10 Years Later

by J. Sterling

  “I think it’s a great idea, actually. Not that I like this picture, but what the hell good is someone’s name if you don’t have their teenage face to put with it?” I said before pinning my tag a little above my waist. The top of my dress refused to be covered by anything other than Dalton Thomas’s hands.

  What? Well, that’s what it told me when we got ready.

  Kristy and I waited as a couple got their picture taken at the photographer’s station before it was our turn. Digital cameras made everything super quick, and they were done in what seemed like two seconds before we took our place and stood on the X marked with masking tape on the floor.

  “Let’s pretend it’s formal. I’ll be the boy and hold you like this.” Kristy wrapped her arms around my waist, and I laughed before tilting my head to the side overdramatically and smiling with way too many teeth showing.

  The photographer laughed as he took our picture, and we walked away arm in arm toward one of the rear entrances, avoiding the check-in table and its long line.

  “Ready?” She looked at me and I nodded in response as we walked through the open double doors into a large room that was decorated to the nines.

  Flower centerpieces adorned the middle of each round table, and candles floated in tall cylinder vases that were filled with water. It felt like we were at a wedding reception, with the exception of the balloons. I craned my neck, taking in the sheer number of them that covered the entire ceiling, curled ribbons hanging from them in various lengths, tempting you to reach up and pull them down. More were scattered on the floor, the ribbons splayed out around them, just waiting to get caught in someone’s high heel. The rest were tied to the back of the chairs, like you would see at a kid’s birthday party. Every single chair had a balloon.

  “It looks like a balloon factory threw up in here,” I said, raising my voice over the soft music that played in the background.

  “No shit. And isn’t it a little early for the let’s-get-drunk-and-fuck mood lighting?” Kristy asked, noting the room’s already semi-darkened state.

  Glancing across the space, I couldn’t help myself as I scanned the room for that one particular person. After a quick sweep of the area, I determined that he wasn’t here yet, if he showed up at all.

  “Hey, girls! So good to see you.” A busty woman came up and hugged each of us as I glanced at her nametag, thankful again for the senior picture that it included.

  “Hi, Teresa! It’s so nice to see you. How are you?”

  Teresa regaled us with the woes of being married—and divorced—already. She had two kids, was now a single mom, and worked full time at a thankless job. Her words, not mine. Apparently she had married her high school sweetheart, Jim, someone I couldn’t quite remember, but was told I’d know him if I saw him. Then she launched into an emotional diatribe about how he had better not show up to this event tonight because he was supposed to be watching the kids, and she wanted to have one nice night without him rubbing his new life in her face. She claimed the last thing she could handle would be seeing his worthless ass here with his new nineteen-year-old girlfriend.

  Kristy politely excused us after that.

  “That was fun.” I widened my eyes in mock disbelief of my own words.

  “She seems really happy.” Kristy mimicked my facial expression, and I laughed.

  “Nineteen-year-old girlfriend, though? That’s horrible. What is it with guys?” I added with a frown.

  “They’re wildly insecure and can’t stand getting older. We handle it with grace, dignity, and Botox.” She flipped her hair and smiled. “They handle it with new cars, new girlfriends, and Viagra.”

  I laughed at her assessment and wanted to disagree, but couldn’t. “We should find somewhere to sit. I feel exposed standing here, like we’ll attract more horror stories.” I glanced around, more than ready to find our table.

  “Right. ’Cause no one will be bitter or crazy if we’re seated at a table,” Kristy said sarcastically, and I made an annoyed face at her.

  I had no idea what direction to head in, so I didn’t move. “Where should we go?”

  She looked around the room, scanning the occupants through narrowed eyes. “I see seats over at Jenna Carlson’s table.”

  “How the hell do you recognize everyone?” Even though most of these faces were on Facebook every day, they still looked different all dolled up, not Photoshopped, and in person. Not to mention the fact that I was terrible with names and faces.

