Literary Works: Band Girl

During my Junior year in high school, I found myself resting awkwardly at the bottom of the social ladder, not on it, but supporting it wretchedly on my back, capable of throwing all of the climbers off, but too conscientious to do so. I was a member of the high school marching band, but only by record. I spent most of my time in the corner of the room with my band of misfits.

The year was no more than a few days in, and we had already established our rudimentary slacking schedule. During our break after the first period, we rushed into the band room and filtered into the corner, next to the music sheet cabinets and a large, three-stacked locker. I looked eagerly between the faces of Selmek and Bob, seeing who had the latest in the way of gossip. Males did gossip, after all.

“Dean Shober tried to suspend me again.” Bob blurted, “This stupid idiot from first period started mouthing off to me, really annoying. I whacked him in the stomach; that shut him up.”

“But because you’re in the special classes and he didn’t want to bother starting another page on your permanent record so early in the year, he just let you off?” Selmek quipped, clearly amused with himself.

“Shut up.” Bob calmly commanded.

“ ‘s up!” a voice called, extremely lowered from its usual tone in an effort to impress.

Selmek and Bob turned around and I looked on past them. The blond visage of Flick shuffled into the room, his smile, capable of making a buffalo cringe, in full operation. “Hey, Zasada!” he yelled, “I got you a date with this girl!”

“Shut up.” I replied, imitating Bob, who was baring a crude grin of approval.

“No, really!” he assured, “I mean, she thinks you’re a little weird, but if you can act normal, then maybe you can get somewhere!”

“Let me guess,” I began, as Selmek and Bob settled in for a long string of mockery, “she’s one of those neurotic girls who plays the flute and doesn’t know what’s going on around her, and nervously darts her head around struggling for comprehension. She wants to settle for me because no one else will go out with her, but, despite the fact that she’s clearly a freak, she wants me to change just so I can have the privilege of being her boyfriend. Is that pretty much it?”

Flick nodded his head meekly, and with an air of impression. Bob began to laugh. “He even got the flute part right, didn’t he?” he snorted.

Flick nodded again and was about to say something in retort, but was cut off by the bell. “Yeah, you know what?” I said, “Why not? I’m not getting anywhere in the girlfriend department, so why not? I’ll go ahead and meet her.”

After school, band practice was beginning, and regret set in like an overwhelming fog. The girl Flick was talking about, Jane, per my prediction, turned out to be a high-pitched, skeleton-like, neurotic freak who happened to be rather selfish and controlling, this conclusion solidly based on a first impression. I was desperate for a girlfriend, or at least a date, but surely not so much as to be miserable. I stalled making any plans in doing something with her and dismissed her from my memory, hoping that I could come up with something good to make her go away forever.

The director called us to order and we began warm-ups. After the flat sound of brass and reed smoothed gently out into a single, yet slightly out of tune note, the director prompted the percussion section to perform their routine tuning before herding us outside.

The warm, bright air of summer still lingered, not terribly hot, but still summer weather, obscured only by the shadows of the surrounding buildings. The scattered began to line up in formation, and soon I found myself standing third from the right of a four-person line, the members to my left and right absent, leaving only one other trombone player, a Senior, leading the line.

The director signaled for the drum major to start the roll-off, and after a short cadence, the band marched off, out of the shadows and into the hot sunlight. The contrast was quick and noticeable, eventually adding an extra three pounds to my instrument. We trudged across the parking lot and into practice field, its grass approaching a need for a trim, yet still short enough to show the muddy effects of the rain from yesterday.

We lined up in the halftime entrance formation and awaited the director’s signal. With a whistle, the percussion began a quick cadence, and we rushed onto the field, high-step doubling timing, a staple for the band. After a near collision at the end of the run, we broke formation and proceeded to our positions for the next song. I looked down at my feet and grumbled. Of course, he put me at one of the more muddy patches in the field.

