The metal sound of clanking lockers amid the variable echoing rumble of a thousand adolescent conversations meant one thing… school had begun.
After barely surviving middle school, Katie hoped freshman year in high school would be the dawn of a new horizon with endless possibilities.
“I’m calling it the great awakening, because I hope it will wake me up to a new life,” she told her best friend as they strolled through the hallway.
Since the high school was a funnel of nine smaller grade schools there were many kids who didn’t know her – the prepubescent her. It was a clean slate and a chance to start over as a 9th grade girl.
When a new friend from a different grade school, Darcy, suggested they attend the Friday night football game, Katie knew this was a golden opportunity.
As soon as Katie and Darcy walked through the entrance gate, the bright stadium lights illuminated the wall-to-wall students packed in the grassy area next to the bleachers, socializing and roaming with no purpose, except to see and be seen.
The girls smiled at each other with eager anticipation, “Let the games begin,” Darcy said with the ultimate anticipation of adventure.
It was like venturing into an unknown jungle. There were perils, pitfalls and rewards, so it was necessary to assess danger or friendly natives within the typical configuration of clique groups.
Wading through the hordes of students, the girls immediately realized that their combined friends and acquaintances encompassed a good majority of the student population, allowing them to stealthily move from cluster to cluster, talking, flirting and introducing each other to boys.
Even though the conversation was filled with drivel like What kind of music do you like? What movies have you seen lately? Did you watch that new show? And it was painfully obvious that no one asked her about the last book she read, but for once, she told that part of her brain to shut up.
The discussion wasn’t important, as long as they were interested. Knowing it was silly to crave empty and shallow admiration, Katie shed intellectual pursuits and feminist sensibilities and shamelessly flirted.
After talking with a few boys, she met Teddy. He had sparkling caramel eyes that made her melt. Just a glimpse of his smile made her heart skip a beat.
“Do you want to go to the concession stand and get some candy?” Teddy asked.
Katie heard a choir singing hallelujah in her head! That is all she needed. He wanted to spend time with her.
Grabbing Darcy’s hand, she pulled her along for support, but Darcy stopped cold.
“Katie, that is the captain of the freshman football team and the cutest boy in the class. Really good-looking boys are too full of themselves. There’s only room for them in the mirror,” she warned.
But as he gently took her hand, Katie was too gone. Hearing rockets, fireworks, and trumpets, it took every bit of strength she could muster not to giggle like an empty airhead.
For the rest of the night, they fed each other Skittles and M & M’s, sitting together on the bleachers. And when they said good night, he slowly leaned in and kissed her.
“I’ll meet you at your locker Monday morning,” he said and waved goodbye.
She was over the moon. That night, she dreamed lovely thoughts of her first high school boyfriend. Homecoming court prince and princess, then prom king and queen; her subconscious mapped it all out.
Riding to school Monday morning, Katie was on a cloud. When she arrived, she waited by her locker. As students bustled by, she waited and waited, darting her head back and forth, smiling, looking for him. Then the warning bell rang, only ten minutes until first period. Katie didn’t want to be late, but she was afraid to move from that spot. She may miss him.
As the hallway emptied, silence fell, until the taunting echo of the final bell rang. He wasn’t coming. He was never coming. It was just talk in the moment. Teddy was obviously not boyfriend material. And now she was late.
Running to class she realized Darcy was right all along. “Never again. Too cute is not for me, I’m sticking with nice average-looking boys who like books and me.”
(c) Copyright Suzanne Rudd 2023
NOTE: This story is based on my YA novel “Diary of a 9th Grade “D” Cup
SUZANNE RUDD HAMILTON 