It was about free movies, free popcorn, and being alone in a room together all summer long. It was about getting ready for work together. It was her laying on her bed before a shift, in the uniform that made her look like the happy, peppy, girl that everyone in the romcom fell in love with.

It was about that, because I was the one in love with her.

The character of the story that looked at the girl with wonder. The idiot who got their heart broken, all the while the audience knew it would happen. But I loved that. I loved it all.

And all at once I’m brought to reality with her voice. It’s not as if my inner monologue could last forever.

“What if I’m the worst ticker-taker that has ever walked the floors of the of the Avalon Multiplex?”

God, she’s perfect.

The only thought that could ever rush through my head.

Sage, keep your cool.

Be cool.

Be THE girl.

I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes, but when she fell back into me, the eye rolling became an intense focus on the fall on her hair onto my face before it settled. The warmth of her against me giving me the confidence I normally feigned.

“Betty Holiday, being bad at something? I’ll call TMZ immediately and make sure I have it caught on tape to watch when we’re old and gray.”

My response was a bit truth, a bit wonder. A wonder of the future. Of the present. Of what could be if only a few things went differently.

I always wondered. 

Wondered why she took the job, only because I told her we should. Wondered why she let me lead her here and there. Sometimes I thought it as what best friends did. Sometimes I convinced myself she did it because all girls did it.

Sometimes I remembered that she once changed her homeroom for me.

Sometimes I thought of Jamie. Being away. Being not there. Missing Betty the same way I missed her when I’d drop her off at home after a shift. After taking the long way home. And it made me sad. That I could make my best friend potentially feel the hurt and longing that I felt every August when he’d come home.

But this was my time, and thinking of that was would only hold me back.

It would have held me back from the kisses I would steal from her cheeks.

From when she’d sneak out, knowing I was in the back, smoking the cigarettes she hated.

“How did I know you’d be back here?”

I didn’t flinch. If the door opened, I always knew it was her. And she always knew where I was.

“Because you stalk me?” I quipped back. As if it was clever. Then again, I couldn’t be as clever as I wanted when she was near.

She laughed, though. A laugh that made me feel warm and urged me to stomp out the stick of fire and smoke I took to my lips to feel alive.

“Those are gonna kill you, you know?”

She’d say, every time.

“That’s the point.”

I’d reply coldly.

Every time.

And that was the summer.

Getting ready for work in her room. Pretending to not watch her change, or care when I’d see the skin of her back be covered by the most hideous of polyester. Pretending Jamie didn’t exist when I’d sneak over and kiss her bare shoulder as the heat of her skin burned my lips. Pretending that letting her kiss my cheek was innocent. That friends did that.

Pretending that we were just friends. Tangled in her bed sheets. Popcorn breath. Polyester sweat.

Visors on the floor.

No one should look so beautiful in that uniform.

No one should look good in a visor.

Betty looked like a dream that summer, and forever.

Do you ever look around you and feel like nothings real? Or just maybe YOU aren’t real? Just me? The introspective seven year old with the mind of someone born ages ago. Probably just me. Those are the thoughts I had while my parents were fighting over who forgot to pay the water bill or how else they’re going to lie on my tuition enrollment to keep me at the fancy private school. Or when I was skateboarding down the street going way too fast as mother’s undoubtedly judged my parents inability to force me to wear a helmet.

It made my hair look like someone put a bowl over my head and then used a hairdryer to make all the weird bits stick around the bowl... not a good look. Plus Jamie ALWAYS had a coconut bowl head after taking his helmet off and if I also had one then I couldn’t make fun of him for it anymore and that wasn’t going to work for me.

The park, though. The park was my place. My real home if you will. That day was no different than most. My parents forgetting I was in the room; me not wanting to hear them argue. Even though they were speaking Greek and I could only make out bits and pieces, I knew I didn’t want to know that they were upset with each other. Or God forbid that they were going to get divorced which would for sure have made me the poor weird girl who’s parents had also broken up. Again I was back into a place of feeling foreign. Not the normal foreign feeling I was used to being a part of an immigrant family. This was the foreign feeling that made me believe that I was not real. That perhaps the world was not real. That this was a television show that I was meant to be watching, not living.

I did what I would normally do and laced up my shoes, grabbed my skateboard and quietly made my way out of the house.

I was sad, or at least what I knew of at the time as sad. The rain, as annoying as it was to get my hair wet, reminded me I was real. The smell of the pavement getting wetter and wetter grounded me back into myself. It was as if the universe knew that I wasn’t okay. The universe knew that I needed to be reminded to be present.

I stumbled over the pavement and let my skateboard roll itself onto the grass, it’s momentum slowing until it sloshed to a stop in the rainfilled grass. I left it behind and went to sit on the swing. My biggest nemesis. Not because swings were lame, because no matter my vocal anger towards them often said otherwise, but because they were terrifying. No straps. Nothing to hold onto but uncomfortable dirty chains. Nothing to keep me safe except my tiny hands.

So I sat. And it rained. And then there was a girl.

Her name was Betty.

She taught me how to fly.