The director halted us when the cadence ended, and his attention was set elsewhere. I looked towards him and noticed it was a girl, a trumpet player. She had apparently just arrived to practice, and was, it seemed, giving the director an excuse. Eventually, he pointed towards my squad. She began to walk over towards us, and the director lifted his bullhorn and shouted, “Trombones! Let her in!”

The girl was average size, with long, sandy-blonde hair. As she drew nearer, I noticed her sharp, blue eyes, set in a broad face. The girl reached my squad and looked about perplexed. I pointed my finger to the spot behind me. “Uh, here.” I said, plainly.

The girl shuffled into place and the practice continued. Our routine had us marching straight forward and breaking into the next formation. The director had us try the formation before playing it, and I trudged through the mud patch on cue, slightly annoyed. I noticed the girl commenting about the mud, or rather observing she was getting mud, in a faux-meek manner. Her voice was soft and timid, yet it seemed only an act.

I got the impression that this girl was friendly, open sort who wouldn’t shirk away if a nerd-type like myself were to talk to her. The director began yelling at the trumpet section for not being in line, and began explaining the formation to them. I carefully turned to the girl, and my nerves fired. “Don’t have a spot?” I choked.

She giggled and smiled. “Nope, I joined in kind of late, so he didn’t assign me a number.” she explained, as if it had no effect on her. Her voice was more forward now.

I let out a stiff breath. Well, at least she didn’t seem like a bitch; there are plenty of them fussing about the band already, no need for more. I decided I should hurry up and introduce myself before the director began bellowing more commands for us to follow. “I’m Chris.” I said, offering my hand to shake.

She took my hand and squeezed it. “I’m Amber.” she replied.

Her hand was soft and gentle, but I suppose all girls’ hands felt like that when you weren’t used to them. I made a few stupid jokes, purposefully, and she seemed taken. Then the director shouted at our section to pay attention, a gesture that was met with angered stares from the people around us.

Practice eventually broke, and I was walking with Amber, chatting about this and that. We got back to the band room, and the students scattered in all directions, disassembling instruments and putting them in cases, gabbing about school and friends, yelling to each other about nothing in particular from across the room, or just contributing to the chaos by shoving through other people who were also attempting to shove in the opposite direction. I managed to stay with Amber for as long as I could, feeling that I had to figure out how to contact her again, when two girls surrounded her, cutting me off.

“You got put with the tromboners!” one of the girls exclaimed, her shrieking voice a full contrast to her short, slightly pudgy exterior.

“Yeah, no number yet.” Amber replied, playfully.

The other girl remained silent. It was Jane, who swayed next to Amber, her stretched, white face like a banshee. She didn’t need to speak, she only stood and pined with her sways for the attention of the other two. Jane looked up at me and gave me a forced smile, one that I could only smirk a reply to and shake off.

I stood awkwardly for a few moments, looking around the room, and then back at Amber to see if she was free from the clutches of the two harpies. She continued to chat with them, and my gaze eventually drifted to the clock, its hands counting down innumerable seconds that took much longer than usual to draw past.

After thirty seconds (which I equated to be one hundred actual seconds), I sighed and began taking apart my trombone, accidentally bumping the slide against the bell, not that it mattered. There were enough scratches and dents on the old instrument for me not to mind what happened to it, except if I bent to slide just a little, since the slightest bend would cause it to cease working, and a visit to the music shop would be in order. Being a trombone player wasn’t easy.

The instrument was apart and in its case, and I glanced at Amber, still surrounded by the harpies, and went into the instrument locker room, removing my backpack from the locker and putting the brown instrument case into the long cavity. I rustled through the backpack and removed a scrap of paper and a pen, and quickly wrote out my e-mail address, a rising trend at the time, and placed the backpack and pen back in the locker, fastening the lock of the wooden door and securing it promptly.

I rushed out of the room and saw that Amber was still in conversation. I waited for a few polite moments, and then decided that it was time for me to go. I pushed through the crowd, nearing the cluster of girls. “Amber!” I shouted, extending the paper.

