Last Chances

arn!," I thought as a saw the guys standing in the hallway in front of my locker. I'd have to walk right through them and I knew that they wouldn't ignore me. 'The guys' was how I referred to the crowd I normally hung out with, minus the girls. I didn't particulary like them; one could say I tolerated them. Yet I was never myself with them. I flirted, smiled, teased, hung out with them because they provided entertainment during a dull school day. In truth they didn't know me at all - the emotional, crying-at-Bambi, giggling side that I had always hid. At that moment though I was in no mood to joke with them, but I knew I would. I kept my confident, preoccupied look on my face, smiling as I brushed through them.

"Hey Alise," Nathan called to me while I tried to look busy at my locker, "How's that boyfriend of yours doing?" "Just great....," I smiled mysteriously in return, hoping he'd leave me alone. No, of course he wouldn't. Nathan had a strictly sports orientated mind and no sensitivity . "So, I guess you and Mark kept yourselves pretty busy at the party last night, eh Alise?" he winked at me, challenging me. I turned to face him, idly taking in his greasy hair, beer stomach, tattered jeans and untied shoe-lace and wondered what the girls saw in him. Mark and I had not even been at the party. We had spent the evening at our favorite coffee shop, "Sunflowers", and then gone for a walk around the park. The guys were jostling around, waiting for a reaction from me. This time however Chris came to the rescue, talking about the afternoon's football game. I smiled to myself. "How predictable they were." They were so single minded sometimes. Before Nathan could think of anything more to say, I threw my bag over my shoulder, and closed my locker. My picture of Mark in my locker had caught my eye. He was smiling, a gentle reminder. He wasn't just my boyfriend, he was also my best friend. Right now, I felt so down that the picture was all it took to bring a lump into my throat. I tried to clear my head as I climbed the stairs to class. There was only one thing on my mind at the moment and it for sure wasn't biology.

Mark and I had met when he coached the softball team that my little brother played on last summer. He was great with the kids, funny and fun to be with. We used Tommy, my kid brother as an excuse for spending time together. We never fooled anyone though, and we gave up trying when Tommy announced to everyone after a game, "Mark and Alise, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Alise with a baby carriage!" It is just impossible not to love a younger brother, they always tell it like it is.

That summer was a whirlwind of fun, excitement, love and friendship. We spent everyday together. I never needed to act with him. What we had was a casual understanding. He had to concentrate on school. He had already been accepted to Yale as long as his grades stayed the same. So the feeling caught us totally unawares. Amidst the whirlwind of fun we fell in love. So now eleven months later, we were still going out. I knew he had to work hard, so we didn't hang out much during the week, just mostly on weekends. During the summer he spent so much time at home with me that my mother even gave him his own night to wash the dishes. If we went out now during the week it would only be to Sunflowers for an hour or two, so we valued every second we had together.

By the time my drifting thoughts returned to Biology it was the end of the period and I ended walking out of class in the same daze that I was in at the start of the period. "Nothing would have made any sense to me anyways," I tried to justify, "I'm just not smart that way." Rushing to my locker, I tried to dodged Nathan and Chris. Chris cornered me," So Alise, are you coming to watch the game?" "Nope, sorry, I have to much stuff to do!" I called as I blew them both a kiss and walked away. I wished I could stop this show I had going for them, if only they knew....

I hurried to meet Mark out in the parking lot. He greeted me with a peck on the cheek and a huge bear hug. I giggled and climbed into the car. We drove without speaking, we didn't need to talk. We reached Sunflowers and the waitress handed us our 'usual', a hot-chocolate for Mark and an apple-cider for me. We sat down in the corner. Over Mark's head was a picture of a field of strawberries and sunflowers. It reminded me of the summer when we went strawberry picking, that was so long ago and yet it seemed like just the other day. We had eaten more than we picked and both went home sunburnt and sick, but incredibly happy.

I was feeling nostalgic and Mark raised his eyebrows enquiringly, " I take it it's not biology you're thinking so hard about?" It was the real me that he knew and I couldn't try hide what I wanted to say. Smiling sadly I looked at his gentle face and soft smile. He reached over and took my hands waiting for me to talk. It was a natural, innocent action and I couldn't understand why it made me want to cry. The lump in my throat returned.

We couldn't avoid it any longer. He was leaving in just six weeks because he had to be at Yale for the summer before school started to train with the softball team that he was accepted into. He would be gone so soon, and only back for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And he was still waiting for me to talk. I looked into his eyes and saw that he knew what I was going to say. I tried to avoid emotion, to be sensible, "What are we going to do at the end of the semester?" I heard myself ask softly. The tears that had been threatening me overflowed one by one, and my face crumpled as I tried to stop them. "So much for that idea," I wanted to kick myself. I felt so selfish. I should felt happy and proud of him, and all I wanted to do was cry like a child and beg him to stay. He moved over to sit on the couch next to me. I leant gratefully into the warm space of his arms. "I don't know..." he whispered, " Alise, I don't know." I didn't want to think about it, but just gain reassurance from his presense as he murmered into my hair.

All around me the little perfect world we had created was cracking. The snow looked greyer and it matched my mood. It was fine with me if we could pretend in our perfect world for a little while longer. Yet that afternoon for the first time I understood something. While we sat holding each other in silence, it dawned on me that perfection is impossible. Our 'perfectly' arranged relationship had caught us unawares when it became something much stronger. For it to be perfect, perfection would have to last forever. "Nothing lasts forever," I thought sadly as I hung on, dreading that every touch might be our last. Change was just inevitable......