Silently Falling in Love: Race - #Wattys2017

Chapter 1 - March 1989 College

Anjali:

It didn't matter that Katherine and I were eighteen and we'd had this same ritual now for over ten years, the trampoline in Katherine's backyard is where we went to discuss all of our life issues. From when we were ten and if we should give the boy we had a crush on a special valentine, to our first kiss, to planning how we were going to sneak out of the house to go to the party our parents had forbid us to go to, to the stress of college applications, to bitching about the cheerleaders and their perfect boobs and the arrogant jocks that went to high school with us.

Some would say this was our therapy couch, and yes it was.

Katherine's mom almost gave it away two years ago thinking no one was using it. Luckily Katherine had come home in time before the junkyard guy took away the trampoline. She'd begged and pleaded with her mom to leave it in the backyard. Katherine's mom had grand plans for redoing the landscaping the yard and it didn't include a ten-year-old trampoline.

I had a suspicion though that she was just waiting for us to go to college and then she was going to get rid of it.

I swear when I bought my first house the first thing I was going to buy was a trampoline.

Katherine and I bounced up and down. We had it down to a rhythm; my hit would hit the trampoline as she bounced in the air and then once her feet hit the ground I would bounce in the air. We had a pattern. We first bounced out our nervousness before we started to chat. We knew something weighed heavily on our minds when we did this. This was the beauty of a best friend that knew you before you had serious issues.

We bounced like this for ten minutes before starting our flips. I did front flips and then Katherine. Then we progressed to back flips. Once there was no breath left in us we landed our butts on the trampoline and lay next to each other.

I breathed heavily trying to steady my breath. Next to me Katherine tried to steady her breath.

Finally she said, "It must be serious. It's almost the end of senior year and you have us jumping on the trampoline like we're twelve."

"It is serious," I said.

We lay next to each other; Katherine waited patiently for me.

"Do you remember that I applied to Stanford behind my parents back?"

"Of course, I remember. I'm the one who encouraged you to do it!"

"Well, I got in." I said trying to keep the emotion out of my voice.

"Oh my God! That's incredible!"

"No, it actually gets better."

"How could it be better?"

"They gave me a partial scholarship," I said trying to keep my voice steady.

"What are you going to do?"

"Katherine," I said as I turned my body towards her so I could face her and see her expressions, "You have no idea how badly I want to go. I need to get out of here. I want to experience something new. I feel like a bird trapped in a cage here. I want to experience my life without my parents hovering over me."

"I'm your best friend, of course I know how badly you want to get out of here. Remember my parents are strict Italian Catholics, I know how confining no matter how well meaning, our parents can be. It's still confining. I just didn't have the guts to do what you did."

"What should I do?" I asked desperately. "I really want to go," I whispered. "As crazy as this seems, I feel like my destiny is waiting for me on the West Coast. I don't belong here."