Vince

Too Cool For

Once I graduated from high school, I moved a few states over to hopefully avoid seeing anyone I graduated with. I rarely saw high schoolers which was a blessing. Being around anyone that sleep deprived and stressed out was difficult, but adding on the teenage hormones made it ten times worse.

Walking into a high school again felt surreal. I escaped this place once after years of fighting to be anywhere but there, and I was voluntarily entering the building. Like Stockholm syndrome or whatever it's called.

Vince walked up to the administration and put on an award winning smile, "Hey, my younger sister goes to school here. I've been away for awhile and I wanted to surprise her, is that okay?"

The receptionist asked him for an ID but let him through without any other questions. It was like they were begging for something bad to happen. They didn't even check my ID.

Vince walked us through the building like he knew it like the back of his hand.

"You went to school here didn't you?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I don't know if anyone would remember me. I was kind of a quiet kid."

I took hold of his arm, "They'd remember your drop dead gorgeous face. Definitely."

He smiled awkwardly, "I was lucky enough to figure that out after high school. Here, I was just the kid with bad acne and baggy clothes to hide everything."

"Show me a picture right now," I demanded.

Vince shook his head and pulled out his phone to scroll as far back as possible in his photos and picked one of him and a few friends sitting together. His face had slimmed down a ton since then but his eyes were the same.

"I would've been head over heels for you in high school." I playfully shoved his arm.

"You would've been a bad influence on me," Vince laughed.

He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and led me through the building.

"There's someone I want to see before we do what we're here for," Vince said, pushing open a door for me to walk through.

A teacher sat behind their desk grading papers under lamplight as some students watched a video. He raised his face to look at who entered and smiled a gigantic smile at Vince. He met us at the door and led us outside to keep us from interrupting the class, but anyone who had seen Vince was already distracted.

"Vincenzo, it's great to see you. What are you doing here?" The teacher asked.

"I'm here to surprise Emilia. I've been away for a long time and I thought it'd be nice."

"What have you been up to?"

Vince looked uncomfortable answering truthfully, "I've been going to college. So close to getting my bachelors."

"What's your major?"

"Uh, film."

"That's great. I never saw you as a film major though. You did so great with my psychology class I thought you'd excel at therapy," The teacher gushed.

"I considered it. I guess things just changed at the last minute. You know how it is." Vince rubbed the back of his neck.

The teacher and Vince said their goodbyes. Vince held my hand as we walked down the hallway and spun me around like we were dancing. He pulled me back into his chest and kissed me gently. I was more than tempted to shove my hands under his shirt, but I refrained.

He stopped us in front of a cafeteria filled with kids. He took a deep breath and put on a smile that looked so good on him I would've ripped his shirt off if we weren't in public. We walked through the crowded room searching for two specific girls.