Always Just Above Mine

I was a new kid at a new school, and already it was the same as the last school.

Three schools in such a short amount of time—this was the last option for my parents.

When the school held a bowling night, my parents thought it would help, so they dropped me off with twenty dollars and told me they would be back when the lanes closed to pick me up.

They did the best that they could.

Your name just happened to be before mine on the list, so you bowled before me, and that was when I first noticed you.

Not as a cute girl, but as an annoyance, as I had to wait for my turn.

You were just a girl with braces, oversized glasses, and a baggy sweater.

And I was just a boy too tall for his age, with ill-fitting pants and a bad haircut.

Listening to you talk that evening while bowling was a different story. I did laugh at your jokes because they were funny, and we did watch the same cartoons.

A few years later, you started dating my best friend, and that made me feel even more like his sidekick and never able to break from that orbit. I could see why he liked you—taller now, long blonde hair, and eyes no longer hidden behind glasses.

Just what did you see in him?

Was it an act of rebellion?

Did I ever tell you that I got kicked out of the junior dance because of you?

I was one of the few people who showed up without a partner, and at the insistence of my friends, they almost talked me into going up and asking you to dance.

Until I saw the guy you were with—what were you doing with a twenty-year-old?

So I asked the funny girl to dance instead, without knowing that another guy was about to ask her, which led to that fight outside the locker room.

You said I should have asked you sooner.

I really didn’t like you after that.

When you joined the drama club after that, it was bowling all over again—you moving in on my territory, so I decided to move in on yours.

I had never cared much for class or studying, just enough so I could spend the maximum amount of time playing video games and skateboarding, and now that was off the table.

When I made second honors, nobody was more shocked than my parents.

When my name was on first honors and climbing closer to yours, that target was in sight.

The effort and time it took me to make the headmaster’s list wasn’t worth it.

Yet I was always a few points behind you, your name always just above mine.

That made me angry because you were able to do it with zero effort.

When the crew changed the plans for lunch and it was just the two of us, you seemed surprised when I suggested we go out anyway.

Why not? We had to eat.

Were you as surprised as I was that we liked and sang along to the same music in the car?

I stopped caring when she asked me out on Valentine’s Day, and for the next year, we just happened to be in the same classes together.

It did surprise me that when she trashed my car and we broke up, out of all my friends, you were the only one there who stepped up and defended me.

I never forgot that.

Did you remember the conversation we had at the final graduation party?

All those parties after graduation, it was easy to overlook the fact that none of us would be returning next year.

That this was literally going to be the last time the crew was together.

Some of them left early; a clean break was best. Others stayed and lingered, and you and I were the last to get out of the pool.

Without any intermediaries, there was only us to look at, and we were both very different from that night of bowling.

You remarked how I had filled out and really grown into my height.

My silence told you what I thought of you in your bathing suit.

But that was stuff on the surface. I know we both knew this was our final goodbye.

That we most likely were never going to see each other again.

How would we?

You were leaving for Florida, the ocean, following your dream, and I was following my dream here: budo.

What was interesting was that out of all the friends in our crew, we were the only two that knew with absolute certainty what we wanted to do with our lives.

We did have that in common.

When the DJ stopped the music and dinner was announced, there we were now, all these years later.

My arms around you on the dance floor.

You resting your head on my shoulder.

When the movement stopped, my thoughts stopped.