First, Last, and Always

by Lehman, Kim

  I take a deep breath. I’m pretty sure the two guys sitting beside me do the same.

  “I’m really impressed with what I saw this year,” Coach says. “I think we’re going to have a great freshman team and good talent for the future.” His eyes pass briefly over me. I still can’t breathe.

  “All of you put out a good effort. But, as you know, I can’t take everyone.” Shoulders sag forward. Expressions range from stolid to wide-eyed to grim. “For those of you who are still here, you’re here because you impressed me. Don’t forget that. If you don’t make it this year, you can try out again next year. You win some, you lose some, boys. That’s life. I’m sorry I can’t make it easier on both of us.” Seeming momentarily verklempt, Coach clears his throat. “All right then, go on. If you see your name on the roster, I’ll see you at our first official practice this coming Monday, four o’clock. Don’t be late.”

  When he and the other coaches leave, all of us remain where we are for a few seconds. It’s as if each of us is waiting to see who’ll go first. Finally, Pew and Dawson stand up and trudge to the exit; a few more follow after them, until almost everyone is triggered by nervous adrenaline and moving to the door. For some reason, I still can’t seem to move.

  “Fiester!” At the base of the bleachers, Grayson hollers up at me. “Good luck, man.”

  I nod. “You too.” Despite the fact that Charlotte liked him, I can’t dislike him. She was right: he’s a good guy, and a real good basketball player.

  I wait until everyone has left; then I take a deep breath and make my way out the doors and into the hallway, where all the guys are huddled around a small eight-by-ten piece of paper. I’m not able to see the names from where I stand. I listen to the reactions, which are mixed.

  “I made it!” someone shouts from the front of the pack.

  “Me too!”

  “Aww, shit. I’m out.”

  “Yes!”

  The faces that pass me are revealing. Most of the guys are smiling; only a few look upset. Jerry, a short, beefy kid who struggled to make a foul shot and a layup, passes by; his eyes stare at the ground, and his lips turn in the same direction.

  “Sorry,” I say as he walks by.

  His eyes stay glued to his feet.

  The crowd continues to thin. I step closer. When I’m a few feet from the board, I’m close enough to see the top ten names: Rick, Brad, Jamal...Grayson is number eight. There’s no particular order. It seems random. I notice Grayson on the other side of the hallway high-fiving a group of guys. As the group around the board disperses, I see more names. My heart pounds like a jackhammer in my chest. Only fifteen names, and so far I’m not one of them.

  Number nine...not me.

  Ten...no.

  Eleven...no.

  Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, all no.

  Finally I’m staring at the last one. It takes a moment for me to process a reaction. The simple task of blinking is suddenly impossible.

  Breathing a heavy sigh, I close my eyes.

  “You okay?” A hand grabs my shoulder.

  I don’t look to see who it is. I just nod. “I didn’t make it.” I turn around. Coach Chad is standing behind me.

  “Come into my office,” he says.

  Trying not to get emotional, I walk behind him and sit down while he closes the door.

  “Coach Bryant told me you put in a hell of an effort during tryouts,” he starts.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “He said he’s never seen anyone with as much determination and enthusiasm.”

  I shrug. “Thanks,” I repeat.

  “He said you really motivated the others.”

  “I just love to play,” I tell him. “I try as hard as I can.”

  “I know. Coach Bryant could see that. But,” Coach Chad sighs, “he just didn’t think you were a right fit for the freshman team.”

  It sucks just as much hearing it out loud. Gritting my teeth, I wait for the part where he tries to make me feel better.

  “He actually thought you would be better suited on JV,” he says.

  His words smack my head straight up. “What?”

  He nods. “I agreed with him. We want you on the JV team.”

  “This isn’t a joke?”

  “No.”

  I seriously think I’m going to have a heart attack. My whole body is numb.

  “Now,” he continues. “I don’t want you to get too excited. I’ll be honest with you. Your skills need a lot of work. You’ll probably sit the bench the first year. But we could really use someone like you in practice to help motivate the other guys. And, who knows, by next year, or hopefully by the end of this year, if your skills improve, we can see about putting you in a game.”

  I can’t sit still. My hands move from my mouth, to my hair, to my stomach. Finally I can’t sit down any longer. I shoot up out of the chair and extend my hand. “You won’t regret this. I swear. Thank you.”