She looked up and smiled, taking the paper. “If you want to keep in touch.” I explained.

She looked down at the paper and up at me. “Hold on a minute.” she said, and began digging in the pockets of her beige pants.

She produced a purple pen, clear, with sparkles gleaming from the inside, and scrawled something on the opposite end of the note. Amber tore the half she wrote on and handed it to me. “Here you go!” she added.

I glanced at the note. “teddiebear10” the first line read, with “@aol.com” at the bottom. I smiled and thanked her, then waved my hand and pushed through the crowd to the exit, the adrenalin still in my blood, only casually noting how much time had passed. My ride home was probably furious by now.

I was on the Internet later that night, looking for computer desktop themes and otherwise generally wasting my time. I hadn’t really thought much about Amber, only a little. She was pretty cute, I seemed to keep thinking, but that just meant there was no chance she’d ever go out with me. I accepted that fact almost right away; it wasn’t like I really thought it was a possibility anyway.

So what? She seemed nice, and it couldn’t hurt making more friends, at least in the band, where those numbers were few anyway. Although my best logic told me she would probably just talk to me every now and then, my instincts suggested that Amber was more personable than that.

An instant message window suddenly popped up on the monitor:

Teddiebear10: how r u doin’

I froze for a few moments. She actually contacted me, and it was her initiative. I was astounded, and quickly tapped out a sentence on the keyboard, so as to not keep her waiting:

Washu1998: Good, even though we have school tomorrow.

Teddiebear10: yeh, it sucks. but what r u going 2 do

Washu1998: Quitting band, dropping out of school, and moving to a Japanese mountain seems like a good option.

Teddiebear10: lol

Washu1998: So, what do you do for fun?

Teddiebear10: hangin’ with my boyfriend, chillin’

Boyfriend. Well, I had suspected as much, anyway. Amber didn’t seem the type to be single. she had the looks and, I knew by that time, the charm to lead the boys right to her. It would have been more of a shock if she didn’t have a boyfriend.

Washu1998: Who’s the lucky man?

Teddiebear10: lol

Teddiebear10: billy morris

Washu1998: I think I know him.

Washu1998: Does he wear a Spawn shirt every now and then?

Teddiebear10: thats him

I vaguely recalled Billy from seeing him in the hallways, and it didn’t make any sense. He was, honestly, ugly as spit and, from what I’ve heard of his conversations as I walked past him, equally intelligent. That wasn’t right; no way would a girl like Amber date Billy Morris.

Teddiebear10: sorry i have 2 get to bed.

Washu1998: No problem, I should probably get there myself.

Washu1998: I’ll talk to you tomorrow, unless a cute girl like you has better things to do.

Teddiebear10: of course I want to talk to you! your cool

Teddiebear10: dont say that again ‘k?

Teddiebear10:

Washu1998: As you wish…

Teddiebear10:

Teddiebear10: well, goodnite, sleep tight

Washu1998: Good night.

I’m cool? Well, that wasn’t expected.

Over the school year, Amber and I became good friends, talking and joking, like what one would expect. She was a giving sort of person, that was clear when she took me out for my birthday, which was in the middle of September, less than a month after we met.

She was also a demanding sort of person. Amber demanded attention not only to herself, but to her way of thinking. She was stubborn, too, but that was just something that added to her personality, and that’s why I liked being her friend.

And that’s all it was. I wasn’t interested in trying to be her boyfriend, taking some romantic strides to separate her from her idiot boyfriend (I have to be honest) and live happily ever after. No, Amber was a good friend, and whoever she saw fit to date, that was her decision.

Then it happened. In March, she angrily broke up with her boyfriend. She needed to comfort of her girlfriends, but I was also there to lend a shoulder, even though, I confess, I was a little joyful about it. Billy was a moron, and he wasn’t deserving of Amber’s affections. That was not to say I was, but, as time wore on, that worthiness was something that I would be striving for.

