Our Story

It Wasn't The End.

First day of third grade. A bunch of 8 year olds running to see their friends after waiting so long. At our school, in third grade you got to do what we call, wax museum. Every second grader dreamed of doing it. You got to dress up as famous people in history and preform a mini essay for money. I walked into Mrs. Moe's classroom, looking around at the familiar faces from previous years.  I sit next to friends before class starts when the teacher came in. She assigned us seating. I got seated next to this boy whom I've barely spoken a word to before.

"Hi Noah!" I say as I sit next to the boy. "Hey Sage!"  Before we got too many words in, class quickly started. A few weeks later, Noah and I had gotten quite close which for third grade, wasn't good. 

"Sage, are you and Noah, you know, dating?" The popular girl had asked. "What? No! He and I aren't dating crazy lady!" I laughed it off unknowing that people would continue thinking Noah and I were together as I grew up.

 At the time, fidget spinners were getting incredibly popular and as any little girl with big brothers would do, I BEGGED for one. And one day, to my surprise, I got one. A pink, plastic fidget spinner with black weights. 

I went to school the next day, ecstatic that I'd get to tell my new friend I got a fidget spinner. I ran into class and sat next to him, pulling out my new fidget. And he pulled out his own. He had this amazing white fidget spinner with weird points at the ends. Since Noah and I both had fidget spinners, we created a game called, Fidget Spinner Battles.

This was a game where we would open up our desks, spin the spinners, close the desk, then like 15 seconds later, open the desk and see who's spinner is still spinning or moving the fastest. In the middle of class. 

Looking back now, you could tell we both had problems paying attention.

One day, we got a little too excited while playing and got caught by the teacher. So for a while we calmed down but quickly got over that and went back. 

Later in the year, our grade had a day where we went to a park near the school. We walked over and messed around, Noah and I not talking throughout, sticking to ourselves. Then it was time for Tug-Of-War. Oh shit. Thankfully Noah and I had gotten put on the same team. Noah and I's team won! As we were walking back to school, Noah and I had made a song. The lyrics went along the lines of, "Anything's better than TUG-OF-WAR!" I'm sure you can guess, we didn't like that game. 

When classes ended, I normally headed over to the library to wait for my brother to pick me up. Today was one of those days. But Noah had showed up as well! I had spotted he had a phone and got excited since I did too, but I wouldn't ask for his number. I saw he had a donut pop-socket and complimented it. We had somehow got into talking about musical.ly, in which I did ask for his account. I had added him and went home afterwards. 

The next day we had talked about posting our tug-of-war song on musical.ly, which we did of course. Noah singing it, and I using the sound. I had seen he had also made a video about being fat! To other kids, I'm pretty sure we were "the big kids" so I used the song he had made, forming us closer. 

Before I knew it, it's the last quarter of third grade. WAX MUSEUM!!! Mrs. Moe's went over all of the people we could pick, sadly I got to pick last since my last name starts with a letter so low in the alphabet. But I knew who I wanted to pick from the start, Anne Frank. I had never heard her name before. Who's Anne Frank? I'm assuming that's why nobody else picked her. When I said her name, the teacher had asked me multiple times if I was sure about her, she had a sad story. But I was set. I wanted to learn about Anne Frank. 

After around two months of preparing, it was finally time. Family, friends family, kids form younger grades, would be seeing us, seeing me, recite a speech I had written about Anne Frank. Noah and I had still been sitting next to each other when the wax museum came around, meaning that we shared a desk for our big poster boards. For the first thirty minutes, people paid me to learn about Anne Frank, for the last thirty minutes, people paid Noah to learn about Thomas Edison. As I've grown, I come to realize I should have listened to Noah's speech, I never once heard it. 

Then, it was the last week of school. Nobody paying attention, everyone talking about summer plans, except I was different. I was moving that summer. I was moving across the country. I didn't know when I would see anyone again. 

And then, it's the last day. We spend all day outside, I walk around trying to collect people's numbers, barely getting two. And now, my moms here to pick me up. I walked into school with her, cleaning out my locker, saying goodbye to my little group of friends. But I never said bye to Noah. It's like the universe knew. It knew it wasn't the end.