I fell in love with Erica Kane the summer before my freshman year

Host: The TV flickered in the corner of the room, casting soft, nostalgic light across the peeling wallpaper. A late-night rerun of All My Children played — the kind of grainy, soap-opera glow that looked half-dream, half-memory. The ceiling fan spun lazily overhead, humming like an old secret.

Jack sat slouched on the couch, a half-empty box of Entenmann’s Pop’ems beside him. His hair was damp, his shirt still clinging from the pool — chlorine and exhaustion mixed with the quiet comfort of ritual. Across from him, Jeeny perched on the armrest, one leg tucked beneath her, a faint smirk curling her lips as she watched him more than the screen.

Host: The sound from the television — exaggerated sighs, the symphonic crescendos of melodrama — drifted into the room like the perfume of a different decade.

Jeeny: “Andy Cohen once said, ‘I fell in love with Erica Kane the summer before my freshman year of high school. Like all red-blooded teen American boys, I'd come home from water polo practice and eat a box of Entenmann's Pop’Ems donut holes in front of the TV while obsessively fawning over All My Children and Erica, her clothes, and her narcissistic attitude.’”

Jack: (chuckling) “That’s a hell of an origin story, isn’t it? Love, sugar, and televised perfection.”

Jeeny: “It’s honest though. Everyone’s first love is a fantasy — a person that doesn’t exist anywhere except between the glow of the TV and the loneliness of adolescence.”

Jack: “Yeah. Erica Kane — the queen of impossible standards. Beautiful, manipulative, confident. She was the embodiment of everything a boy didn’t understand but desperately wanted.”

Jeeny: “And everything a girl was told to be but couldn’t afford to become.”

Host: The screen light shimmered against the windows, cutting shadows across their faces. The distant hum of summer cicadas seeped in through the open window, the night sticky with heat and memory.

Jack: “You know, Cohen wasn’t just talking about Erica Kane. He was talking about obsession — that teenage hunger to feel something bigger than yourself. He found it in the only place that would let him — daytime TV.”

Jeeny: “Because TV didn’t judge. It just invited you in. It was ritual, comfort, escape.”

Jack: “Yeah. You’d watch the same people make the same mistakes, day after day, and somehow it made your own life feel less tragic.”

Jeeny: “And more dramatic at the same time.”

Jack: “Exactly. You could live out the chaos you were too scared to create.”

Host: He picked up a donut hole and popped it into his mouth, sugar dusting the front of his shirt. The television cast a soft pink hue as Erica Kane — in all her 1980s glory — delivered a line with the intensity of Shakespeare and the wardrobe of Hollywood.

Jeeny: “You know, there’s something sweet about that image — a teenage boy watching soap operas and finding himself somewhere between laughter and longing.”

Jack: “Sweet and tragic. The perfect combo for adolescence.”

Jeeny: “Cohen’s honesty is refreshing, though. He didn’t rewrite his past to sound cool. He admitted that his heart belonged to a fictional woman with shoulder pads and a perfect tan.”

Jack: “And in doing so, he told a truth most people never do — that pop culture raises us as much as our parents do.”

Jeeny: “And sometimes better.”

Jack: “At least pop culture listens.”

Host: The TV cut to commercial, the jingle bright and invasive. Jeeny reached for the remote and muted it, leaving behind a silence filled with nostalgia and sugar.

Jeeny: “You know what I think? That moment — the donuts, the pool, the TV — it wasn’t about Erica at all. It was about escape. About control. The teenage heart wants a place where it can ache safely.”

Jack: “And where perfection is possible — at least on screen.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Erica Kane wasn’t just his crush. She was his portal. A mirror for desire — messy, impossible, intoxicating.”

Jack: “And when you’re young, that’s what you think love is — a storm that looks glamorous from the outside.”

Jeeny: “Until you realize real love doesn’t wear sequins or deliver monologues. It burns slower. Less camera-ready, more kitchen-sink real.”

Host: The sound of laughter from a neighboring apartment drifted through the wall. The room smelled faintly of sugar and rain from the open window.

Jack: “You ever have a fantasy like that? Someone unreal you were sure was real?”

Jeeny: “Oh, a few. They were always unreachable — actors, poets, people who lived inside the idea of passion. I think we all go through it. We fall in love with archetypes before we ever learn how to love humans.”

Jack: “Yeah. And when you finally meet real people, it’s jarring — no dramatic music, no perfectly timed close-ups.”

Jeeny: “Just awkward pauses and misunderstandings.”

Jack: “And crumbs everywhere.”

Jeeny: (laughs) “Exactly.”

Host: The TV resumed, Erica Kane walking out of a room in slow motion, her earrings swinging like pendulums of fate. The audience applause swelled faintly through the speakers.

Jack: “Cohen grew up and built his life around stories — real ones, fake ones, all blurred together. Maybe he never really stopped chasing Erica Kane — he just learned to direct the camera himself.”

Jeeny: “That’s the beauty of it. He turned his teenage obsession into vocation. He didn’t outgrow fantasy — he translated it.”

Jack: “So instead of escaping, he curated escape for others.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s the best kind of redemption — turning longing into language.”

Host: The rain began to fall outside, steady and forgiving. Jeeny leaned back, watching Jack as he stared at the screen, eyes softened by something between humor and tenderness.

Jack: “You know, I think about that quote — about him sitting there with his donut holes and his devotion — and it reminds me that love, even when misplaced, teaches us how to feel.”

Jeeny: “And feeling is the first step to becoming.”

Jack: “Yeah. You learn how to want. Even if what you want is made of fiction.”

Jeeny: “And one day you realize — you weren’t in love with Erica Kane. You were in love with the idea that you could love at all.”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Host: The TV dimmed, flickered, then went black — its final image fading into a soft reflection of their faces in the screen. The rain outside deepened, a rhythm steady as breath.

Jeeny: “You know, Andy’s story isn’t about a soap opera. It’s about the origins of empathy — the way media teaches us to feel before the world does.”

Jack: “And how pop culture becomes our first confessional.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because before we live our own dramas, we learn to cry for someone else’s.”

Host: The clock ticked on the wall — slow, forgiving. The sugar box was empty now, a casualty of conversation.

Jack: (smiling) “Maybe that’s the point. We fall in love with fiction until we’re brave enough to live our own stories.”

Jeeny: “And maybe, deep down, that’s all anyone ever does — rewrite their own life in a way that finally gives it music.”

Host: The room fell quiet again. Outside, lightning flashed, illuminating the wet streets — brief, cinematic, perfect.

Host: And in that flicker of light and nostalgia, Andy Cohen’s words seemed to echo softly — both confession and celebration:

Host: that our first loves are not people, but possibilities,
that fantasy teaches the heart its first language,
and that the stories we fall into — even through the screen —
become the scaffolding for the people we eventually become.

Host: For in every lonely teenager eating donuts before a flickering TV,
there beats the first pulse of imagination —
the courage to feel,
and the hunger to belong to a story of their own.