In April, and unusually mild, sunny April for are Midwestern town, Amber began to indicate that she wanted me to get closer to her. To say I was discomfited about interacting such a way with a girl was to say a snowball had some time to spend in Hell, but I persevered. During a spring fair, I spent the day with her, talking to her about the situation and putting my arm around her on the rides. This proved not enough for her, however.

Our phone calls to each other grew longer and more frequent. She started a notebook, a blue, transparent one, for us to keep notes to each other in. I adorned the cover with a printed picture of a Nordic goddess that she liked the name of, the image appearing a dark blue through the rough plastic.

We held hands a few times. We hugged more, but she did that to all her friends. I stayed with her when I could, bearing the burden of her friends. Jane clearly wanted me to go away, but Tanya, the pudgy one, enjoyed having a bit of fun with me,

“She’s got really nice boobs.” she told me once, in the middle of a crowd, causing me to dart my head fretfully around to see if anyone else was listening, “I know. We take baths together all the time. You’ll love ‘em.”

Another time, Tanya kept saying how I’d better get some balls and be a little more aggressive, or Amber was going to leave me. This shocked me, because we weren’t really a couple. This annoyed me, and it was then that I really started to dislike Tanya.

It was true, though. All we had done was hold hands, and I could tell that Amber was growing impatient. It was obvious that she was used to boys who would grab and grope their way through, whereas I was much more humble and afraid. This was a hurdle for me, and Amber was not helping the matter.

“She’s trouble.” Bob warned, giving me a stern look.

“I agree with Bob.” Selmek said, the irony not escaping him, “She’s leading you on. Just call it off and do yourself a favor.”

“Oh, like you guys are the authority on women.” I replied.

They weren’t, but it was odd for them to speak up about something like this without being asked. Both of them were probably more attractive looking to other women than me, and both were more likely to interest them. Now I was the one with a relationship starting, and they were grumbling about it. I had a hard time denying there were some problems, but they would work themselves out when the time was right.

Late April, the warm sun still shined brightly and warmly on the town, the bright greens and lavenders and blues and reds and yellows and whites all daubed on a canvas of exquisiteness. On this day, Amber and I were going to take a walk in the park. I had it planned out; I was going to kiss her today.

I walked with a nervous apprehension as we strolled down the fine stone path, past the lush greens and beams of sunlight breaking through the treetops and onto the forest floor, clammily holding hands. The path was relatively dim and a little cooler than the rest of the world, but that was fine. Today, I would make my own light.

We made our way halfway through the trail when I guided our course into the forest, where we stepped onto a loosely blazed trail, littered with small, fallen trees and sticks, but clear enough to walk through without much disturbance. We walked back several meters until we came to another trail, much narrower than the first, which snaked into the green tangle of the forest.

I led Amber, who was curious, down the trail. It wound left, then right, and curved over to the left again, the underbrush invading the worn dirt that was the only identification of this trail. The path shot sharply to the right, and a small opening in the forest bloomed open with all the splendor and softness of a red rose.

The open area, protected by small trees and overgrown brush, was a beacon of clarity in the forest where the fall leaves from two seasons ago still settled. It extended out several meters around, with short grass patches and bare and settled dirt. On the opposite end from the entrance were two dead trees next to each other, one fallen and one with the strength left to stand. I led Amber over to them and invited her to sit on the fallen tree, resting next to her as she did.

“Like it?” I asked, indicating the scenery.

“It’s nice.” Amber replied, casually nodding as she looked around with what might have been interest.

“I found it with Bob a while ago.” I explained, “It’s sort of our secret club, you could say.”

Amber acknowledged the information and continued to look around. I looked at her with a vague feeling of fear mounting into terror. Now was the time to try, now was the time to kiss her. I stared at her for a few moments, and she eventually noticed me and stared back. She knew what was happening, and sat, waiting.

I stared at her for a few more moments, my muscles tense and unmoving. It was only a simple kiss, a simple gesture of thrusting the head forward and puckering the lips a little, why was this so hard? I sat and sat, doing nothing. Then, I looked down from her.

