Jump that 43

Sam

I was sitting on the railing, long, pale legs dangling off the side. Finally they caught some sunlight, although it wasn't much. At the beginning of the week it seemed like spring had hit out town like a snowball hits your head if you walk underneath the fifth graders classroom window. I had immediately changed into my shorts, not knowing April would change her mind a week later, and now it was too late for either of us to go back. Short-short season had started.

That was how the first day of school had started by the way, with a snowball to the head. My family had moved here over Christmas break a few years back. I was terrified and rightly so. I knew nobody. I thought I was heading to the classroom, but the first ever room I saw the insides of was the principal's office. Seems fitting, I suppose.

Her name was Susannah. The girl that had thrown the snowball. She apologized maybe five times that morning, and another several through out the day. And that's how I made my first friend.

She had grown since then. Gone through multiple faces of being called, Susie, Sue and for a short and painful period; Susan. (right now it was Sue, just Sue). Her blonde childhood hair had faded and become a light brown, her figure taller and plumper and her habit of apologizing for everything disappeared. Nowadays she didn't apologize for anything. She didn't need to.

Black vans lightly knocked against the asphalt, the sound echoing between the buildings. I recognized the sound of her steps without even having to look over my shoulder. They stopped, pondered for a while at the view of the city that was visible from the bridge.

"That's pretty dangerous, you know", she said. The left side of my mouth tugged up into an uncontrollable smile. I dangled with my legs, let the air swoop up into my stomach and make tiny little ripples in the juice that I had had for breakfast that morning.

"I know", I answered. In one full sweep I threw my legs over the railing again and jumped down, my converse hitting the ground with a muted thump. "Ready to go?"

I usually arrived before her at out meeting spot on our way to school. This day was not any different, in fact there was nothing peculiar about this day at all. But that night, something would happen that would change everything. The tiny little flap of the butterfly's wings, the small ripple that would eventually take down an entire ferry and turn my life up side down.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The day had only just started.

"Aren't you freezing?" Sue asked. That's how all out conversations started. We never said hi or goodbye. It was always with something random, her shouting "garlic" and me responding with "bread".

"Nah", I said and shook my head, even as my legs trembled slightly. The shorts were made of jean and ventured just below my knees. Lower down my skin was covered in dark sprouts of hair. My mother wanted me to shave it, but I kind of liked it as it was. It was probably thinner than Sue's, but hers was still less noticeable because of the light color.

"Well, you're not wearing that tonight", she stated squarely, "Have you decided on something yet?"

"Slightly longer dress-pants?" I bantered. I was never one to dress up. I never had been. 'Being beautiful' just seemed like it wasn't for me, like it was somebody else's thing. Sue disagreed.

"It's a party!" she exclaimed. 

"So?"

She shook her head, her dirt-blonde curls dancing against her cute, red jacket. But then she stopped dead in her tracks. "That's good."

"It is?", I asked, surprised. She never liked my style of dress.

"That you've got nothing to wear. Because I do, and I always wanted to see you in one of my dresses".