Anchor

“I’m going to kiss you.”

My book immediately dropped onto my lap as I glanced Caleb, getting closer and closer to me. Since that party, a couple of days ago, Caleb and I have been spending all the time in the world with each other. He said he liked the way I thought and I said I liked the way he talked. The scent of sugar embedded in his clothes sent me into tizzies and I think he could say the same about me and my lavender soap.

As the distance between our noses shortened, I grew nervous. My palms were moist; my stomach felt empty; and my mind was spinning. Every part of my body felt uneasy but I didn’t want it to stop. Our faces inched closer and closer until our lips touched.

My first kiss.
That uneasy feeling that first emerged when I arrived home returned. My palms were moist; my stomach felt empty; and my mind was spinning. I was standing in front of Sam’s Diner, the only restaurant in town, looking in on my former high school classmates. There were fifty or so people, some I vaguely recognized and some I didn’t, crammed into 7 cramp booths. They looked relaxed and joyful, clinking their beer filled glasses together while sharing funny stories of the past year. I didn’t want to interrupt the party, so I waited outside for Carrie.

According to her, these informal reunions were frequent. Every time there was a break at State University, they’d meet up here on the first Friday to drink, eat, and talk. So far, there have been sixteen of these meetings and I’ve missed every one of them. To tell you the truth, I was nervous. How would I be received? Have they forgotten me? Will they ignore me? Do they hate me? Uneasily, I shifted my weight back and forth, forming a circle of snow around my feet.

“Lilly, what are you doing outside?” I looked up to see Carrie, getting out of the passenger seat of Kevin’s beat up grey Volvo. “Why aren’t you in the diner?”

Straightening my posture, I said, “I was waiting for you two.”

“You must be freezing,” said Carrie as she gripped my arm. I shook my head, indicating a ‘no’. I was lying, though. I had been standing out here for at least an hour and my limbs were staring to numb. Carrie has always been known as a worrier that would go to great lengths to fix the problem. I mean, she once punched a drunken Steven Williams in the nose just for hassling me.

Feeling my chills, Carrie whispered, “Don’t be nervous.”

I nodded and told myself the same. I’m a graduate of Yale University; I’m a PhD candidate at UNC Chapel Hill; I’ve roamed the jungles of Bioko Island to study Drills; and I’ve been asked out by a Parisian! If I did all that, I can do this. They’re just people from high school.

This is going to be nothing.

Kevin, Carrie, and I walked into the warm diner to great anticipation. Once everyone caught a glimpse of Carrie’s bulging belly, the whole population of the diner migrated towards us, no, towards Carrie.

“Congratulations!”

“Is it a boy or girl?”

“I always knew you and Kevin would get married.”

Carrie waved her hand at the rush of comments, “Don’t remind me my pregnancy. The constant weight on my feet always does.”

A wave of laughter washed through the crowd.

“Look who I brought,” Carrie said, pulling me towards her side. “Remember Lilly?”

I anxiously looked out on my old classmates. They all had weird looks on their faces as if they were searching for words nowhere to be found. I knew it. I shouldn’t have come. They all forgot me and it’s just like high school all over again.

I was about to run out and that when Steven Williams, who I recognized immediately by his flaming red hair, stood up. “After four years, the almighty genius, Lilly Cahill, finally comes home.”

Taken back by Steven’s brash tone, everyone in the diner, including Carrie and I, stood back. Everything was awkward and silent for a while until the door bell jingled.

“Hey! Caleb and Marilyn are here!”I turned around quickly to see him.

The soft cheeks I pressed my lips against became mature and pronounced; his clean cut look was replaced a shaggy haircut with a slight mustache upon his lip; and the lean body he once had grew tall and muscular. Caleb looked as strong and handsome as ever. The boy from that summer was no longer a boy, but a man.

My eyes followed Caleb as he glided through the crowd with a petite, blonde girl in tow. He shook hands and greeted people until he turned around to sit in a booth. That’s when he saw me. I knew it by the look of his face; it was similar to everyone else’s. Confused and mixed up, I watched as he looked me up and down.

Immediately, I untucked the piece of hair behind my ear, allowing it to cover my eye.

“Hey Caleb,” Steven Williams shouted. “Look whose back from the Amazon! Living with apes, huh?”

Along with Steven, a couple of people hid chuckles. I saw smirks tugging on lips and hands covering up raised cheeks. They were laughing at my research; they were laughing at me.

Holding my balled up fists by my sides, I retorted, “I have been living on Bioko Island, not the Amazon, which is far from it, studying the endangered Drill species.”

Steven smugly sat back in his booth and shook his head, “I can’t believe our valedictorian is living with apes.”

“I’m not living with apes in the Amazon,” I shouted.

“Yeah,” Caleb said, smacking Steven in the arm. “Bioko is in the middle of Africa.”

“Bioko Island is actually off the coast of Guinea, so it’s on the west coast not the middle of Africa,” I corrected. “That’s where I’ve been studying the Drill, which is a monkey, not an ape. Even the simplest person can tell the difference. Just look at its tail and shoulder bone structure. You may dismiss my research as, ‘living with monkeys’, but it’s not. My research is out to save the extremely endangered species that ignorant people take for granted and shoot like pictures. I’m saving an entire species, what are you doing with your life?”

Once I finished my rant, I realized that damaged I’ve done. People, including Caleb and
Steven, were leaving the diner in groups. They were all silent, averting their gazes towards the ground and shuffling their feet out the door.

The diner that was filled of life and laughter only mere minutes ago was silent as an empty classroom. As I turned around towards mouth gaping Carrie and Kevin, I couldn’t help but tear up.