BHS Inkwell 2017-2018

floating to the bottom, waiting to be stirred up again. The silence wasn’t bad either. We were comfortable in it, gazing into the fire or up at the underside of the trees because there weren’t stars that night. I looked at Nadine. Nadine was the beautiful one. She claimed to be the only girl in the county with red hair, and I believed her. It was a flaming nest of marmalade colored yarn and phoenix feathers- ferocious, but she cut it short to keep it out of her face. I sometimes told her to grow it out because she’d look better with long hair. When I did this she would hit me and remind me that I could never handle it. She was probably right. It’s strange to consider, but Nadine wasn’t always beautiful. Until the summer of ‘02 she was a stick of a girl with gangly legs and a nose like a traffic cone. I remember she had loved pranking us and spouting facts that were only partially true because those were the benefits that came with being the oldest. Alvin was only younger by a week or so and it infuriated him. She refused to let him forget it. Nothing had really changed since then. We

were the same grimy, feral children we had been when we met that one summer eight years ago- at least on the inside if not in our appearances. Unfortunately, things were about to change. It was our last summer together. We’d be going off to college soon, making our own lives, finding new friends. I doubted any of us would make an effort to keep in touch. “Nadine?” I said. Nadine turned to face me, shadows stretching and contracting against her cheeks. Her blue eyes took me in. “Yeah, Mike?”The urge to kiss her washed over me like a tidal wave, filling my nostrils and ears with dirty water. Love. I had never loved anyone before. At least, I didn’t think I had. To this day I’ll never know if what I felt for Nadine was it, because I didn’t kiss her. “I’ll miss you,” I said, and she smiled like she understood what I meant. “Don’t worry. We’ll see each other soon,” she stated confidently. And I think I knew what she meant too.

Hannah Tallant

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