1 Día de los Muertos

You’re still a friend here. I can’t bear to unfriend you, even though you’re gone now.

Because you’re how I first knew who I really am.

I read somewhere you said you had a face made for radio. Talking about your volunteer work, reading for the blind. I beg to differ. I always thought you had the face of a Botticelli angel, rosy Irish cheeks and classical Italian features. And a head full of dark black curls. Now I’m sorry I never told you.

I still see you standing there. On the other side of the stairwell from my new locker, deep in the bowels of lower C wing but right where I wanted it for long afternoons at drama club. You gave me a look and a wave, and introduced me to flirting.

My second love had left me alone all summer, but I was still smitten. You had no idea, along with everyone else.

A few days later, I saw you on the crowded stairwell on the path I always took from one class to another. I was going down, and you were going up. You reached out your hand, palm out. And I reached out mine, and brushed my palm to yours. It was … electric.

It became our little ritual, and I longed for it. I still didn’t know your name. Most days we saw each other in almost exactly the same spot, like clockwork. We went from a brush, to a slap, to a stroke and a curl of fingertips. On the days we missed each other, I’d feel an ache.

Soon enough you came over to my locker and introduced yourself. You made me feel happy and warm.

One day we’d just met and touched hands on the stairs, then I was walking the final hallway to class. And I saw my second love crossing down the grass courtyard outside. A way he never came. A way hardly anyone ever came, since it was a rude slope with a red clay path, often muddy and slick.

I knew I still loved him, I burned with it. And yet I felt … something … for you. And that was when I knew.

I was thirteen.