It was a warm June night out, when we all left the school. Colin had an arm around me, with his cap cocked at a jaunty angle and a bouquet of flowers and diploma in his free hand. His gown was a cheap plastic and the humidity made it stick to both of us, but I barely noticed. Behind us, hand in hand, were Michael and Elise. They were wearing their caps and gowns too, Michael's as rumpled as everything else he owned, and Elise's making her look even more beautiful than normal.
It had taken half an hour to detangle ourselves from the crowd of proud parents and teachers who had managed to pack themselves into the tiny cafeteria and hall of good ol' Lincoln High. Everyone wanted to congratulate Colin, who had pulled his grades up from D's to B's over the past two years; Elise, who was accepted into Harvard, Yale, and Cornell; and Michael, who was graduating with honors and a full scholarship to MIT.
My friends are the greatest, and we all knew it. I can't wait until next year, when it's my turn to get my diploma, shake the principle's hand, and leave Lincoln for the last time. I know next year will be hard, though. Not because of the classes I'm taking- well, some of them will be hard- but I'm going to be taking them without Elise's tutoring me, or Michael's letting me "borrow" his homework, or Colin to crack jokes on my worst days. I'm going to be on my own, completely.
As we walked to Michael's car, I remembered when we'd first met. It was in study hall, when I was in seventh grade- they were all in eighth. It had been my first day at a new school, and I hadn't known anyone or where anything was. I was so terrified of being late that instead of dumping my books in my bag and walking like I do now, I'd tried to carry them in my arms and had sprinted frantically around the building until I found my room. But just before I'd walked in the door, Colin and a former friend of his had knocked into me. Colin still swears it wasn't on purpose, and I still don't believe him. He used to be such a jerk!
Anyway, they had walked into me and I'd fallen and scattered books and papers everywhere. And I was late, although the teacher didn't care. Frustrated and scared, I nearly started to cry. Until someone who seemed to be glowing like an angel stooped to help me gather my things. That was my first impression of Elise, and how I still think of her, as my guardian angel. She looked like it then, and still does. I've never told her, but I'm extremely jealous of how her perfect blond hair frames her face just so, and her clothes make her look like this, and how, well... Everything about her is always perfect.
While she was helping me, I looked up. Michael was still in his phase where he was pretending to be a Tough Guy, so he stopped Colin. "Hey Alman, you should say you're sorry," he had declared. Colin had seen right through his act, and rolled his eyes.
"Bite me, brainiac," he'd muttered and walked to a desk in the back of the room. Michael gave me a hand up and Elise put my stuff down next to hers, and minutes later we'd been friends forever.
It took another two years before Colin joined our elite clique. Colin Alman, the class druggie and screw-up. Colin Alman, who was going nowhere faster than Elise could work out a math equation. Colin Alman, who, as he put it right before graduation, "wasn't planning on doing anything more than pumping gas for the rest of my life."
Colin's mother split when he was a baby, and his dad was not a nice person. Especially not when drunk, which he was a lot of the time. I remember when I first found out about everything. I had taken the back way home, like I did almost every day. It's just through the woods behind the school to get to my house, and a heck of a lot shorter than walking by the road. Drama practice had just ended, so it was around six when I got to the woods.
Colin was there, sitting against a tree. His knees were pulled up to his chest, and he was crying, I'm sure. Thats something else he still denies, and I still don't believe. Either way, his face had been buried in his knees until I stopped and said, "What's wrong?"
I knew Colin Alman was a jerk and wouldn't want help from me. But my parents always told me to be nice and polite, so what else could I have done? He looked up at me, glared hatefully, than said, "Bite me." (Colin still says that now and then, but usually jokingly- "I have to say it, it's my catch phrase!")
"I was just asking..." I said, planning to turn around and walk by the road. It just wouldn't have felt right to walk past a crying kid, even if he didn't want my help.
"If you must know," he said, and to this day I don't know why he told me, "my dad and I got into a fight so now I can't go home, and on top of that I'm going to fail tenth grade if I don't get my English final written, and there's no where I have to do it, and I don't know what it's about anyway."
"Oh..." I suddenly didn't know what to do. I hadn't expected to be faced with his problems, and now that I was, I had to help. Which I didn't know how to do.
"So just go away," he added. I looked at him. He was pathetic looking, and I mean that. He had brown hair which was dyed black and spiked with more hairspray than I've used in my life, and was wearing all black. His ears, eyebrow, and tongue were pierced, and he was glaring at me hatefully, but through what I swear was tears. And he just looked so pathetic. It would have been one thing if the druggie had really been a bad person, but he was crying.
(Thinking that, I can almost hear Colin say, "Oh, bite me, no I wasn't!")
"But if you need somewhere to write your paper for English-" at the time I was sure this would be the biggest mistake of my life- "you can do it at my house."
