Short Story Collection

Space Age Love Song

I like to imagine there's a moment in everyone's life where their entire world suddenly shifts before their eyes. Where their heart starts racing and they feel like their falling. That one, defining moment that changes everything forever. But it's still just a Moment.

My Moment is at our graduation party. Eighties music blaring through the speakers. I'm not mad about it: I like the eighties. I'm standing by the table with drinks, waiting for my best friend to give me the all clear sign we agreed on so I can spike the coke with rum. Tonight, it doesn't matter that there's no one in the room who can afford to lose any brain cells. Tonight's the last night where we're allowed to be fully and completely young. It's rattling to think that when we get up tomorrow, our lives will never be the same. I'm watching the rest of the room while I wait. I feel like I'm watching it through a magnifying glass: every glint of the dancing lights catching on a girl's sequined dress; every bead of sweat; every smile. It doesn't bother me. I hope that in twenty years from now, this is what I will remember from tonight. Because all the rest will be captured in photographs and videos. But the brightness of Jenna's smile as she dances with Elle, or the disco ball twirling softly above our heads, or the mischievous glint in Sam's eyes as he gives me a thumbs-up... Those things can only be preserved in my mind. So I want to remember every little detail. I want to really feel that I'm here.

I quickly slip the rum into the four bottles of coke that still remain and turn back to the rest of the gym-hall-turned-party-hall. And that's it when it happens. I spot Kiara dancing through the open doors, under the fairy lights by the actual bar; she's the third member of the trio that Sam and I form, though we didn't tell her about our plan of spiking the coke. She would've managed to talk us out of it somehow, but then again: that's why we love her. We would've died a hundred times over if she hadn't been there to stop us from doing stupid, dangerous shit.

She looks stunning. It's not the first time I've seen her in a dress or skirt, but it always makes me feel some sort of the way. And now, the warm yellow light from the stringed lanterns over her head, catches the gold in her hair and gleams off of the petals of her flower crown, and the mint-green and pale-pink dress swirls around her knees as one of her friends spins her around, and she's laughing and the world just... Tilts.

A pit opens up in my stomach and I feel like I'm free-falling: like that time in fifth grade where Kiara couldn't prevent Sam and I from climbing up on the roof of Sam's house, and I ended up falling off. It feels exactly the same.

It feels like I'm seeing her for the very first time in my life.

Somehow, despite the dancing crowd between us, she must have felt I was looking at her, because she turns her head and meets my eyes. Blue-green, a shade that I have never seen on anybody else, and I doubt I ever will. I'm not even hearing the music anymore when she smiles at me, which is a shame because it sounds kinda like the Cure and I like them, but then they start singing and it's not them, but Kiara's still smiling at me and the song actually isn't bad. But I could probably listen to Rick Astley without puking in the nearest trashcan if she continues to smile at me like that. I start to smile back and her eyes are dancing, dancing like the spotlights overhead, and then-

Then an arm wraps around her waist and Ethan kisses her cheek, and the glass wall that briefly separated me from reality cracks. And then it shatters when he spins her around and kisses her on the lips. And then someone actually decides to stomp on the shattered pieces when she kisses back.

Song: Space Age Love Song by A Flock Of Seagulls (that song that plays at Homecoming in Spider-Man: Homecoming. If you're an eighties fan, you should definitely check it out)