  “It’s a gift,” she said with a smile. “Let’s go sit with over there, okay?”

  “Sounds fine to me.”

  I barely remembered Jenna Carlson, but I knew I didn’t dislike her. To be honest, I disliked very few people in high school. Unless you gave me a reason to hate you, I simply didn’t.

  Jenna stood up from her chair and squealed like an overly exuberant sorority girl at the sight of us, and I fought off the urge to run in the opposite direction.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God! It’s Cammie and Kristy! You two look amazing and exactly the same! Wow! Don’t you age? How have you been? It’s been too long!”

  She continued to shout out rapid-fire questions, and her smile was so big I thought her cheeks might split. But when she opened her arms, I gave in to her enthusiasm and hugged her back.

  “You look great too,” I said as I glanced around the room. “Actually, everyone looks pretty great, to be honest.” I reached for one of the glasses of water on the table and gulped some down.

  “Especially us girls,” Jenna said before laughing a little too loudly and sitting back down.

  I glanced over at Kristy, who shrugged her shoulders and forced a fake smile as she sat down beside me.

  “Do you know if Dalton’s going to be here tonight?” Kristy asked Jenna, and I almost spit my water all over the two of them with my surprise.

  Jenna developed a crease between her pretty eyes. “Dalton? Gosh, I don’t know. No one’s really heard from him since graduation. He sort of disappeared, but I mean, he was our class president so he has to be here, right? God, he was so hot.”

  I wanted to disagree, to argue, because Dalton wasn’t really “so hot,” but then again he was. That damn personality of his made him so much more attractive. Why couldn’t I hate him? I really wanted to hate him, although I knew hating him wouldn’t solve anything.

  “I know you work at the radio station, Cammie. How is it? Is it as fun as it sounds?” Jenna asked, still smiling.

  “It’s awesome. I love it.”

  “John and Tom are so funny. I listen to them every morning on my way to work. I hear them talk about you sometimes and I’m always like, Oh my God, I know her, to myself, you know? ’Cause I’m like, in my car, by myself and stuff.” Jenna giggled again and I wanted to stab myself in the ear with a fork.

  “Yeah, they’re pretty funny. They love to make fun of me,” I said, trying to smile politely.

  “I can’t believe I almost forgot!” Her eyes widened, and she leaned forward to tap me on the arm. “Who were you talking about having a crush on? When they were asking you about the guy from high school, who was it? I was racking my brain trying to think about who you dated back then, but I kept coming up empty, just like that caller. All I kept thinking of was that one guy from the band that you loved. Remember that?” Then she laughed, a high-pitched trilling sound that made me want to smack her.

  “I remember,” I said as I forced another smile. “But I wasn’t talking about anyone. I was just making it up. We do that sometimes for the show.”

  The guys had told me to tell my classmates that I had lied if I got too uncomfortable with their questions after our segment, but I somehow felt like I was betraying the integrity of the show.

  “You guys make stuff up? Nuh-uh. Really?” Her head tilted to the side, and she looked genuinely confused.

  “Only sometimes,” I said, trying to convince her. I didn’t want her to think what she listened to each morning was completely made up or fake, althoug
h most people would never believe how much of it was actually scripted and how many calls were planned. That was my secret to keep.

  “So you didn’t have a crush on anyone?” She frowned, seeming almost sad as she stuck out her bottom lip.

  “Sorry.”

  “Darn. I was really curious about that!”

  Getting Jenna to jump to a new topic was as easy as introducing one to her. Thank God Kristy asked her what she did for work, which launched Jenna into disclosing the fact that she was a hair stylist and that she would love to do our hair—not that we needed it, of course—but if we ever wanted. When two new couples joined our table, the conversation started again. Introductions were made, catching up was easy, and we all started sharing memories.

  That was the thing about high school and the people from it—being around them was usually pleasant and comfortable. Whenever I was in social settings, usually for work, I was guarded. The people I met were strangers, people I knew nothing about and who knew nothing about me. They knew only what I chose to tell them and vice versa.

