Henry
“Are you coming?”
Sophia hesitated. She wanted to come. It was something I’d noticed, her bubbling desire to break out and do something more. Her life was successful, but it was also rigid.
“Come on, Soph,” I urged her. These were the same words I used many times when I wanted her to come on some adventure in the woods or attempt some daredevil parkour feat.
“Only you could make me do this.” Sophia stood up and brushed off invisible lint from her mom-cardigan and black dress pants.
“Don’t forget your jacket,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “We’re not going outside, are we?”
“The first rule of cutting school club is leave no trace. If your jacket is gone, it’s like you were never here.”
I moved towards the double doors that led to the principal’s office. Sophia grabbed my arm.
“We can’t go that way. What if it’s alarmed?”
“Why would they alarm inside doors?” I asked reasonably.
They might not arm them, but they did lock them. I finally found one door to the gym office that wasn’t locked. We slipped inside and then went through to the dark gym.
“Site of your junior boys’ basketball triumph,” she said, pointing to the far hoop.
“Do you remember everything?” I had completely forgotten the three-pointer that won a semi-final game. This place was a trip back in time. Right now, I felt younger and stronger than I had in months, maybe even years. Sophia had been right about getting healthy. And the idea of life beyond music had eased the pressure on me.
“Being back here does bring back memories,” I admitted. It was a time when the music flowed. Wake up, get a song idea. Eat breakfast, figure out a chord progression. Walk to school and rewrite a bridge. I sighed.
“Thanks for coming tonight,” Sophia said as we walked under the metal endoskeleton of the bleachers.
“No problem.”
When she first mentioned the reunion, it held zero appeal to me. I saw no one from high school, and I wasn’t keen to measure my peripatetic lifestyle against their conventional ones. Money wasn’t important to me, but it was the only measuring stick for most people. I didn’t want to have to calculate record or ticket sales for bragging purposes. But Sophia had been worried, and I’d missed seeing her last night, so why not spend an hour helping her dispense name tags?
She smiled up at me, her face lovely and mysterious in the dimness. I resisted an urge to run my thumb over her smooth cheek.
“Everyone was reliving their crushes on you,” she said. “Deanna and Hailey were hyperventilating when you walked in.”
I laughed. “Really? I had no idea.”
“How could you not know? I’m sure tons of girls threw themselves at you daily.”
Honestly, I was pretty selfish bastard back then. I kept my focus on my music and getting through high school. I had girlfriends, but music always came first. I broke dates because of last minute gigs or extended jam sessions, and if that was a problem, it was over. Maybe I’d been too careless of people’s feelings back then, but I was always honest about my goals. Success in anything means sacrificing another part of your life.
We’d reached the end of the bleachers and stood on the polished wood floors with their graphic lines.
I curled a strand of Sophia’s hair around my forefinger.
“I’ve always liked you—so why did we not go out back then?”
“You liked me?” she scoffed. “We lived in two entirely different worlds. I was in the studious student council group. And you were in the rebellious bad boy group. We couldn’t ever have gone out.”
“Scandalous,” I agreed.
She was right. Back then I dated girls who loved music and concerts and of course, musicians. But Sophia was always my gold standard—someone beautiful, smart, and challenging. Maybe too challenging. Sophia was not a person you could stand up for three nights in a row because you got gigs.
Sophia shoved me away. “Stop mocking me. You never liked me. Every time I saw you in the hall, you were making out with some cool chick. Like Zoe Falkowski, or Evie what’s-her-face.”
“Oh Soph, you were jealous? I had no clue.”
“Ugh.” She stalked away, and I followed her.
“Why are you getting so upset?”
Sophia turned to face me. “I’m sorry. Being back here again reminds me of all the things that bothered me back in high school. The girls who were mean to me. The things I was too chicken to do. The fact I never had a boyfriend.”
And this was why high school reunions were best avoided: they reminded you of all your insecurities. How could a person not be insecure when the time when they were most hormonal and confused was also the time when it was easiest to measure yourself against everyone else?
I led the way towards the outside door. “Put your coat on. Let’s go out to the woods beyond the parking lot. I did some of my best thinking there.”
It was cold out but not freezing. I used to hang out with my friends at the edge of the forest just off the school property. Sophia and I sat down on a worn wooden bench that seemed exactly the same, down to the cigarette butts on the ground between the skiffs of snow.
I nudged up against her. She felt warm and rigid. “What were these things that you never had the guts to do?”
“Where do I start? Go to one of Kyle Simpson’s parties. Skip a class. Smoke a cigarette. Make out in the hallway.” Her dark eyes met mine. “I’m being stupid, aren’t I?”