“Sorry…” I blurted.

Amber folded her arms and looked away from me. I was devastated, but also hopeful. She was obviously frustrated with my lack of nerve, but it looked also like she wanted the kiss. I looked up at her and willed myself again, but the impulses to my body weren’t working.

Arms still folded, Amber stood and motioned for me to follow. I shakily rose, arms limp at my sides. “Close your eyes.” she commanded, which I tautly followed.

The world then consisted only of the uneasy darkness that occurs when the eyes are closed, not completely dark because of the light that penetrates through the eyelids, yet not nearly light enough to have a notion of what’s happening around you. I wait patently for something to happen, but nothing, not even the wind or sun, was touching with my body. I was in a void, the only consciousness in the universe.

Then a sensation brought everything back.

A feeling of a very moist lemon, cut in a broad, triangular shape, overtook my lips as reality started itself up again. It felt distinctively wet, more so than I ever imaged the sensation to feel like, but that nattering was irrelevant now. Amber had kissed me.

There was no relief, no disappointment, no overt joy. I looked at her and smiled, and she returned a timid smile to me. I was a little embarrassed about it, but her eyes let me know that it was okay. We walked through the park holding hands until it was time to go.

It was then, it seemed, that it was love.

In May, the prom was the only event anyone talked about, with people spending tons of time and money on this one dance, held at small dance hall on the other side of town. With stories of week-long beauty treatments and thousands of dollars spent becoming more and more common, I nervously prepared for my big night with Amber.

We arranged to ride with Selmek and his date. I could tell Amber wanted a limo, but grudgingly settled for the more reasonable alternative. I paid for the tickets with the money I managed to scrape together, and waited for the big day.

And what a wait it was. The days wore on slowly, and my time with Amber grew less and less. After the kiss, I let my growing affection for her become more known, telling her at one point that I was falling in love with her. Her reception of this affection was met with a change of the subject, usually to how nice I was. I guessed it was her way of taking a compliment.

We kissed twice since the first time. We weren’t really a couple yet, but my sense was a kiss was a sort of agreement to begin dating at some point. I brought it up to her over the phone a few times, and received such cryptic responses like “we can start dating whenever you want”, followed by apprehension on her part when I said now was a good time, or “you shouldn’t just focus on me, you know”. At the time, I had no idea how to deal with a girl at this level, so I just accepted this as a sort of nervous uncertainty and waited for the prom like everybody else.

Saturday arrived, and I was trying my best not to become completely distracted. I called Amber early in the afternoon, and was immediately scolded for interrupting her prom preparations. She apparently had just taken a shower and was doing her nails, with a full four hours left to spare. I hung up the phone and went about my business, deciding that I had three hours before I had to get ready.

Amber was dropped off at my house at six, an hour and a half before the dance was to begin. I presented her a corsage that my mother insisted on making for the event, a gift Amber commented was sweet. We took photos and waited for Selmek to come pick us up. At six-fifteen, his car pulled into the drive, and we were off for a pre-prom dinner at the Olive Garden, then off to the big event.

The dance hall was decorated with the best the high school prom committee had to offer. White screamers, white balloons, golden confetti strewn on the tables, floating candles in glass vases, and a dark and intimate atmosphere for young lovers to feel comfortable in. All of these went disregarded as I followed Amber around, trying to look couple-like.

Amber took the prom as a hasty social occasion. She hustled about, taking pictures of screaming friends and people she barely talked to with a disposable camera she bought earlier that day. She shouted conversation over the music with many different people, mostly those who were barely ever seen with her, in few, abridged sentences about arbitrary subjects of little value. I follow her obediently, only breaking off the chase to get a small chocolate and punch from the dessert table.

Conversation with Amber was kept to a minimal, as the demands of her friends and associates prevented any real talking. I managed to get in a slow dance or two with her, but this was only after some insistence. I held her close and looked into her eyes. She smiled back meekly, turned her head away, and laid it stiffly on my shoulder. The moment the song faded, she backed off, turned, and went off into the crowd, back on her rounds of curtailed conversation and picture taking.

