Harley's Girl

| Epilogue |

He kissed me when Ms. Wall thought we'd already went inside. It was behind the  strawberry bush, were I had my first crush. 

He always shared his blue crayon with me when one of the other boys stole mine, and he never pulled my pigtails even when his friends did. Harley Thompson was the sweetest, most innocent boy i'd ever met- and we promised not to tell a single soul.

I'd dreamed of one day hugging him in front of everybody on the playground, so that they knew he was my best friend and I was his. Then we'd have a wedding ceremony underneath the big slide to make it more official. And Miranda wouldn't ask him for help on the monkey bars anymore.

'Cause bestfriends didn't do that stuff. That was just the rules.

But sadly, all of that came to an end when we both graduated from Grade K, and moved up to the upper levels. Overtime, it became obvious that Harley didn't want to be married to me anymore. He said it was weird, and all his friends made fun of him for it. Eventually, we began to be just best friends. And I mean just friends.

Meaning, he could help anyone on the monkey bars and I wasn't allowed to cross my arms. Big-kid stuff.

Then we hit second grade, and Harley had a girlfriend named Josefina. She was the most popular girl in school, and could put the water-tattoos on by herself for the whole thirty-seconds. It was unheard of.

Next thing I know, in fifth grade Harley moved next door and had a new best friend named Madeline, who was my worst-enemy of all time. She picked on me for not wearing a purse, and said that girls have to wear a purse or they weren't ladies. Then when she stole my sweater and I told my dad, I was a 'tattle-tale'.

In seventh grade, Harley and I kissed in the middle of the street right before my curfew and he promised we'd hang out again soon. A week later I got braces and cried for a week straight. And I'd barely even saw him. He ran with a different crowd then I did, and all the girls wanted him to ask them to homecoming. In the summertime before eighth grade I got into my first fistfight and lost to Wendy Porter, the queen of the tom-boy girls. And everybody saw. Even Harley.

The middle of Freshman year they were dating, and it almost made me gag to see her manly knees in a mini-skirt.

We didn't speak until after Junior prom-in the backseet of a limo with my dress hitched above my knees, and Harley's girlfriend, Melanie,  still inside the venue. Although he'd gotten into the wrong car, I never lost it that day... and it freaked me out that after three years of not speaking I could have. I didn't want to lose my virginity to Harley Thompson like at least a quarter of the female population in my school did. I wanted it to be special, and enlightening. To this day I don't think that was ever capable with him.

And Michael treated me just fine, and just fine was better then nothing at all.