I DIDN'T EVEN NEED A SLINGSHOT

My high school was huge. It was more like a college campus than a high school. All of the junior high schools dumped into the public high school, so it had to be big. I can't remember how many buildings there were, but they were lettered and I think you had five minutes to change classes because sometimes you had quite a walk. The campus was really quite beautiful at certain times of year, and treacherous at others (i.e. winter when it was icy). It turns out I was also really terrible about leaving my umbrella under my chair in a class during the rainy season; it would quit raining during the day and it got left behind. Therefore, every Christmas I got something like five umbrellas. Ridiculous.

As you might imagine, the first day of school was intimidating. I was walking along looking for my homeroom building, and feeling very lost like 300+ other people, when the miracle happened. ::Wait for it:: Kellie popped up beside me. My first instinct was terror, but then she started chatting me up like we were best buddies. My next feeling was confusion. Then came understanding. My last name started with "R" and hers with "S." She, too, was lost and she believed that I was smarter, so she was sticking to me, so that I could help her get to her homeroom. That made me feel enormously better. That day I looked at Kellie for the first time with new eyes and I saw what she never wanted me to see: insecurity. The kicker was that she knew that I knew her secret. That day was the last she and I ever spoke.

I was free.


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