“I dunno,” he said, “I think I was going to stay at Paul’s and I just don’t know if I’ll be able too.”

That was Josh, the night of homecoming.  It could have been that he really did just want to hang out with the guys, or that he really did just want what Paul had to offer, or maybe he just wanted a break from my clingy nature.  What it meant to me was simply ‘no, there are things more important than you’.

Katelynn Watkins, Shannon Parrett, Gabriel Gonzales and I all had a colour guard that evening for the homecoming football game.  There was a dance of course, arranged with ‘love’ by the student council with the theme of old school Hollywood.  I think the connection of some props were questionable.  Street lamps and ‘Paparazzi’ cut-outs, somehow I just wasn’t getting it.  Either way, the decor was hardly the most important thing about that night.

We girls completed our colour guard successfully, though I did sneeze and trip a little over the muddy field, but all in all, a good performance.  It’s not as if the audience really understood the difference between a good performance and a bad one. Sergeant White wasn’t disappointed, and that’s what matters.  He is an ROTC instructor at Ozark High School and it’s easy to imagine him being a permanent fixture there.  I imagine that in the centuries to come there’ll be a statue of him at his desk; gruff, bemused smile included.  

After our performance, it was Katelynn and I, and her beau-of-the-moment Buddy, all at my house getting ready.  It was ‘Spirit Week’; the concluding day was themed around our school colours.  To carry this on to the dance, Katelynn and I were clad in red, black and white.  Red suspenders, heels, and extra made-up faces, flamboyant wrist wear: We dressed for attention.

After acquiring money and a tampon from Katelynn’s house for us ladies, if I qualify as that, Buddy drove us in the direction of Paul’s house.  Paul’s house… the light at the end of the tunnel, where everyone I was ever looking for seemed to be, sitting in a smoky room playing Halo or chasing the resident daschund, Bubbles, under the couch.  I’d been there before, and each occasion was delightfully uneventful. The first time I went I was introduced to Jason, Jamie, Paul himself; a variety of people from the town of Sparta.  I showed off my trick of breaking open glow sticks, tying a string to the end, and spinning them around and around until a surreal swirling galaxy effect was produced.  It was in this manner that we covered Jason’s room, and speckles of glow landed in Josh’s hair, falling into his eyes, casting a new shine to them, giving me the feeling of moving without moving, floating without floating, and spinning until I, the galaxy of false pretences, caught me.  Maybe it isn’t fair to say that; truth is like beauty, in the eye of the beholder, who is usually quick to change his or her mind at the first sign of turbulence.

Upon arriving at Paul’s we sent Buddy up to the door to investigate. He hailed from Sparta, so it seemed most appropriate.  Soon enough a stampede of people came pouring out, and I promptly wrapped myself around the one that I called my better half.  I asked him to come with us, but the answer was ‘no’ to every suggestion of plans.  So I didn’t let it get me down, we just sped off to the homecoming dance where I had every intention of raising my spirits.