They say your senior year is the best year of your life. Mine was...well... memorable.
Yeah, that's a good word for it. Memorable. My senior year was memorable. Not good, but not bad, either. Lots of mixed emotions.
Why, you might ask? Well...
It all began with a hat.
***
"Hey, Leah!" I quickly turned my head when I heard my name, my hair whipping around my face. Marie quickly caught up to me, bumping my shoulder slightly when she did.
"What do you want?" I asked sarcastically, bumping her shoulder back playfully.
"We're friends. Why can't we just... say hi to each other?" Marie's frizzy black hair blew in the wind, making her already wild hair even wilder. Her hair seemed to describe her personality, bubbly and elated.
"I don't know..." I looked at her sly face. With a sigh, I said, "Hello, Marie."
Marie smiled her huge smile, lifted up her hand, and waved. "Hi, Leah. Didn't see you there. How are you doing?"
I stopped the charade. "You know how much of a dork you are, right?" I bumped Marie's shoulder again.
"Whatever, Leah." Marie said as she opened the front doors to Maryville High School.
Before I made it through the threshold, though, something whacked the back of my head. I turned around, annoyed. Why were people such jerks sometimes?
I saw someone running my direction, his long black hair waving in the wind. He had glasses on, and was stumbling on his boots.
"Sorry. My hat just flew off my head and whacked into you." He stopped abruptly, his glasses going slightly askew. He positioned them back onto his face correctly.
I looked down at the ground, seeing a full pinkish crochet looking hat with a small tuft at the top. A classic looking hat.
I bent down, picking it up. "That's ok." I said, handing it back to him.
"You know what?" The boy gingerly held the hat in his hand. Slowly, nervously, he placed it on my head, securing it around my ears. "I never looked good in it. But you, on the other hand..."
The boy paused his speech, playfully backing up and resting a finger on his chin. He pretended to stroke a beard. "Yep. You look way better in it than I do. Keep it."
I spluttered, taking the hat off and handing it back to him. "I couldn't just take a hat. It's yours."
The boy pushed the soft hat back into my palms, holding it there as he talked. "No. I'm serious, keep it."
I looked at the hat. "Ok..."
"Hey Stupid Ren! I wish your head would explode in space already!" Two people came up to the boy, slapping him on the top of his head.
The boy just took it without a word.
"See you next time, in a galaxy full of freaks!" The two boys walked away snickering.
I rolled my eyes at them as they passed. "Just ignore them. They don't understand the ways of the Force."
The boy looked up from rubbing his neck. "Wait...you're a Star Wars fan?"
I untucked my lanyard from my jacket, which of course had 'Star Wars' labeled on it numerous times. The only pin on it was one of C-3PO. "Uh, duh! I am such a nerd!"
"That is so awesome! I'm Benji by the way..."
***
From then on our friendship soared. It all started with the hat blowing into me, then about our love for Star Wars.
