Cheat

I first met Reed the summer before senior year, when everything was sparkling and basked in the pale golden light of ‘growing up.’ Reed was older – in college, experienced, deeply sensual and completely off limits. I put on my best pair of knee high stockings and paraded around in my uniform skirt whenever I knew he would be around: at parties in the barn just outside of town, at the movies with our mutual friends, late nights sneaking out to go to the river to skinny dip. My skirt hung like a flag from the tree that night, begging Reed to notice me.

“Who are you?” he finally asked, leaning up against the tree as I wrung out my hair before slipping into my skirt once more.

“Cath,” I responded sweetly, my lips curled at the edges in the coyest way I could manage. “You know that.”

“I know,” he replied. “But that’s not what I’m asking. Who are you?”

I raised my eyebrows in his direction, buttoning up the front of my plain white shirt, allowing just a hint of my bra to show through. “I guess I could let you find out.”

He broke out into a grin, two rows of perfect teeth shining brilliantly beneath the late June sun. Our friends laughed and screamed and splashed around us. But we didn’t care. From that moment on, it was me and Reed, Reed and me – synonymous but never quite the same.