Dating : Halfway There

Class reunions are not fun. Especially when you already know that Kristy has 2 kids and that Alex is in Oregon and Jack is dead and Steven is divorced and Sara’s fat…Goddamn social media ruins everything.

I look around at my former classmates. Age has done a number on a few of them.

“Hey,” a woman tapped my arm. “Do you recognize me?”

“Maggie,” I said, “of course.”

Maggie had done everything a girl who grew up on Eliza Thornberry could hope for. Strange, based on who she was, I would never have guessed. I don’t even think I noticed her until she showed wearing that knotted white t-shirt.

Anyway, she said she was living in a cabin community in a rural part of Kentucky — her and a whole bunch of people from the sounds of it. I got the distinct impression she was trying to rub something in my face.

…I latched onto Lenny Watts.

Lenny, or Watts as he liked to be called, was sort-of a pain in the ass. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t the worst guy in the world. But yeah, definitely a pain. Sometimes I still bothered with him though because we’d known each other since we were four. It’s hard to hate a guy you’ve known since you were four.

I was surprised to see him here.

“What do you think of all this?”

“It’s good,” I said.

Lenny smirked.

But why? What’s so bad about nostalgia? Maybe over-romanticization is bad, but a brief glimpse in the rearview?

…It was time to go.

I got caught holding the door open for an older woman.

She looked up into my face.

“Mrs. D?”

“Hey!” She hugged me. “I was hoping to see you.”

Mrs. D was the first sincerely happy person I ever met.

“Did you end up becoming a General?”

…It’s funny, all I wanted back then was to grow up to call the shots. Now I don’t give a damn about the shots, and I certainly don’t want to be the one calling them. Am I right now or was I right then? Man, it really is time to go.