Which is what I had done. After spending the months after Matty moved being weepy and moody and crying myself to sleep every night, I realized I had to find a way to get myself together, at least publicly. I still cried in private; although, as Krista had told Matty at the reunion, she had been there a few times when I broke down. Fortunately, school offered the perfect distraction. “Like you, I threw myself into school work junior and senior year,” I said. “I also got a part-time job working at a clothing boutique at the mall. I just kept as busy as possible.”
“I guess school work saved us both, huh?” Matty asked, giving me a sad smile.
“Yes,” I agreed, before adding, “Although I didn’t finish tenth in my class like you, smarty pants!”
“Well, I always told you that I was a genius, right?” We both laughed but were clearly still thinking about how different things might have been if Matty and I been able to keep in touch. Would we have stayed close and maybe even reunited after high school? Or would the distance have driven us apart? Despite moments of intimacy over the years, and especially the day before he moved, we had never been an official couple. While a lot of people treated us as such, we didn’t consider ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend. I know that I felt we were more than that; and I always thought Matty had, too. What we had was deeper and more special than some high school romance. I think I would have been even more devastated had our friendship fallen apart due to distance than I was having it cut off the way it had.
I refocused my attention of the contents of my memory box. “Hey, look at this one!” I said, pulling out a picture of us with our casts on.
“Oh, man!” Matty exclaimed. “We were babies!” He stared at the picture and laughed quietly. “Breaking our arms was really a turning point for us, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “You were nice to me from then on.”
“Hey! I was nice to you before! What are you talking about?” he said with a sly grin. “I loved to tease you back then, just to get a reaction out of you. You wouldn’t talk to me otherwise.”
“What?” I was taken aback at the accusation. “You never tried to actually talk to me. You just harassed me!”
“Well, I was new in town, remember? Everyone already had friends from their elementary schools when they started sixth grade, but I had just moved to Springville and didn’t know a soul. I saw you standing across the street on the day we moved into our house. You looked like you were nice, and I hoped maybe you would be friends with me so that I would know someone on the first day of school. But when I waved at you, you turned and ran into your house.”
“Oh, my God!” I said, suddenly remembering that moment, which I had completely forgotten about. “I did, didn’t I? I had been watching you and thought you were cute, so when you waved at me, I got so nervous that I ran into my house and hid. I was afraid you were going to try to talk to me and that I would embarrass myself.” I put my head in my hands, internally berating myself at the sudden recollection of that moment. “I can’t believe I was so stupid! No wonder you picked on me at school. You must have thought I was a total snob.”
Matthew laughed and reached over to touch my shoulder. “We were eleven years old, Leah. I think we can forgive ourselves for acting a bit childish. Plus, knowing me I still would have ended up teasing you as it was just so much fun!” He ducked as I pretended to take a swing at him. “And it did all end up working out in the end, right?”
“Yes, it did,” I agreed, before shaking my head to clear out the memory of me initially snubbing Matty. I turned my attention back to the picture of us in our casts. My mom had taken it the day I came home from the hospital. I was sitting up in my bed, and Matty was in my desk chair next to me, leaning over with his face close to mine so that we would both fit into the camera frame. Matty looked adorable with a big smile on his face. I, however, appeared drugged, which I was, with a crooked grin on my face. I was shocked at how young we looked; Matty was right, we had been babies, just twelve years old that day. But even though the photo had been taken twenty years prior, I still remembered that period time as if it had happened last week.
Matty had his cast taken off a few weeks before mine as his arm had healed much faster. He told me all about the doctor using a power saw to remove his cast, which made me nervous. What if the doctor accidentally cut me; or worse, sawed my arm off? When it was my turn to have my cast removed, Matty came along with me and my mom to the doctor, and the nurse let him come into the exam room with me so he could
