Why I Don't Go to Class Reunions

SickLit 2016

It’s dusk--we’re all wearing sweaters and waiting for the hay wagon. I try to make small talk but I never learned how. I’m much smarter than my best friends who’ve talked me into asking Connie to go on this hayride, my first date. She smiles a pretty smile. The horse arrives and everyone scrambles into the wagon from the cold. The smell of the hay helps calm my nerves.

The horse pulls the wagon off the road onto a farm trail. The wagon has a canvas top. Connie and I are lying side by side and I hear others making out in the dark and she lifts her head and kisses me my first ever kiss, cupping the back of my head. It’s a short kiss and I drape my arm across her and lean over and kiss her again and slide my hand behind her back and hold onto her elbow and savor the sweetness of those first kisses, not knowing that no other kisses will ever match these.  She lies in the crook of my arm and I never want this to stop, but all too soon the horse pulls us back into the parking lot. I realize then, in the light of the street, my hand’s been on her breast all this time, not her elbow.

I drive her home in mostly silence and I can’t wait to ask her out again but I find out later she made plans to meet another boy from class after I drop her off.