Nothing Else Matters by: Keeley Catarineau

Their first date was in a place called “The Grove” in a small, trendy section of Miami with a walkway illuminated by string lights draped overhead of the long, straight walkway beside a street. Lining this street were various restaurants that served food ranging from Italian to Vietnamese. Also on the street were dainty, upscale shops where random items were sold for much more than they were worth. They ate at one of these restaurants for their date. Considering my mom’s love for Italian and since they couldn’t have had much money as high school students, I’d assume they went to one of the casual and delicious pizza joints. The small talk must’ve been good because my mother told me after they ate that they walked up and down that street for hours. Neither of them wanted to return home, away from the other. I’d imagine my dad probably walked my mom into her house at the end of that night. When they reached her door, he most likely said goodnight and leaned in for a kiss. After their first kiss, my mom would’ve walked into her house with her heart racing. My dad would’ve smiled as he walked back to his car. They never told me any of that stuff, though, probably thinking they’d spare me the gross gooey details

That wasn’t the beginning of their story, though. Before they met each other, they’d spent the first of their years at Killian High School in Miami, FL, a rather large high school, casually dating around. From what I could get out of my mom, her most serious relationship only lasted two weeks. As far as my dad’s love life went, he nor my mom would ever reveal much to me about it. This likely either meant two things: he had dated around much more than my mother, or he hadn’t dated at all. Two opposite ends of the spectrum, but from what I know about my dad I’d have to lean towards the first option. As much as I wish it was the second, that’s probably unlikely. This part of the story, the before was always the most difficult part for me to grasp, especially when I was younger. It made me sick to think about my parents with anyone other than each other regardless of how casual their earlier relationships had been. After they met, though, there was nobody else for either of them. 

They were introduced to one another by mutual friends. My mom was on the dance team at Killian which performed at many sporting events. My dad was on the football and baseball team at Killian, though he was much more into baseball than football. They’d both seen each other around before since they each ran in the more athletic circles, but their official introduction was made by their friends. Their first meeting probably went something like this: Their friends would’ve given them each other’s names, and my dad probably made a joke about my mom’s. “Missy Speaks? So your name pretty much calls out that you’re chatty?” He might have said. My mom would’ve laughed her loud laugh in response, though she’d probably already heard that joke plenty of times before. That didn’t matter because at that moment my mom discovered that she liked my dad’s sense of humor. My dad, too, made a discovery at that moment that he liked my mom’s laugh. Then their first of many more meetings came to an end. 

The rest of their relationship throughout high school can be described in terms of mixtapes and love letters. I can still remember the first time that my mom showed me the box that she kept in the top of her closet. I’d been asking her questions about her early relationship with my dad for the millionth time. While she was cooking dinner, I sat at the bar. Abruptly, in the middle of one of my questions she interrupted by walking to her bedroom and gesturing for me to follow. I did, and I walked into her closet to see her pulling down an old carboard file box from the top shelf in her closet. I had never seen it before, because it was so high up and hidden. She’d told me before that her and my dad used to exchange mixtapes and some love letters, but nothing compared to seeing them. When she lifted the lid off the box and revealed yellowed paper with my dad’s handwriting and old tapes with the names of songs handwritten on the front, I was in awe. I remember lifting one of the mixtapes out of the box carefully and seeing bands written on it including Led Zeppelin, ACDC, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Metallica. “You really kept these for this long?” I asked my mom. She smiled, “Of course I did. Every time I look back at these I remember when we first met and how we fell in love.” They still are in love, too. Their relationship in high school was built so strong that its lasted through almost 30 years of being together. 

This story is very cookie-cutter and straight forward. Some people probably won’t find it too engaging either because there’s no major plot twists or heart-wrenching scenes that make you want to cry your eyes out. Yet, this story has been so important to me throughout my entire life. I’ve always held a fascination for getting my parents to tell my sisters and I stories from earlier in their relationship rather than the old fairy tales that I’d heard a thousand times before. To me, this was my own personal version of Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty and I was proud whenever anyone asked about my parents to inform them that they were “high school sweethearts”. It’s something that I was, and still am, happy to be a result of. Love, especially love that lasts, is something that should be celebrated.

Cole Thompson’s Birthday Party by: Dori Medlin

So you’re fourteen. Your mom never lets you do anything but today she’s let you go to Cole Thompson’s birthday party. You get there and it’s not a cake-on-a-paper-plate party like the birthday parties you went to as a kid at the roller rink or someone’s house with a pool. No, this is a walk-around-the-neighborhood party with a bunch of the kids with whom you do theatre. They’re all older than you. So you walk around the neighborhood with them and you start to sweat because it’s the summer before freshman year and you don’t walk a lot. 

Cole reaches a house that has a child-size wooden rocking chair sitting beside a trash can it probably could have fit in. He picks it up and says it’ll do. You walk more. A guy who doesn’t do theatre with you gives Carli a cigarette — you learn that guy is Carli’s boyfriend. Bethany asks for one too. Later that night, you tell your mom that Bethany still smokes, but you don’t tell her how you know that. At this point in your life you’re not curious to try cigarettes because you don’t wanna die, that’s why Bethany smokes them. No one offers you one anyway and you’re glad you don’t have to look like a geek when you turn it down, but you also know you look like a geek anyway and that’s why they didn’t offer you one. You feel very dangerous walking with people who smoke, and you hope passersby don’t notice they’re not eighteen. 

So you keep walking with the group. You end up next to Brandon Smith. He’s funny and he thinks you’re funny. He’s seventeen, a senior, Belle’s dad in Beauty and the Beast. You were a Silly Girl, a chorus of can-can girls who dote over Gaston. You reminisce about how your blonde wig fell off during a performance, Brandon remembers and also thinks it was very funny. 

