If we go to the movies, you said, you buy the popcorn.
Okay, I said. I imagined myself buying tubs, gallons, the entire machine, popcorn bubbling up and cascading over our feet like snow.
And none of that stupid chick flick stuff.
I made a face to agree. Truthfully I had a weakness for romance; I swooned at the thought of midnight forays around the neighborhood, the glow of the streetlamps pooling in the hollows of your collarbone. Watching the sun rise from the edge of the driveway with dew-damp grass still stuck to our feet.
Something scary, you said. How about the one with aliens.
You never asked things like questions, that’s one thing I remember. Not that I would have disagreed.
We were fourteen years old that summer; you wouldn’t turn fifteen until August. We watched TV in my basement as our mothers had coffee in the kitchen upstairs. You wouldn’t let me braid your hair, and we never painted each other’s nails shocking shades of pink, but we made up secret codes so that we could pass notes under our desks come September. We pulled out the weeds in your back garden for two dollars apiece; when you pushed your hair out of your too-warm face you left a swipe of dirt across your cheekbone, unacknowledged.
When we played Truth or Dare during sleepovers, you always took the dares. I always took the truths. I dared you to steal a pair of your older sister’s underwear, to eat a piece of the stinky cheese we found in the fridge, to run onto your lawn and dance in circles for the passing cars. You asked me why I didn’t write with pens, if I’d ever stayed up all night without telling my parents, if I had any secrets I’d never told anyone.
I can’t tell you that, I protested, scuffing my feet along the floorboards of your porch. Then I would have told someone.
It’s how the game works, you said. Tell me something true.
At fourteen we were still gangly, even as I watched the backs of your calves start to curve and the baby fat disappear from your face. You started wearing contacts, rather than the glasses you’d had since you were eight, and your eyes were red for a week. Like for a week you’d been crying and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Every time I saw you it swung into me like a fist.
In the theatre, enveloped in the muffling dark, I swung my feet until you glanced at me sideways, imperious. I set the bucket of popcorn between us, half-worrying that you would comment on the fact that I hadn’t gotten two. You never did. Probably you never noticed.
During the scary parts, you pressed backwards into the seat. I leaned towards you.
And some other things I can’t forget. The way you measured out your lab ingredients, one eye closed to see the level. The volleyball games I watched you in, when later I pretended I’d had homework. The first boy you dated, and the hatred I felt rushing to my face, dark and bloody. You walking through crowds, your head flashing here and there until I couldn’t see you anymore. The outline of your shoulder burned into my skin, still raw.
I don’t expect you to understand. But this is something true.
Second Place
Hart House Literary Contest