Until We Meet Again

2. who am i

My four years of high school can be characterized by boredom.

People love to say that it's some of the best 4 years of your life, but I get the feeling that it's probably only like that if you're a straight cis white male. That applies especially if you're a football or soccer player. Nothing better than acting like you rule the school and everyone else is below you while gaining access to the programs that are typically most celebrated!

That's how it was at my school anyway. The guys most known for their skills in the field were the ones with the biggest egos and dramatic confidence in their appearances.

I think I maintained a more realistic stance in high school, because most of my worries consisted of attempting to pass the insanely difficult calculus tests and trying my best to steer away from the gross athletic guys who had certain reputations for treating girls like accessories. They hit on anyone, even if you weren't attracted to them, or well, any guys at all.

High school seems like an experiment carried out by the government to put together a bunch of hormonal teenagers in one room and see what they do. I know that some kids, like me, tried to ignore societal expectations about romance as if we were above it and focused on the academic side of everything, but others didn't. I remember one instance in which even my math teacher made comments about the rumors of beloved high school couples and asking the class what the right gossip was.

Some people thrived on the drama, but I didn't care much for it. In fact, for most of my life, I had a plain routine of waking up, going to school, going home, and falling asleep. That was it for most of my days.

A few times, I admit that I went on dates with boys before realizing that wasn't what I wanted. Other days, I went on dates with girls and realized that I was a lesbian, but I never stuck around for any relationships.

The only person I truly wanted was Delilah.

  She was only 5 feet and 3 inches yet she was full of fire. She had the biggest smile and boldest brown eyes with black hair and a heart-shaped face. She was never seen without her favorite silver bracelet that her parents had gifted her for her 11th birthday, and she was always wearing that strawberry scented lipgloss from the cheap convenience store on my end of town.

She was a magical being, always cracking a joke and making me laugh even in the worst of times. She never failed to shower me with compliments whenever I felt insecure, and she would purposefully mess up one aspect of her makeup so that I would feel less like a fool at formal events.

She was so random at times. I recall how once she went to my house in the middle of the night and we went to the lake together, staying there until sunrise without exchanging words. Another time she had pressured me into helping her steal everyone's tests from our math class because she knew that if everyone's tests were missing, then the teacher wouldn't be able to fail her. She got an A the second time she took the test after the teacher discovered the disappearance of the assignments and provided retests a week later.

Some people, like my parents, would say she was a bad influence, but she wasn't.

She was fun and wanted me to come out of my shell.

I was the boring one. I didn't like interacting much with people out of embarassment and fear when I was young, and it's only become less noticeable as the years pass by. Delilah helped me with that though.

I loved her.

A lot.

And I always thought that she loved me too.

  I became a better person because of her and I miss her.

When she left, it was like the light disappeared from our city. Her end of town was full of rich beings and mine was full of beings who were barely holding on to a middle class status. We were the common thread that tied the two places together. When she was gone, everything was lost.

Despite our differences in class, we found a way to bond over our own experiences, and I even laugh while thinking back at the time that we had gone in the middle of the night to throw toilet paper at the houses of the rude neighbors who hated me the most. They suspected that it was the fault of the children across the street and across town, but they were never able to pin the crime on us.

If only life could be that simple again.

I hardly step foot there, partly because of the pain of being reminded of her and partly because I'm not welcome there. That's also what made it easy for me to decide that I wanted to go to a university as far away from here as possible.

That's how I ended up across the country in a random city.

I admit that I had my own fantasies where I would somehow find Delilah at my university, and we would become best friends again. I would tell her the truth about my feelings and she would tell me that she's always felt the same way.

Or maybe she would have rejected me, and I suppose that could have been fine. I just wanted her in my life again. I just wanted to talk to her. I wanted to repeat our old good times and have fun like we used to.

Anything would have been enough for me, just to see her again. I don't think that I regret those words as much as I do now.

Thanks for reading! This chapter is a reflection from the future, but the next chapters will be set in the "present" time.