  But if I ever ran into anyone from high school, it was a completely different story. My walls immediately came crashing down, and a blanket of comfort and familiarity enveloped me as I opened up. Even if I didn’t really associate with the person during those high school years, it didn’t matter. I still felt like we knew things about each other that others didn’t, that we were connected in some way by this invisible cord of memories. It wasn’t logical, but it was how I tended to feel.

  Maybe it was because I didn’t have to pretend like I was perfect, or that my life had always been filled with sunshine and rainbows. Anyone who went to school with me knew the truth, whether I wanted them to or not. They had all watched me fall apart my junior year, a year that ripped apart my stable world and replaced it with something unbalanced, like the way a top starts to teeter violently to each side before it falls down completely. That had been me. I had been a top, waiting to fall. But Dalton came along and caught me.

  I found my gaze pulled to the entrance each time someone new walked through it, even as those newcomers became fewer and further between with each passing minute. Dalton still hadn’t arrived, as far as I could tell. Maybe he really wasn’t coming.

  Servers in black suits began to make their way through the room, delivering food to each table, and my focus was momentarily diverted from the door to my plate. I was starved.

  “This salad is so good. I know it’s just salad, but my God.” Kristy moaned as she bit into another forkful.

  I took a small bite and stifled my own moan of satisfaction. “It’s the dressing. Holy shit, it’s amazing.”

  Before long, family-style dishes of various pastas were added to the table, and we all dug in like we hadn’t eaten in weeks. Maybe some of us hadn’t.

  “Remember the night of the senior dinner?” Jenna said open-mouthed as she chewed and my heart stopped beating, fell out of my chest, and rolled onto the floor until it crashed into a balloon.

  “What about it?” Kristy eyed me as she tried to act nonchalant. She was the only other person on earth who knew how much that night changed everything for me.

  “This food reminds me of it, that’s all,” Jenna said before forking another bite of pasta into her mouth as my mind raced backward to that night . . .

  • • •

  Senior dinner had been a tradition at our school for as long as anyone could remember. Each year on this night, the seniors were served a three-course dinner by parents who volunteered. Really, how was this different from any other night—our own mothers feeding us dinner? How original.

  After dinner, the lights were dimmed and a slideshow clicked on, flipping through pictures of the seniors as it moved through each captured moment in perfectly timed precision. There were photos of pep rallies, class games on the quad, groups of friends smiling, senior night, Football for Seniors, etc.

  I’d been staring up at the photos as Kristy’s voice broke through. “The eagle has landed,” she’d whispered to me.

  I turned to look at her. “The eagle has . . . what?”

  “The eagle has landed. I’m going to say that every time Dalton looks at you,” she said seriously in a low voice.

  “He’s looking at me?” I sat up straighter and fought the urge to search him out.

  “He’s been looking at you all night.”

  I nudged her shoulder. “Well, that’s weird, right?”

  She nodded. “Kinda.”

  “Why do you think he’s looking at me?” I whispered, feeling that familiar tingling in my spine.

  “’Cause he wants to have hot monkey sex with you, duh.” She smiled before elbowing me. “I don’t know. Maybe he actually likes you.”

  “You think?” The possibility made my heart do somersaults in my chest, even if I didn’t truly believe her.

  “I don’t know. The eagle has landed.”

  One of the parents volunteering at the event walked up to my side, leaned down, and asked, “Cammie, do you think you could take some of these decorations to the storage room in the gym for me?”

  I glanced up to see Rachel Jenkins smiling down at me. Mrs. Jenkins and my mom had been friends since junior high, which was probably why she felt comfortable asking me to help instead of asking her own daughter. Her daughter was sort of a bitch, and Mrs. Jenkins knew I’d say yes.

  “Sure,” I said as she filled my arms with banners and streamers. “Be right back,” I told Kristy in a hushed tone before awkwardly standing up from the table with filled arms as she shushed me.