  He chuckles and shakes my hand. “No, Miles. Thank you. I’ll see you at practice next week.”

  Charlotte

  “This is breaking and entering,” Alexa whispers as we walk onto the back deck and slide open the glass door.

  “Shh,” I say. “It’s fine. I do this all the time.”

  “When nobody’s home?” She seems appalled.

  She makes a fair point. “Come on.” I motion with my hand when we get inside. Moving fast, we climb the stairs and walk to the second door on the left.

  “Is this his room?” Alexa asks.

  “Yeah.” I nod.

  No longer whispering, Alexa shakes her head. “I don’t understand what we’re doing. Why did we bring these supplies?” I tell her what I want to do. She gives me a funny look. “I still don’t understand,” she says. “Why?”

  “Miles will understand,” I tell her. Right now that’s all that matters.

  Alexa shrugs and pulls a pair of scissors out of the bag. “Okay. Whatever. Just tell me what you need from me.”

  We don’t have a lot of time. “Just start cutting,” I say.

  Miles

  When I get home, the house is quiet and dark. The only light is coming from the kitchen. Feeling hungry, I head in that direction. There’s a note sitting on the counter:

  Dinner’s in the fridge.

  Love,

  Mom

  P.S. I hope tryouts went well. No matter what, I’m so proud of you.

  I smile to myself. I can’t wait to tell her. She wanted to be here when I got home, but she had to work late tonight. She’s gonna flip. Opening the fridge, I pull out the sandwich Mom left for me, take a bite, toss it on a plate, and carry it up to my room. The entire time I’m thinking of Charlotte; wishing I could call and tell her the news. She’s the only other person in the world who would understand what I’m feeling; how much this means to me.

  Opening my bedroom door, I reach with a free hand and flip the light switch. My head barely turns before I gasp and jump back. The plate slips from my hand and crashes to the floor. My heart lodges in my throat. I can’t blink. My eyes must be the size of quarters.

  Charlotte’s here. She’s in my room, standing opposite me, on the other side.

  I can’t take my eyes off of her. I’m not sure what she’s doing or why she’s here. This must be some sort of a dream.

  Time passes, maybe a few seconds, maybe a couple minutes, I’m not sure how long I stare, but at some point I look around, my eyes adjust, my senses return, and that’s when I notice the cut-out paper hearts. They’re everywhere, dozens of them hanging from my ceiling, taped to my walls, scattered across the floor, filling every inch of my room.

  I shake my head. I know what this means, or I think I know what it means. I don’t know what to do. In total shock, I wait for her to respond.

  Charlotte

  I strain to read his expression. Is he happy that I’m here? My gut clenches. “I hope you don’t mind what I did to your room,” are the first words out of my mouth. When he doesn’t resp
ond, I wonder if I said them out loud. “I thought that...I was trying to...” I stumble trying to explain what I’m doing here. I have to get a grip. Deep breath. “I wanted to go back to that day, Valentine’s Day, third grade,” I say with more confidence, though the words come out as sound bites. “There are things that I should have noticed and things I should have said. Things that I want to say now.” The knots in my stomach get tighter. Blotches form on the base of Miles’s neck. Gulping the air around me, I fill my lungs. “You were right,” I tell him. “About what you said back then. When you told me that I shouldn’t like Harry. I know now why you said it. You were trying to tell me, to show me, how you felt. But I had no idea, I swear.” I pause, waiting, hoping that Miles will speak. He opens his mouth. I’m almost sure he’s going to say something, but then it closes. He looks disturbed or maybe he’s annoyed. It could have something to do with the few hundred paper hearts lying all over his room. I’m such a moron. He hates it. This is one of those moments I wish he had more than two facial expressions. Digging deep, I find the courage to continue. I don’t remember where I left off so I skip to the next part of my speech. “I should have told you that it wasn’t you,” I say, bringing our conversation out of the past. “When you came over to my house the other night and I told you that it wasn’t going to work, you thought that I didn’t want to be with you because of something you did.” I shake my head. “It wasn’t you.” I sigh. “It was just bad timing. Stuff happened with my aunt and uncle, and I let it affect me more than I should. It’s a long story, but basically I had this glimpse of what our relationship would turn into and I didn’t like it. I hated the thought of what we might become. I was scared of losing the something we had for the something we didn’t, ’cause if it didn’t work out we’d be nothing. I couldn’t imagine that. We can’t be nothing, Miles. We just can’t. We always have to be something.” I feel tears building behind my eyelids, which causes a chain reaction and clogs the base of my throat. I choke back emotion. “But then I read your letter and I realized I was so wrong. Nobody else can say what we become. Like you said, we choose our first and we choose our last. We choose what we want.” I shrug. “I don’t have all the answers right now. I don’t know if I ever will, but I know I want to be with someone who knows everything about me. I know I want that person who will sit with me when I’m sick, and follow me off the bus when I’ve had a bad day. I know I want to be with the person who waits for me in the rain, makes me cake on my birthday, makes me smile when I cry, lets me lean on his shoulder, and the guy who never gives up on anything.” I take another deep breath, feeling my hands tremble, “What I want is to be with my best friend. What I want is to be with you. And I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” Miles still hasn’t said a word. He’s a statue. I’m not sure if he’s blinked once. My chest caves in. This is it. This is when he tells me that it’s too late. I took too long. I should have talked to him sooner.