I walked off and sit at the table where Selmek was trying to charm his date, a meager girl and sister of a friend of Amber’s. I shouted things to Selmek over the noise, trying to avoid my reasons for sitting at the table with him instead of hanging around Amber. He smiled and laugh, then turn back to his date and say something he thought to be witty at the time before I rose up again and made my way to the solace of the desert table.

At about nine, I began to get impatient with the situation, and decided that I needed to be with Amber alone. I cut through the crowd and looked around helplessly, trying to spot her amongst the heaving masses. At the edge of the dance flow, in a small clot of scraggly girls, I caught side of the overpriced, light-blue gown and the blonde hair put up in back that Amber wore to the event.

I pushed through the crowd and tapped Amber on the shoulder. She spun around and looked at me with a sort of confused look as I neared my head towards her ear. “Can we go outside for a minute?” I asked, trying to overpower the music.

Amber let out an exasperated sigh and looked towards the pack. She looked back at me and said “Just a minute.”

She turned back towards the girls and continued the frenzied conversation from where she was interrupted. I waited, for more than a minute, until she broke away from the horde and walked towards me. “Okay.” she confirmed.

I made my way stiffly through the crowd, holding on to Amber’s tense hand. The double doors leading to the outside came into view, and I pushed them aside firmly as I approached. We walked down the front of the building and to a small clearing to the side, with a sidewalk leading to a few benches, street lamps, and a well-aged tree. When we reached the tree, I turned to her and forced a smile.

“We really haven’t been able to spend much time together here, have we?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

Amber shook her head. “But I understand.” I began, and with an unusual tremble in my voice, “You have all your friends here that you don’t see a lot of, and they all want your attention. Can’t just stay with me the whole time.”

One stupid detail I noticed in the muted light was the corsage, which was wilting badly by this time.

Her head drooped down almost unnoticeably. I turned towards the tree, built up some nerve, and spun around. “I’m sorry.” I blurted, worry sinking into my voice, “I did something wrong, I did something to ruin the night. I’m sorry.”

Amber turned away from me sharply and brought her hand up to her eyes. I heard a sharp gasp, like crying, something that I didn’t have time to absorb. “I can’t be with you…” she muttered.

I froze, not fully sure of what she just said. I misheard her, I knew it. “What did you say?” I asked with submissive optimism.

“I can’t be with you!” she said louder, her sobs piercing through my heart.

I stood stiffly, my jaw slacking. I couldn’t say anything as she cried. My mind reeled for an answer, but could find none. “Why?” I eventually murmured.

Amber turned around and looked me straight in the eyes. I once heard that in times of crisis, time slows down, and one can find many of the smallest details in a single second. I could see the shimmer of the tears in the subtle, blue light and could make out the red in her watery eyes. “Chris, I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “but I just can’t see myself with you.”

She turned away and ran back towards the door, almost knocking over Tanya, who had come to look for Amber, as she turned the corner. Tanya’s head darted towards Amber as she ran back inside, the slamming of the door bars clearly audible from where I was standing. Tanya took a few moments to take in what was happening, but eventually called after Amber.

“Tanya!” I screamed at the girl.

I walked unsteadily over and stopped a few feet from her. “Oh, God.” she muttered, trying to look away from me.

“Tanya, do you know what’s going on with Amber?” I asked unsteadily.

She avoided eye contact with me as much as she could manage without turning away from me. At a loss for words, Tanya whispered, whether to herself or not, it was hard to tell, “She wasn’t supposed to tell you now.”

I remained silent, fighting back the rush of tears. “You knew, didn’t you?!” I shouted, “Tanya, what’s going on?!”

She nervously glanced at me. “She was supposed to write you an e-mail…” she said, trailing off.

“An e-mail?!” I replied, my confusion turning to rage, “An e-mail about what?! What is going on?!”

Tanya stared at me warily. “She doesn’t want to be with you, Chris.” she choked, “Amber doesn’t have those kinds of feelings for you.”

