I was surprised to the point of shock when I got to West Point and found Layne, the object of my ill-advised affections from my halcyon days with the Vista Swim Team, ensconced as a yearling on the Army Women’s Swim Team. Though she’d once been one of my very best friends, indeed an object of true adolescent adoration, Layne and I spoke maybe two dozen words in the three years we were together at the Academy. The Army Men’s and Women’s Swim Teams just weren’t close when we were there, and whatever romantic affections I’d once felt, they weren’t strong enough—on either side—to pull us back together against the tide of our teams’ mutual animosity. I gave little thought to this as a plebe because plebe life offered little time for self-reflection. As a yearling, however, I mourned the loss of Layne as a perfect ideal. In time, however, I realized that whatever I’d once felt for my first crush, those feelings were of a piece with a part of myself that lived only in memory.