He looked at me funny, as if I'd grown two heads. At that point, it was like we were different species and he was amazed I was talking to him- so was I, actually- but like he wanted not to mind. He knew he should mind, because after all, he had a Reputation.
It took me a couple minutes, but I convinced poor Colin that if he needed help, I would be able to convince Elise the Genius to help him. Not write it for him, but to help him. Shakily, he'd followed me. I called Elise, and even though I know she didn't like him, she came and helped.
He got a B Minus on that paper, and says he still has it hanging up at his house. The first thing he ever did right, he says. Elise's help solved one problem, his English grade. But I still didn't know what to do about his dad. As it turned out, he'd had a bad day and found Colin's pot stash, and taken his bad day out on his son. I know drugs are bad and illegal and all, but I didn't really blame him. Geeze, if all of my friends did it and my dad didn't give a damn as long as I wasn't in his way, I probably would have too.
So I asked Elise what to do, and she thought for awhile. Eventually, she suggested, "Call Michael. See if he'll let Colin spend the night at his house." I couldn't think of a better idea, and after a while, Michael agreed. Probably because Elise asked him sweetly, and he was a sucker for her even before he got up the courage to ask her out.
Slowly, Michael and Elise and I convinced this "screw-up" that he didn't have to be like that. It took all summer (most of which Colin spent at Michael's house), but when he started eleventh grade he had things on track. And he was part of our clique, and since then if you see Michael, you know that Colin, Elise and I aren't far behind.
We got out of the car at Michael's house, and he laughing lead us out back. There were a few trees behind his house, and in a fit of boredom during the summer Colin had spent there, they'd built a fort between them. We used to hang out there, because it was better than inside with Michael's insane mother. His mom reminds me of the "stage mothers" you hear about, who are always pushing their kids into acting and trying to make them the greatest. I can understand that to a certain extent, but Michael's mom took it to extremes. I don't think he's ever had a grade below a ninety-five, because if he did, his mom wouldn't have let him out of the house for a month.
So we had spent a summer hanging out in "the fort." Had we been in elementary school, it would have been "the clubhouse." It's the same thing, either way, a few boards nailed to trees, with some more piled on the top in an attempt to make a roof. The roof is full of holes, and since that summer, one side has collapsed, but we all took our places inside the way we used to.
There was an old beat-up table in the middle of the fort, around which were three ancient chairs. We'd collected them at yard sales that summer. Elise and Michael sat facing the "door," which was really the wall that had collapsed. Colin had the other chair, and I knelt in the dirt with my arms and chin resting on the table. All summer, we'd planned to get me a chair, but I still didn't have one.
"I can't believe it!" Elise said, taking off her hat and wiping her forehead. "We finally did it, and we're all actually going to college!"
"Even me," Colin laughed. He was really proud of that, an art school in New York City had accepted him. "So have you decided on Harvard or Yale yet?"
She grinned back at him. "I dunno..." she said. "Probably Harvard, 'cause it's so close to MIT!"
Michael blushed and mumbled something almost incomprehensible. He'd given up the tough guy act in eighth grade, and now was just a nice guy. A nice guy who was very much in love with Elise. They aren't engaged yet (although I think it1s just because Michael is too shy to ask her,) but they've been dating for two and a half years. Neither one wants to leave the other, even though after a tearful discussion they'd agreed to go their own way, if their ways separated.
But Colin and I both know that they won't. No matter what they agreed, Elise isn't going to go anywhere too far from Michael.
"It seems smaller in here than I remember," I said after a minute.
"Probably because you finally got your growth spurt," Colin suggested. I called him a big big dork, and he laughingly replied, "Bite me." So it's true, until last year I was only five feet tall. And somehow, my pituitary gland finally started working and over the last eight months I've shot up five inches.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. It's wierd, I know all of my friends have been looking forward to graduation for years now. But now that they're finally out of Lincoln High, they seemed almost sad. We could hear the peepers singing in the grass outside, and a few birds. Cars went by, and we just sat.
"Hey, isn't this supposed to be a party?" Colin asked after a minute. "Let's have some fun!" He stood up and pulled me up after him, and began to swing dance jokingly. We'd all groaned and complained when our P.E. class did a swing unit, even though I enjoyed it and I think Colin did too. (He denies it though. And suprising enough, I don't believe him.)
I grinned and laughed, but let my thoughts wander. I'm going to be alone next year. My friends are leaving, and I'll still be here. Elise the Angel is going to an Ivy League school, and has several to choose from. Michael the Nice is headed for MIT to learn everything there is to know about anything technical. Colin the Joker is headed for New York and all it's glory.
And me, I'm still here in Lincoln. I know what my past is, but what the future holds for me, I have no idea.