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MALLORY - FIFTEEN YEARS AGO…
The bell rang signaling the end of the day for most of the students. In a way, it really meant the beginning of it for me. It was what I looked forward to most, and the only place where I felt like myself. Alive.
I made my way out of the last class of the day, thankful to no longer have to pretend to care about letters that had somehow made their way into math class and what they mean. My locker wasn’t too far from the class door, which was a little bit of a relief since that last bell usually meant a mad rush for the exits and getting to your locker was nearly impossible if it were far away.
Normally I wouldn’t have to rush, since usually I wouldn’t be leaving for a good while. But today was a bit different. Instead of dawdling around the theater, spending time under the lights on the stage just for the sake of it and helping other students’ workshop scenes and rehearsals, today I was responsible for helping work on the sets for the upcoming play.
The rest of the crew was due to be there at two-thirty sharp. While theater teachers tended to be a lot more lenient on showing up on time, or even showing up at all, the technical directors ran their departments like a well-oiled machine. The militia of make-believe, as they called themselves. I had joined them to help paint sets and get things together for the play since my role was small in the production, and needless to say their work ethic had shocked me.
Not only were they constantly running around in a craze, but the entire atmosphere was different. I was so used to the dramatic, long-drawn-out discussions about characters and motivations, that the intense silence of people working their butts off, building and painting and hammering and listening to heavy metal was a departure I wasn’t quite prepared for. I kind of liked it, though.
Still, the tech director was a hard-ass, and that meant I needed to get to the stage as fast as I could in order to help them lay out canvas to paint with. It was also my duty to bring the paints and canvas to the stage, since I was the last one who’d borrowed them from the art department.
With my hands full with my canvas and paint tubes piled together, I shut my locker with my elbow and sent up a silent prayer that I could make it all the way to the theater without dropping anything. That lasted about ten seconds.
I rounded a corner, hugging the wall tight to avoid the rush of kids that were streaming past. Most of them were apparently oblivious to me, though that wasn’t new. Who noticed the mousy girl with the hairbow and ill-fitting dresses that never seemed to make any good of the shape of my body? No one. Not outside of the geeky but sweet boys in the theater production class, but none of them had the gall to actually talk to me. I might as well have been an alien to them.
Two hurried steps after rounding the corner and every thought about boys, my lack of fashion style or dreams of being a big famous actress were tossed summarily aside in an ultimately failed attempt to keep my balance and not drop everything in my hands. I collided with someone big enough that it was like hitting a brick wall. Paint supplies went everywhere, the canvas unfolded itself and spread over the bottom half of me as I fell and landed on my ass, staring up at a belt buckle.
Oh no.
Not the belt buckle I knew all too well.
Graham Miller was tall, talented, gorgeous, and ultra-athletic. He was the star of the baseball team, and everyone knew, without the whisper of a doubt, that he was destined to put little Murdock, Texas on the map by making it to the major leagues. Indeed, scouts were a regular occurrence in the stands. They would check out when the team came to bat, but any time Graham Miller took the mound, they were on the edges of their seats.
He was perfect. At least I thought so. I’d had a crush on him for three years running, and even his tacky insistence on wearing massive belt buckles did nothing to dissuade me from going to every game. I would sit in the crowd on the top bleacher, usually with an umbrella spread over me to keep from getting sunburned. It was that kind of sweet crush that you fawn over that makes you reach for every chance you get to see them. But right now I couldn’t think about that. Not when I felt like a giant fool in front of him.
Slowly, my eyes trailed upward, doing everything they could to stay focused somewhere near his belt buckle but perhaps a bit lower. I didn’t want to look up. That’s where his face would be. A face that would be staring down at me. And probably laughing.
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall as I scrambled to my knees and began sweeping the mess I made towards me.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, repeating myself in a voice that felt like it was far away.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, kneeling down. Suddenly, I felt a jolt of white-hot electricity and looked down to see his hand on my shoulder.
He was touching me.
“Sorry,” I repeated again, though the words barely escaped my lips.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes focused on mine.
“I’m fine,” I muttered after a moment, struggling to regain the ability to control my lips. “I’m fine. I’m sorry. I was clumsy.”
“No, you’re fine,” he said. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Here, let me help you.” Graham started picking up bottles of paint and pulling them toward me. “Do you need help carrying this? It’s a lot of stuff.”
“No, I’ve got it,” I lied. “I just… lost my balance for a second.”
“Seriously, I can help,” he said. “I don’t need to be at practice for another half hour. I was just going to go grab a shower first.”
Something inside my stomach did a gymnastics routine at the thought of him in the shower running through my mind. I had to clamp that down like a vise, both so I could have any functioning capabilities at all and so I could crystallize it and think about it later.
“No, I’m fine,” I said, standing with the canvas and paint on top. Almost immediately, a couple bottles fell, and as I reached for them, the canvas unfurled and fell again too. “Shit.”
I clamped my hand over my mouth. I never cursed.
Graham just grinned. It was the kind of grin that had the ability to melt. I couldn’t seem to feel my fingertips all of a sudden.