A tear escaped my eyes; it was too much.

“What?” I whimpered.

“She has feelings for Eric. You know Eric?” she continued.

I knew Eric. He was a three-hundred pound football player that Amber was friends with. Or was it more than friendship? It wasn’t right.

“She led me on…” I said, dropping my gaze.

“No, no, no!” Tanya replied, “She didn’t do that! She just wanted to see if she had those feelings for you, and she didn’t. Amber didn’t mean to hurt you, but you were too attached.”

“Then why didn’t she just tell me?!” I demanded.

Tanya backed off a step. “She was supposed to in an e-mail.” she answered timidly.

“An e-mail?!” I yelled, “She wanted to end it all with an e-mail?! She couldn’t tell me in person?!”

“You saw what happened to her!” Tanya responded, desperately, “She wanted it to be gentle, so you both wouldn’t get hurt! Now, I have to go talk to her!”

Tanya went back inside to comfort Amber, leaving me to the night.

I walked unevenly over to the tree and slumped against it, peering up to the starry sky. Tears began to roll down my face without restriction, tears of betrayal, only interrupted by my occasional demanding to the heavens for a reason why.

It took me some time to accept what had happened. I talked to Amber the next Monday at school with a stupid hope that she would reconsider and things would go back to the way they were before that night, even though, I later realized, I was miserable with the way things were.

Amber and Eric got together at some point between nine-fifteen and Monday morning. They began playing the games new lovers play with each other. The first one was a puzzle that Amber had to solve, or she would become Eric’s slave for a week. I tried to help her solve it in order to defeat him, but it was no use. I wanted him to die.

Amber and I became friends again before the summer. I dropped out of band, not because of her, but to pursue other interests, so we didn’t have the summers together. I stayed friends with Amber throughout my Senior year, putting up with Eric whenever I had to, until I graduated. She and I fell out of touch, and I hadn’t seen or heard from her for years.

Five years later, I was walking through the mall with my fiancée (who I got together with when I got out of high school), hand-in-hand as we maneuvered through the chaotic mass of competing shoppers. We were finishing off our Christmas shopping a bit late, regret for this procrastination showing in are stressed expressions.

I glanced down at her small and cute face, smiling with great affection. I thought of kissing her, but before I could do so, one of the bustling bodies called my eyes for their attention. It was then that I noticed Amber pushing through the crowd several feet from where I was. It took me a moment to recognize her, but when I finally recalled her, there was no mistaking it. I shouted her name and waved, and her eyes widened and lit up when she saw me.

We trudged our way through the crowd to where Amber was standing unsteadily against the bustle. I smiled as we approached. “How’re you doing?” I inquired in a friendly manner.

“Fine, fine.” she replied with less conviction, eying my fiancée questionably.

I realized that they had never met before. “Amber, I’d like you to meet my fiancée, Christine.” I finally said.

Christine smiled and gave a soft “hi” with a tight gesture. Amber nodded stiffly and looked around the moving wall of bodies. Something about her seemed to be different, though not something one would likely notice if they had seen her more often. It had looked like she had gradually lost her youth, as if the perky and stubborn Amber from high school had slowly been replaced by a slightly larger and worn version that was forming right in front of me. Her sharp, blue eyes were now dull and reddened, and her face was puffy and drooped, like she had made a hobby of crying.

“Well, it was nice to see you again.” she coughed, looking around a bit more, “We should talk sometime, but I have to go. My boyfriend is waiting for me. You should meet him sometime. He’s a nice guy.”

Her expression became saddened as that last sentence poured out. Her eyes had drifted to the floor, and after a noticeable few seconds had passed, she looked back up at me and forced a weak smile. Amber turned and walked away, only stopping to look back and wave modestly at me. As she disappeared into the rush of faces and bodies amidst the bright, holiday lights, I put my arm around Christine and held her tightly, as if to hold on to her forever. I knew then that I would never see Amber again.