“A little. Because none of that matters anymore.”
Sophia nodded. “I know. But now I have even more responsibilities. My chance to be wild is over.”
I reached into my inner jacket pocket and pulled out a joint. “Well, I don’t have a cigarette, but we could smoke this.”
Her eyes went as wide as an anime character.
“Henry! I’m a lawyer now. I can’t be doing drugs in schoolyards.”
I chuckled. “Better check your Criminal Code, solicitor. Marijuana is legal in Canada now.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off the joint. “But still, what if something happens?”
“Like what? It’s not some 1930s movie where you take one toke and end up turning tricks on the street.”
She scowled at me. “I know that... but still. How often do you, you know, partake?”
“A lot,” I admitted. More when I was on the road, less lately.
I flew the J like an airplane in front of her. “C’mon. Maybe you’ll feel better about all the crap you never did on the hallowed grounds of Cedarbank High School.”
I watched as she considered what to do. I didn’t mind nudging her, but I wasn’t going to push too hard. Her forehead furrowed in debate. How good a lawyer could she be if her thought processes were so transparent? But perhaps I was the only one who could read her so well.
Suddenly I remembered a friend, Jack Coughlin, who had a crush on Sophia back in high school. He complained that he could never tell if she liked him back or if she was only being polite, so he’d never asked her out. With a flicker of guilt, I also remembered discouraging him. I’d rationalized that he wasn’t her type, but maybe I’d been possessive.
“Okay. Blaze it up,” she said. “Or whatever your druggie terminology is.”
I laughed as I searched for my lighter. Then I cupped my hand against the slight breeze and lit the joint. I took a deep drag and passed it to her.
Sophia took a short puff and immediately began coughing. I laughed even louder.
“You have to hold the smoke in,” I advised her and took another toke. I held the joint up to her mouth and felt the softness of her lips against my fingertips. She gingerly inhaled. This time she managed to not to expel everything, but her cheeks were puffed out like an adorable chipmunk.
“You’re too cute,” I said. “You know, guys liked you back in high school. You could have had a boyfriend.”
She shrugged. “There was only one guy I wanted to go out with. That’s the way I am. A hopeless romantic.”
I felt an unexpected rush of jealousy. “Who was it?”
She shook her head. “I’m not telling. Maybe once I’m stoned. But can I even get high? Don’t I already need TTC or whatever it’s called in my bloodstream?”
TTC? I was smoking as she said this and started coughing and laughing. I hadn’t felt this light in months.
We finished the joint in silence.
“I’m not feeling anything,” Sophia complained.
“Grasshopper, enjoy the journey and not the destination.”
“Henry, please. If ancient Asian wisdom gets quoted, it should be me.” Truthfully though, I was a much more Zen person that she was.
“Look at all the stars tonight.” I motioned upwards. The night was clear, and the sky sparkled.
Sophia leaned back to see the sky. She tottered and fell off the bench. Her back was on the snowy ground, her knees remained on the bench, but she didn’t try to get back up.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She lay there and smiled up at me. “Yeah. And the stars do look lovely.”
Maybe she was feeling it now. I grabbed her hands and pulled her back up. Her eyes were fixed on me.
“You look so handsome tonight, Henry. It was you I had a crush on in high school. You must have known, right?”
I grinned. “Uh, no. I had no idea.”
That was the truth, yet I wasn’t surprised. There was a rightness to Sophia being here—still single—now that I was back. She belonged to me in some inevitable way. Although she would have slugged me if I said that.
Sophia leaned her head against my shoulder. “Really? I thought I was so obvious. But I knew you were way out of my league. I mean, even when I had fantasies about you, they were so tame. I dreamed about kissing you while you were probably having advanced sex back here.” She motioned to the woods behind us. “I heard people had sex back here. There’s supposed to be a mattress or something.”
“A mattress outdoors? No. That’s kind of gross.”
“Ah ha. You didn’t deny that people had sex back here though.”
“Yes, solicitor. People had sex here. But people had sex everywhere. It was high school.”
“I never did.” Sophia sounded wistful, like she had wasted so much opportunity.
And then something twigged inside me. An idea for a song! About someone looking back, full of regret for the past while not realizing the beauty of waiting. And I could hear a melody in my head. Finally, something that felt real and moving. I wanted to work on it right away.
I stood up. “Look, I better get going.”
“Now?” Sophia popped up beside me. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Everything’s good.”
I didn’t tell her the news yet. First, I wanted to get something down on paper. But real possibility bubbled inside me.
In a burst of pure joy, I hugged Sophia and spun her in the air.