Don’t take it personally?It’s bad enough that he ghosted me. Now he’s formally rejected me. In writing. Forever preserved to taint the memory of that one perfect almost-kiss.Thisis why I should learn to leave the love stories for the screen.
A girl two years below me wearing a French braid and a Taylor Swift T-shirt gives me a sympathetic look from across the row of computers and says in the sweetest voice, “It’s only finals week. You’ll get through it.”
If only these tears were over something as stupid and simple as grades. I compose myself enough to thank her before forcing myself to finish reading Derick’s upsetting response.
He’s signed his email:
See you soon,
Derick (but you already knew that)
See me soon? What could he mean by that?
PS. Happy belated birthday, Wrenji.
Wrenji.
Only he called me that. On his first day of fourth grade at Willow Valley Elementary, he was seated next to me for science class. I was shy and quiet—in some ways I still am—so when he asked what my name was, he heard “Ben” instead of “Wren.”
“Does anyone call you Benji?” he’d asked.
“If you mean Wrenji, then sure,” I joked back.
He looked at me all confused and then said, “Okay, nice to meet you, Wrenji.”
And I was too nervous to ever correct him. Eventually, it just became our thing, and I was okay with that. Right now, I wished he hadn’t used it as a weapon of mass emotional destruction.
Before I can even consider writing him back, I distract myself by clicking the link to his professional website, right below his signature. He must run a formal photography business now. Back in the day, he was the Willow Valley yearbook photographer extraordinaire. No photo got into the publication without his express approval. He was a savant for capturing the moment.
Now, it looks like he’s branched out into portraiture—headshots for actors and LinkedIn pictures for business professionals. The layout is sleek and the background is a slate gray. His portfolio is impressive. He’s even done a few big events, sweet sixteens and bar mitzvahs.
His images have a way of dropping you into a memory you never even had. Obviously, I don’t know this middle-aged man lighting a candle with his daughter in the poofy purple gown and tiara, but it feels like I do. That’s what’s touching about it.
When I click into a separate subfolder, I notice he’s even uploaded some of his high school work. I scroll through lacrosse-match pictures and panoramas of senior prom.
In my scrolling, amid the slideshow, I spot a familiar face. Big eyes behind rounded glasses. Unruly hair tamed by plentiful product.
It’s me in my navy tuxedo, smiling next to Avery in a lavish hotel ballroom. She’s laughing at a joke I made, and I’m holding her exposed upper arm, keeping her upright in her too-high high heels. She ditched them immediately after this was taken for the pair of pink socks she kept in her clutch.
Anger emerges from its shadowy hiding spot, beating my sadness to a pulp.
Why would he post this? If I meant that little to him freshman year of college, over winter break when he went quiet on me, why would he keep up this small sign of what we once were? He dropped out of our group hangs, started spending more time with his brothers who were egging him to rush the Delta Tau Delta chapter at his college. All the men in his family were members, and it was important to them that he kept the Greek-life tradition alive. It was a major concern in his overall college selection process.
Something about him hardened then. He drifted out of our high school chat, and my solo texts were left on read. And now…
Do I email him back? Does he even deserve that? Or is it my turn to sever the tie once more?
The questions taste like the memory of too-sweet candy canes—the ones we gave out when we both volunteered to be elves for the Santa-on-a-fire-truck display run by the Willow Valley Fire Department. It was for the community service portion of our peer leadership class. I signed up first and Derick tagged along.
When we arrived at the station together, the chief, with a pillow stuffed up the front of his red suit, handed us two hangers and asked, “Aren’t you boys a little big to be elves?”
Turned out, we were. The costumes were both a child’s size extra-large, and the sight of Derick in the mandatory striped tights, which looked like second-skin capris on him, made me burst out laughing. But he took it in stride, strutting the streets of Willow Valley in the December cold like he’d never been more comfortable in his life.
Me? I hung behind him and tried to blend into the scenery, pulling the hat down as far as it would go to hide my identity.
Sensing my discomfort, Derick got the driver to play my favorite holiday tune, “White Christmas,” from the truck speakers at top volume.
“Sing it with me, Wrenji,” he shouted over the music. And before I knew it, the whole block had broken into joyous song. Derick wrapped his sturdy arm around me, pulled me into his side, and together we jigged up the street like real elves on December 26.
