Matthew was quiet for a moment, looking down at his hands, which were resting on the table, before he began speaking, “The move was rough, Leah. We got to our new house only a few days before the school year started, so I had missed orientation and the fall sports tryouts. So, no football, which was a first for me. I was terrified the first day of school as I didn’t know a soul. The school there was huge; and the kids of course had already formed their cliques from being together since ninth grade. It was days before anyone even spoke to me,” he paused to clear his throat before continuing.
“Our new house was ridiculously huge; the area wasn’t at all like our old neighborhood. The lawns were so big and the homes so far apart that I rarely saw anyone even just walking outside. Even if other kids had lived nearby, I likely never would have run into them. For the entire first semester, I drove to school in the morning and drove straight home afterwards as I didn’t have anyone to hang out with or anything to do. Everything – and everyone, really - was just so different out there. I was quite lost for some time.”
“Oh, Matty…I’m so sorry,” I said, utterly ashamed that I had so selfishly thought he had blown me off after he moved. I could see the hurt in his eyes as he remembered trying to adjust to his new school. We had just been kids; and he had been thrust into a whole new world. Of course, he hadn’t been thinking about his friends, or even me, back home; he was trying to adjust to his new home. I had spent years being mad at him for leaving me; I was too selfish and naive to ever think he himself had been hurting.
“It took a few months, actually, for me to find a handful of friends. I tried going out for basketball and swimming in the winter, but I didn’t make either team. The talent out there was insane; I was great at our school, but I wasn’t even average in California. I ended up really buckling down in my classes, though. I did make the tennis team in the summer between junior and senior year, but sports wise, that’s all I did in high school until I got to college. I ended up at my dad’s alma mater, of course; and I made the football team there, although not on scholarship. Not sure if they chose me based on talent or pedigree, but I did play football during all four years of college.”
“That’s great,” I said, genuinely happy to hear that he had eventually found athletic success. “I know how important sports were to you.”
“Yeah, they were; but after not making most of the teams at my new high school, sports no longer meant as much. My college was a small, private school with a heavy focus on business and building future contacts for the corporate world. It was the first time my dad was more interested in my academic and social life than my sports achievements. Being on the football team there was about establishing name recognition and status, not winning championships,” he said, before adding, “and not being tied down to practices and game days in high school ended up giving me the chance to excel academically. I graduated tenth in my class, if you can believe it!” he said with a sheepish grin.
“Of course, I can believe it,” I replied. “I always knew you were so smart, even though you pretended to be a dumb jock!” We both laughed again, just as our drinks arrived.
“Ugh, the smell! I don’t know if I can do this,” I said, pretending to gag at the thought of drinking the peachy beverage.
“One sip, just one sip! You have to! I’ll go first. To Sally Schnapps,” said Matthew as he tentatively brought his glass up to his mouth and sucked in just a bit of liquid. “Oh God, you were right! Awful! I feel like I’m back throwing up behind the bushes outside the football stadium!”
“Yes! Right after freshman year homecoming!” I exclaimed, the memory of that night flooding back. “I’d forgotten all about us bailing on the dance and heading back to the stadium to hang out under the bleachers. And after we had spent weeks planning the entire night, from our outfits and where we would go to dinner to what songs we hoped they would play. I think we only ended up staying for thirty minutes before leaving!”
“Because we thought we were too cool to be at a cheesy dance,” Matthew remembered. “Especially when the chaperones were trying to get us to line dance. Line dances were for junior high; no way were we gonna participate. We were so cool, in fact, that we had a friend’s sister buy us crappy alcohol to drink while we huddled outside in the cold under the bleacher of the football stadium and prayed no one would find us. And none of us were driving yet, so we all had to stumble home on foot as there was no way we could call our parents to pick us up.”
“I’m pretty sure I was the only one who didn’t throw up that night,” I said, laughing and remembering the sight of seeing most of my friends rolling around on the grass with stomach aches or, as Matty had reminded me, throwing up in the bushes that lined the entrance to the stadium. It was the first time
