Kamber

Chapter 3

When I was a little girl, picturing where I’d be at nineteen going on twenty, it sure wasn’t anywhere close to where I am actually. I think I’d always thought I’d be married somehow, as if possessing an age that is legally acceptable for the ceremony would’ve simply been enough. I guess I’d never taken into consideration the aspect of love or its importance in the matter. Who knows. Maybe I just had a wild imagination and thought I’d fall wickedly in love with my high school sweetheart and marry him. Like dad.

I was damn near close, let me tell you.

There were so many times with just her and I where’d she’d just be looking at me and I’d just be looking at her, neither one saying a word, and I’d almost popped the question, ring or no ring not having been my biggest concern.

Looking back I think that was one of my favorite things about us; how we came to welcome the silence. I know we hadn’t always been that way- I already told you about how we broke up the first time during the sixth grade because we were awkward and shy and couldn’t stand the conversation gaps, right?- but soon enough we came to love them.

Some couples find themselves forever stuck in the issue of trying to always come up with something to talk about, and I think that might be one of the deepest heart aches to feel as you wonder whether your love is passionate enough to survive the silences. But not Amber and I. We thrived in those silences, speaking only with our eyes and with stolen touches.

Maybe that was why I never proposed in one of those moments. Because it would’ve defeated the whole purpose of not needing anything to say or talk about. Either way I knew I would do it one day. I knew it as surely as I knew anything else about myself.

You see, it could’ve been because we had spent nearly all of our school years together, but I just couldn’t picture us not together. It didn’t seem right to ever end up with someone else and push the passion I’d felt with Amber into the box labeled “a waste of time”. No. She was worth more than that.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I’ve regretted a lot of them. In hindsight it would make sense to consider not proposing to her sooner as my deepest regret, but I can’t say it was with all of my heart. It might’ve been if everything with Amber had been different, obviously, because how can my deepest regret be something that wouldn’t have gone anywhere at all? Whether we were engaged or not I’d still be here and Amber wouldn’t.

XxX

My dreams didn’t begin with community college either.

I don’t remember exactly where I pictured myself going to school way back then, but I’m sure it was somewhere classier. Anywhere would’ve been classier. I just hope that wherever I’d pictured myself had featured a barista stand that sold more than just coffee black or decaf.

I hated the stuff, though for some reason I still went every morning before my classes began to get some.

“Order up for Amber!” A heavily eyelinered woman shouts over the counter as she places a plain cardboard cup onto the pick-up tray.

Almost as soon as the drink is out of her grasp a tall girl I vaguely recognize from passing in the hallways on occasion swoops forward to take it. Much is the way with this coffee stand; it’s bland, it’s not exciting, but hell if it isn’t the first thing any of us want in the morning.

The woman walks off as she takes her first drink and I am about to look away before she spews her mouthful into the cold air, sending up a billow of steam.

“What is this?” The woman- Amber, I guess- demands as she stomps back up to the barista who served it to her. “I clearly ordered decaf!”

“That’s strange,” the eyeliner-caked worker says sullenly. “I must’ve written the wrong name onto the cup.”

“Well, unless there’s another Amber you certainly just fucked up my order!”

I wante to hate this Amber because of the way she’s treating this woman who probably gets paid nothing to serve the same two drinks all morning long to a school of about twelve hundred strong, but I can’t. Not really when it is only the same two drinks she’s serving that don’t in any way sound similar enough for a misinterpretation- decaf or regular. Unless, of course, it’s two names that sound similar enough for a misinterpretation. My heart sinks.

“Wait.” I take a step forward, raising my hand to get both of the girls’ attention. “I think it’s mine. Kamber, that’s my name. You must not have heard the K.”

“Oh!” The woman exhales, obviously relieved. “I’m so sorry. To both of you.”

“It’s alright.” I take the cup from Amber and, despite the lipstick stain she left from her only sip, I take one of my own. “Yep, this one’s mine.” I raise the cup in a salute and walk off, eyeing the almost-correctly spelled name on the side as I make my way across the campus.

Kate and I attended East County High School which was only two blocks away from our rival school’s campus, West Fairgrove.

Let me tell you; there was never a worse idea than when it came to making the decision to put those two so close together. I guess it made sense on an educational level as there was just enough kids in our town to overfill one school but exactly enough to comfortably fit two. I just wish the school district would’ve taken into consideration the sort of crap they’d be seeing when sports seasons rolled around.

Sure, there were other teams in our leagues, but the only games anybody cared about enough to attend were the ones where we faced off against each other. The bleachers in our town stadium that normally went empty, were packed through the roof. The echo through the empty stands that would’ve made a pin dropping monumental, were roaring.

Neither Kate nor I were considered sports fanatics but we still attended on those nights because everyone else did and it was just sort of expected. Also, I think we liked to watch the festivities, and by festivities I mean fights.

They were everywhere; in the stands, on the field, in the parking lot. If it was anywhere within relative walking distance of the field there were fights. Most of them weren’t that bad, maybe a punch or two before someone pulled them apart or security showed up- as the place was always surrounded by them on those nights- but every once in a while there’d be a real bad one. In the time I attended East County there were four separate fights that landed kids in the hospital. Broken bones, stitches, and police reports being as good as gold the next day at school. It was almost like an honor to beat some kids ass in the interest of preserving your mascot’s honor.

But it wasn’t only the games. God no. For some genius reason our school board chose to schedule our dances on the same night too. I think they liked to think it would reduce the chances of party crashers because everyone would have their own dances to attend, but really it just made it easier to bust in since everyone was dolled up into almost an entirely different person, so it wasn’t like the staff manning the doors could really tell who belonged where.

Admittedly there weren’t many fights when this happened, mostly just spiked punch bowls that landed innocent bystanders in trouble while the guilty fled back down the street before they could be caught.

On and on and on the infractions went with each school trying to outdo the other in every and any way possible. During my entire time enrolled in the school, and perhaps during its entire reign on the end of 32nd street, there was never a single day that the two schools came together for anything other than when they did on October 17th of my junior year.

October 17th. My parents got a lot of things out of that day. Their wedding anniversary falls on that day, as does my birthday, as does the first day they met. For all of these reasons this day will surely live forever in their hearts as prominently as another one of my dad’s tattoos over his right pec, above his heart, that reads this date. But I don’t for one second think that the real infamy this day carries has anything at all to do with all they’ve gotten out of it. No, I know it really has to do with what they lost- everything that they lost on that day.