  Walking toward the gymnasium, I realized I wasn’t sure exactly where the storage room was and I almost turned around. Instead of going back in, I continued walking straight ahead, looking for any other student in the dark when Dalton appeared at my side.

  “Hey, Cammie.”

  “Hey, Dalton.”

  I tried to stay calm as Kristy’s words echoed in my mind. I searched his face, wishing I could see his eyes clearer in the dark. I loved Dalton’s eyes. It wasn’t so much about the green color they were, but more about the brown flecks in them. They stood out in stark contrast against the green, three flecks of brown in his right eye and four in his left. I’d heard him say before how much he hated the brown in his eyes, but to me, it was my favorite part.

  “Here. Let me help,” he said, before reaching for the majority of the decorations I was holding and taking them from me.

  I followed behind him as we headed toward the gym, neither of us speaking. My gaze roamed over his lean body, the way his jeans hung low across his hips and his T-shirt framed his shoulders and back. He wasn’t overly muscular, but then again, Dalton didn’t play any sports. He told me once that he couldn’t play because his family needed him to work. As far as I knew, he worked at one of the grocery stores unloading crates of produce.

  Once we reached the gym, Dalton continued toward the back of the building, entering through an unlocked door before following a long curved hallway with a single door at the end.

  “I would have never found this,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Yeah. That’s why I waited for you,” he said with a smile as the fluorescent lighting cast a tinted glow over us.

  Pulling out a key from his pocket, he fumbled with it before unlocking the door and gesturing me inside with a nod of his head.

  “Why do you have a key?”

  “Class president, remember?”

  When he smiled at me, I wanted to tell him of course I not only remembered, but I voted for him. I would have voted for him for anything he wanted to be—astronaut, vampire slayer, Ninja Assassin of the Year.

  “So you get a key to the school? I highly doubt that,” I said, attempting to flirt, but I was pretty certain I’d lost that ability lately. I could barely remember how to smile, let alone do something like flirt with a boy.

  “Principal Graham gave it to me for the dinner. I have to make sure everything gets cleaned up and put away.”

  S
etting the decorations on the floor for a minute, I asked, “So, where are we putting all this stuff?”

  “In those boxes.” He pointed at a group of plastic storage containers stacked up against a wall.

  I started toward them, but stopped as Dalton’s hand grabbed my arm. He pulled and I slid across the floor so effortlessly that I almost crashed into him.

  “Dalton, what are you—”

  His mouth covered mine, and I completely lost my train of thought. One of his hands reached for my lower back as the other slipped behind my neck. I fell into his kiss as my mouth opened and allowed him inside, his tongue moving in a slow and delicious rhythm. I was certain at any moment I’d melt completely into a puddle on the concrete floor. I had wanted this for so long that I couldn’t believe it was actually happening.

  Was Dalton Thomas really kissing me right now?

  Even more surprising was the fact I was feeling again for the first time in ages; Dalton was actually making me feel something. For the last fourteen months I’d been living in a fog, lost in a numbness where color refused to live.

  I silenced my thoughts as he deepened the kiss, making sure nothing but color consumed me. His fingers splayed across my back as my chest pressed against his, our breathing falling in rhythm. The heat from him moved through the fabric of my shirt and warmed me completely.

  The sound of voices outside caused him to pull his lips from mine and release me. As Dalton moved toward the door, I stood there and stared at him, wondering what the hell had just happened.

  “You coming?” he asked.

  I followed him without saying a word, leaving the decorations on the floor where I’d dropped them. The two seniors carrying more decorations into the room giggled when they saw Dalton and flirted shamelessly with him.

  I walked ahead of him, unsure of how to act or what exactly that kiss had meant. I didn’t want to ruin the moment, so I refused to ask him when he caught up to me moments after I’d gotten outside. We walked the rest of the way in silence, as my mind and heart both raced.