  After a few seconds, which feels like days, Miles shakes his head. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “For the record,” he starts, straight-faced, no inflection in his tone, “this,” he points around the room, “is nothing like third grade.”

  Peaks and valleys form along my forehead. I’m trying to interpret whether the statement is good or bad, but then the corners of Miles’s lips turn up, slowly at first, until his smile is so big it makes my heart hurt, and he says, “This is a million times better.”

  That’s it; that’s all it takes for me to know. I can see it in his eyes. He still feels the same way. The oxygen returns to my lungs. Every muscle inside of me relaxes. I beam until my smile matches his.

  “So,” he adds, with hope in his voice, “what now?”

  I laugh. Neither of us moves. It’s like we’re both waiting to see what happens next, too scared to alter the moment, but wanting to get closer. I’m not sure how much distance there is between us. By my calculation, I’d say eleven, maybe twelve feet. Either way, all I know is that it’s eleven or twelve feet too many. I nod. Miles does the same. He knows what I’m thinking. There’s only one thing left to do. Closing the gap, each of us takes the first step.

  Miles’s Letter

  Dear Charlotte,

  Is it stupid that I wrote “dear”? It feels so formal. I’ve never written a letter, so when I sat down to write this, I wasn’t sure how to start. But then it hit me—that’s how most of my life has been with you. Everything has been a beginning.

  You’ve always been my first—the first girl to hold my hand, the first girl I ever slow-danced with, my first best friend, and the first girl I’ve ever loved. There are so many first things that we’ve done together—things I’ll never forget.

  I know you can’t say the same. I know, for you, the firsts are different. The first guy you danced with was Kevin Adams. (It killed me to watch you dancing with him at our seventh-grade dance.) Also, your first best friend was Shelly Horwitz. Do you remember her? I never forgot her name, because when I first met you in grade school, you said, “My best friend Shelly’s moving; will you be my new best friend?” And then, of course, there’s the first person you ever liked: Harry Collins. Let me tell you, that was a rough year.

  Yeah, I haven’t always been first for you like you’ve been first for me, but that’s okay, because I no longer want to be your first.

  I want to be your last.

  The last person you kiss, the last person you talk to at the end of the day, and I want to be the person you’ll always shoot the stars with.

  I should have told you a long time ago how I felt. I was scared and it’s a regret I’ll always hold on to. I can see that waiting only made things worse. Now you’re scared too. I’m not sure what I did to upset you, but making you feel that way was never my intention.

  You once told me that your biggest fear is going through life and never getting the chance to truly be in love. Mine is never getting the opportunity to show you how much I love you.

  Whatever it is that’s bothering you, please know that I’ll do anything I can to fix it, even if that means you only want to be friends.

  No matter what, I’m right here.

  First, last, and always,

  Miles

  About the Author

  Kim Lehman is an American author and writer who spent her childhood growing up in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio and then later in the small town of Hampton, New Hampshire. Her love of writing was fostered by her grandfather, a salesman for a major book publishing company.

  When she isn’t writing, she looks for any excuse to travel, loves cuddling with her dog, enjoys petting her husband, and is crazy-proud to be an aunt to her niece and nephew.

  She hates traffic.

  For more information on upcoming books and author news visit:

  www.KimLehman.net

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

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  About the Author