me to every party, every road trip, every lake excursion, saying, “Come on, just as friends.” He invited; he flirted; he presented gifts and trips and heartfelt conversations of depth that I haven’t had with him since that time. Of course he knew there would be that day, that very moment, when we wouldn’t be just friends, and he waited.

I understand that decisions are a combination of smaller choices built up over time, so to say that I suddenly and unexplainably kissed Rusty Calvin at a band party is partly true and completely not true. What is true—I did not mean to hurt Hutch; I did not want him to drive past the lawn party and see me with Rusty; I did not want to “cheat.” But I did, and Hutch saw, and he hurt.

Excerpt from Lillian Ashford’s Journal
New Year’s Eve 1961
Twenty-one Years Old