The Time I Snuck Out with a Boy to the Library

June 22, 2018

I’ve been procrastinating on writing this story. I really didn’t think anyone would vote in the survey, but alas, I have given my word. This is the story of the time I snuck out with a boy to go to the library.

 

Sneaking out is a harsh phrase. It’s not like I climbed out my window in the middle of the night or anything like that. We were supposed to be in school. Noo, not even as bad as that sounds. Classes had ended for the day, and he and I were expected at a practice with the math team. I was a junior in high school and had, miraculously, continued going to practices even though math was not a huge passion of mine. He, on the other hand, (let’s call him… Colton) was part of the math team for the same reason birds fly. It was just natural to him.

I don’t know how much to tell you. The essence of the story is that us two nerds on the math team once skipped practice to go hang out at the library. Really. That’s as exciting as it gets. If you knew me back in high school, you’d know I was not a risk taker at all. I was the quiet type, who kept her head down and avoided all the trouble she could. For this reason, I rarely skipped math team. In fact, it’s probably the reason I was still on the team even though I never placed more than fourth in local competitions. Whenever I missed a meeting, my math team coach (uhh, let’s say Dr. Hib) would ask a ton of questions. He also occasionally preached about how much better our team would be if we had a daily class like some of our competitors.

I’m getting side tracked. Point is, skipping, even an extracurricular activity, was unheard of to me. Maybe if there were extenuating circumstances, but on purpose? Never! …Except that day. I’d been wanting to hang out with Colton for a long time at this point. Part of me is terrified he’ll read this story someday, but I’m going to pretend that that doesn’t matter. We’d had a sort of falling out that year and I really wanted to set things right.

Super long story short, we had been talking (flirty puppy love) all of sophomore year, but we never officially got together. I’d never been interested in someone this way before, so I was completely and utterly lost on what to do with my feelings. So, I just denied everything. Can you guess what my favorite song at the time was? “I Can’t Say I’m in Love”. You know, the song from the Disney movie Hercules? Yeah, that probably should have given me a clue, but not even a smack on the head could have jogged my brain enough to realize what was going on back then.

Well, when the library thing happened, we hardly talked at all. During our prime we’d email like teens text nowadays. For hours, whenever we had a spare minute. During the summer? Gosh. The email people had their work cut out for them. And then junior year began, and those conversations began to seem like rosy delusions in comparison to the snappy arguments we began having over lunch, and later the meaningless waves in the hall. Seriously! We began to argue about everything.  We once argued about the role of mosquitos in society! So, when I finally convinced him to take me to the library with him, I had no problem missing math team that day. It was a sort of last ditch effort to be friends again.

I don’t remember exactly what the situation was, but for some reason he’d go to the library after school to be picked up by a family member and driven home. He’d told me to just show up one day if I really wanted to, but I wasn’t about to go looking for him and risk him giving me one of those casual waves and nothing more. I must have annoyed him about it, because eventually he broke down and told me to meet him after school so we could walk the two or so blocks to the library together. Once inside, we went to the little teen area with computers and tables nestled between bookshelves and windows leading to some other office-like space.

I remember it being like old times. We talked, goofed around. He even helped me prank another friend of mine that I emailed at the time. (We’ll call him AJ.) We did nothing and everything I could have asked for that day. It couldn’t have been more than an hour before I said my farewell and began walking back to school. It’s not like I’d told my mother where I was. All she knew was that it was a math team day, so I trekked back on campus and casually sat under my favorite tree until she arrived. No questions asked, and none given.

A couple of years later, when I was sure she couldn’t get mad about it anymore, I confessed what I really did that day. To my surprise, she didn’t even bat an eye. Quite the opposite! She essentially scoffed at me! She thought it was funny that I was so proud of my most rebellious teenage moment! And it was. That’s the truly sad part. This was probably the riskiest thing I attempted before turning 18. Ah, to be young and innocent again. Young and blindly rule following, more like.

And what ever became of Colton? I’m not sure. In high school, we eventually stopped talking altogether. I remember two times in particular. One was where I’d said hello to him in the hall, but he either really didn’t hear me or pretended not to. It was an empty hallway, so I firmly believe it was the later. The second, was in a busy hallway where he refused to turn around and acknowledge my existence. So, I gave him a quick hug from behind instead. That was the last time I spoke to him in high school.

Yes, I did say in high school. We emailed a few times after we graduated and even went on a date some time after. However, now the fact is that we have not spoken or emailed in over a year and I’m not sure if we ever will again. Sometimes I wonder what he’s doing or what he ended up studying/dedicating his life to. Like I said, he was wicked smart, and I suspect he still is. Only time will tell whether our lives will ever intersect again. *

 

Notes:

1. Of course, I had to end with a math reference! ^-^
2. All of the names in this post are pseudo names. If you happen to know the actual names of the people I refer to, please grant them the same privacy that I have by not naming them or otherwise making them identifiable.
3. I hope you enjoyed the story. Thank you to everyone who voted in the survey. I hope this story was worthwhile. Maybe I’ll make another survey someday with some of the rebellious things I did as an adult. I’m no daredevil, but life has a way of forcing excitement into our days. Explore my blog for more stories (Thoughts and Past tab) or to keep up with me (My Life Now tab). Thanks again!