It has always been my misfortune to be known so well. My father was a successful jeweler in the small town of Southbridge, Massachusetts where I spent my first eighteen years. People I had never seen before would walk up to me on the street or at the movies or in the grocery store and begin an intimate conversation. They knew my name, my family and all my friends, how I was doing in school, and where I lived. They would ask me how "Dad" was doing, or if "Mom" was still working at the hospital. And I would stand and nod and smile and laugh with them, all the while trying to match their grinning faces with a name. Then they would wish me luck in all my endeavors and walk away, and I would feel as if I had missed out on something important and valuable. A forming sense of loneliness would pool around my feet as I watched them turn away and forget about me and go on with their day.

At first, when in high school, I ravenously ate up all those tidbits fed to me by unknown hands, and my hunger seemed insatiable. Isn't it every kid's dream to be famous? That was until my older brother, Glenn, was killed. Then every morsel turned sour, and seemed a poison that bittered me toward people and crowds. Suddenly everyone who had ever heard my name or seen my face now felt obliged to talk to me, to tell me how sorry they were that Glenn had died, like they had something to actually be sorry for. My fame grew to titanic proportions, for a couple of months, until Glenn was mostly forgotten, engulfed in the deluge of everyday trivialities.

September nineteenth, Nineteen Eight-Four. That was the day my only brother died. The sky was clear and windless, perfect for tennis, my passion, and perfect for flying, Glenn's. His single engine aircraft crashed upon takeoff. He had been dead for more than four hours and the story of his crash was on the six o'clock news before I even knew about it. They showed footage from the airport, shards of his plane, dozens of reporters, a bleak runway and his body, all before my parents even knew about it. Luckily they weren't watching television. My cousin Andy was not so lucky. He heard about it on the radio on his way home from work.

You don't know just how many friends you have until the doors to you funeral open. People lined the streets to see my brother's body lying posed and stiff in his coffin. Hundreds of people came to see the small town boy who had worked in his father's jewelry store. It did him no good. He never knew who it was who looked upon him, or even dared to touch him. He never knew his parents had kissed his cold lips, or that his brother had poked and prodded everywhere to make sure that it was indeed him lying there, that he was not in someone else's nightmare. And I thought then how alike he and I were at that very moment, known to everyone, yet knowing no one.

The clearest memory I have of that day was scratched into my mind when Glenn's ex-girlfriend, Naomi, arrived. They had fallen in love in high school, but had drifted apart after graduation. I know Glenn had never forgotten her, for he never dated afterwards. Naomi had married a year later.

And fathom a guess at her husband's name. That's right. His name was Glenn. I had never seen him before that day of my brother's funeral, and the man I saw nearly broke my spirit in two. He had the same slight build, the short hair, the neat mustache, and even the same wire-rimmed glasses as my brother.

Naomi walked in to the funeral home shaking with fear. When she saw my brother's body from a distance she burst into tears, the type of tears I hadn't really known at that time, the kind of sorrow I wouldn't feel for years to come. But what I did know was what I saw in her eyes. It was love. She still loved my brother, and I wondered if he had ever known that. And as she held me with arms that wanted to hold my brother one last time, I never felt so utterly lost. But something came over me then, and to this day I swear it was Glenn's doing. I held her in return with a love that only he could have felt for her. At that very moment I never felt so close to my brother in all our time together while he was alive. Never.

That was sixteen years ago. I was a junior in high school and those days that were supposed to be destined for girls and cars, and trying to get one inside the other on Saturday nights, became filled with "the necessity of grief."  Everyone knew I needed to grieve the loss of my brother, so they left me alone to do just that. It wasn't until I dragged myself to college that I realized I needed more. It wasn't until I met Jane that I realized I had died the same day Glenn died.

Jane. What can I say about the girl I destroyed so perfectly?

Jane was my better half. Cliche, I know, but true in the literal sense of the word. She possessed a geometry that was complimentary to mine, an art of subtle arcs and curves that conformed perfectly with my body. Simply put, we fit. We were great lovers, and she was my first. She, on the other hand, would say she saved the best for last, and that always made me cringe. Ultimately it was what would destroy us. Now I know why. For me, our friendship was a distillate of opposing feelings, of love and hate, lust and disgust, impressions and repression, an intoxicating drink, the antidote to my self-prescribed melancholy, and a poison to the holes that lined my soul. I was always cautious with Jane, giving and taking in moderation. Now I know that I was too cautious, and that I never gave enough. And though she would have given herself entirely to me, I never took all she had to offer. I never wanted to be anyone's "last".

I can remember the day I met her almost as clearly as the day Glenn was killed. She and a friend walked across my end of the tennis court. Funny, but I don't remember being attracted to her in the least at first. No love at first sight, no turning my head, no catching my eye. I was caught up in my game. But that would prove to be the reason why it all fell apart near the end, and if I think about it, it was why I never really knew my brother. I was always looking elsewhere, never looking for the obvious. Jane walked right in front of me and the first words I said to the only girl I would ever truly love were, "Can't you see I'm playing here!" She would later tell me that she thought I was such a jerk, but afterwards knew she was wrong when she fell in love with me. Now I know she was right all along.