The group goes through a patch of woods. You had never walked through woods without a trail before but that’s what you and the group are doing. You learn your destination: Martha Rivers Park. You went there a lot as a kid. It’s not the one near the library, it’s the one with the big playset that looks like a giant stone castle and monkey bars you were always too scared to try. But halfway through the woods you reach a creek. Cole places the rocking chair on a large rock in the middle of the creek and you wonder if the kid to whom the chair previously belonged got sad whenever they were too big for the chair, or if it was more decorative than functional. Shane opens his bookbag and pulls out some lighter fluid, a grill lighter and a raggedy Sully from Monsters Inc. Cole says that everyone should give a sacrifice. Some people pulls scraps of paper from their pockets, someone takes off a sock. Bethany takes off one of her many scar-hiding bracelets and puts it in. You’re pretty sure rubber won’t burn but you don’t want to set her off. You don’t have anything you want to lose so you yank out a strand of your long hair. 

The items are all placed in the chair. Shane squirts a whole bunch of lighter fluid all over, especially soaking Sully with his brows furled. He lights it and it bursts into flames and everyone bursts into cheers. They dance around it and laugh. You think that it must be fun to be a teenager. You start to get anxious though, because you are deathly afraid of getting in trouble and you don’t know you have an anxiety disorder yet. Someone says that if the cops come to scatter and not all run in the same direction, and especially don’t run to Cole’s house. You see the thick black smoke reaching past the tall trees and you’re very afraid. The cops are going to come and arrest everyone and you will probably get expelled from school and you won’t get into college and your mom will never let you see any of your friends ever again and you won’t be able to do any more plays since they all do plays. This could ruin your entire life. You express your worry about the smoke to Brandon, and he says let’s get out of here. He grabs your hand and you both run.

You run with Brandon until you’re out of the woods. You enter the play area and go to the big castle part. There’s a section that’s almost private at the top of the tower. The walls are stone and have lots of initials and swears written on them in faded Sharpie. You think you’re gonna play but instead Brandon sits, and so do you. You both start talking. Mostly he talks but you listen. He tells you about his dreams of getting out of this town someday and you relate because you too want to get out of this town someday and you had no idea he wanted to as well. He tells you about this railroad bridge that he and his brother used to go on and watch the sunset. You think wow, he’s really deep. He tells you about how the pretty colors of the clouds during the sunset are actually because of pollution and it’s the only way humanity has contributed to the natural beauty of God’s earth and how even though it’s beautiful it’s really fucked up. You think wow, he’s really smart. He tells you about his crush on Blake, another fourteen year old girl who does theatre. You tell him she’s fourteen and he says he knows, and that’s when you learn it’s okay for seventeen year olds to have crushes on fourteen year olds. You tell him that Blake is super hot and wears cool clothes and has a beautiful singing voice and lights up every room she’s in so you can totally see how he would have a crush on her. You give him advice on how to ask her out. You decide to have a crush on Brandon. You don’t know you’re gay yet and you think having a crush is just deciding who to have a crush on because they’d be a good boyfriend and you think Brandon would be a good boyfriend because he’s smart and deep and you’re also smart and deep. You aren’t sure yet if you think he’s cute but he is taller than you and he looks like Michael Cera and you like his freckles, so you decide that’s good enough for your first boyfriend.

The sun is setting and you wonder if you could get him to kiss you. You need to have your first kiss soon because you went through all of middle school without getting a boy to kiss you and now you’re fourteen and about to be a freshman in high school and that’s way too old to not have had your first kiss already and you already feel way behind everyone else all the time. You know from Bethany’s stories that sometimes when the older theatre kids hang out they play spin the bottle and make out with each other so you know kissing is on the table for them and you’re hoping you could manufacture a way to kiss Brandon. Tonight would be a good time to have your first kiss because you’re not at school and your mom isn’t here and when are you going to get another opportunity? Brandon stands up because he sees the rest of your group coming out of the woods. You stand up too. You say, wouldn’t it be weird if we kissed right now? He says yeah. You go for it and you kiss him. It’s closed mouth and lasts for a second but it’s on the lips and that counts. Later that night while you’re washing your hair you’ll wonder how much you’ve changed now that you’re someone who’s been kissed. 

The sun goes down and you notice that all of the parents with kids have left and it’s just you and your group left at the park. Brandon tells you it’s because the park closes at night and they’re not supposed to be there after dark. You expect the group to head back to Cole’s but they don’t, they run wild all over the playset. You text your mom on your Motorola Razor that you want to go home, and you tell your friends that your mom is on the way to pick you up early because she’s a huge bitch. Brandon walks you to the parking lot and says he’ll text you, you’re excited because even though texting on your Razor is a real pain it’ll be nice because you finally have someone with whom you’re on texting terms. 

Bethany will later tell you that shortly after you left, the sprinklers came on in the large field next to the playset and everyone took off all of their clothes and “skinny dipped” through the sprinklers. Bethany says she thinks she and Carli accidentally had sex because she tackled Carli and accidentally touched her vagina. You aren’t sure what lesbian sex is but you’re pretty sure that’s not it, but you don’t tell Bethany because you don’t like to upset her because you don’t wanna be the next reason she tries to kill herself in front of you. You’re glad you left early because you definitely wouldn’t have taken your clothes off and you would have looked like a nerd, but you think about how beautiful it must have been to feel so free, running through the sprinklers and not caring that everyone knows what you look like naked or that your feet are getting dirty or that you could potentially get caught and get in trouble. You wonder if you’ll ever feel so free. You don’t think you ever will.