New To The Feeling

The final weeks at school were grueling. Finals, papers, tests, homework, projects… the battle never stopped. School was harsh and being a senior was tough. People were learning to accept the fact that after graduation, we wouldn’t be kids anymore. Life would settle in, whether it be college or a career, we would no longer be able to goof off causing trouble in the hallways and giving teachers headaches. Our lives were beginning in an all new way.

When the yearbooks were released the final week of school the rush began. Girls would sign yearbooks and cry over their friends. Guys would write rude things and seemed to take it much better. I avoided people for the most part. After this passed year, I was prepared to let go. I wanted to be done. I had a select few people write in my yearbook. Even then, they mostly consisted of “Have a great summer…I mean life” with a name and a number scribbled underneath.

Beth and I never bothered to be concerned. We had been best friends long enough to know that we weren’t going anywhere. We were closer than sisters. We took a whole afternoon signing each other’s yearbooks, taking up pages and pages to write down all of our silly inside jokes, laughing the whole way. Jake and I signed each other’s yearbooks in very simple manners, never getting too deep or too intense. We had decided to become a couple again just a few weeks before, but we vowed to take it slow because we wanted it to last, unlike so many fast paced relationships we had seen before. We were determined to get it right.

Wylie had returned as the same Wylie I knew before. He harassed me in the hallway, pushing my every button, trying to see what would set me off. With every snide comment I could see a glimmer in his eyes. A glimmer that was just a flash of what we had gone through, learning from each other all the while. A flash, so much like that of a camera, capturing a moment that would be remembered, but only when glanced at. We would live our lives and look back one day remembering that he was obnoxious and I was a coward… until we weren’t anymore.

***

The final days of school came and went faster than I could have ever imagined. I was nervous, but more excited than anything. The last school day, all seniors were required to line up in alphabetical order on the football field, sitting in our respective chairs, set to rehearse for the graduation ceremony. The morning was cloudy with a slight mist. My face turned toward the sky, I knew it was time for a change. I scanned the field, marking internally where all my friends were seated. I looked to where the K’s would be seated. All I found was an empty chair.

The day came and went as family and friends filled the stands, umbrellas in hand just in case. I wandered among the crowd of seniors on the backfield before we started. We lined up, ready to enter. I looked frantically for Wylie again, hoping that maybe I had just missed him. I caught sight of Jake instead. He smiled smoothly and I returned the gesture. The ceremony began.

The crowd of 472 seniors to graduate entered the field in two lines, one coming from the right side and the other coming from the left. We filed down the isle and onto our row of chairs. We sat as quietly as we could, listening to the speeches given by our ASB president, our principal and our valedictorian, most of which were boring. They all let us know that our lives began now, as I shook my head in disagreement. My life started a lot sooner than now, and if it does start only now, what do I do with all that happened?

The ceremony came to a close with the entire class lining up to receive their diplomas, announcing our names and letting us cheer. The final hurrah began as our principal announced, “I give you the senior class of 2005!” Cheers rang out, filling the stadium as hats flew in the air. Excitement filled with tears. I pushed my way through the crowd as loved ones entered onto the field, joining their freshly graduated student. My parents had come and I knew that, I just didn’t know where. I looked through the crowd, heading towards an open area near the entrance to the field. There, I caught a glimpse of an all too familiar figure, tall and thin with patchy black hair over blonde roots. His green eyes are what captured me the most.

I hurried out of the stadium, completely forgetting about my family. I ran out, managing to catch him. I walked to him taking notice of the suitcase and skateboard in his hands. I questioned him with my eyes.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Somewhere different.” was all he said.

“Wylie, where are you going?” I uttered playfully.

“I don’t know yet. I’m going to travel, do something with myself.” He readjusted the bag slung over his shoulder.

“Did you graduate?” I urged.

“Yeah, I just didn’t want to walk.”

“Oh.” I looked down, preparing myself to leave.

“Skylar,” he said my name softly, much like the way Felicity had uttered Adam’s name for the first time, “in ten years, you’ll be grown up, married. You’ll have a career and you’ll be happy.”

“What about you?”

“I owe you a lot, Sky. You saved me from myself. I’m happy to have just that.”

That night, I watched Wylie walk away, the sun setting behind the hills forcing the day into night. His silhouette shrank into the darkness before him.

That night defined my life. I’d never forget the guy who tortured me for the sake of it, but kissed me because he cared.

Wylie Kurns was still quite a character. Still goofing off, still being obnoxious. He ignored people worth ignoring and talked to those who needed it. His ego had shrank and so had his outspokenness. He was kind and warmhearted under those plain white t’s and 501 jeans. His ears were gauged and his lip pierced with a hoop off to one side. That large tattoo on the back of his calf turned out to be an abstract memorial of his mother. It was a scene of a cross piercing the ground off the side of a highway with a pay phone in the background; his mother’s name written elegantly along the highway and “Be Good For Daddy” written above it. He never did what people expected of him. But it was his crisp green eyes that had affected me the most. The way they saw straight through me and healed my wounds. He was Wylie and no one could do it any better.

...The End...