Still Not Sure What This Is

Some more of what I started below. If I ever figure out where this is going, a lot of this will likely need to be cut, but for now I'm content to leave it be. Oddly enough, I had a total reason for choosing the name Edward and I forgot it. And as I was typing that last sentence, I totally remembered. It's a reference to the main character from a book, my favorite book ever.

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You'd think that the prospect of girls attending would be cause for celebration at an all boy's school, but quite the opposite happened. When the question came up, the graduating seniors were its loudest critics. Girls would destroy the traditions of the school, they argued. Everything would change, everything that made the school good and special would be tossed aside.

They were right.

But it wasn't the girls that did it; it was what the girls represented. Change. A deviation from tradition. The school was evolving away from the english boarding school model into something else, some goal that we students weren't privy to.

The seniors fought the board with every weapon at their disposal. They made speeches against it, they wrote articles against it, they circulated petitions. None of it mattered; the student paper was actually shut down, not to return for 4 years. For the younger students, it was difficult to understand what all the fuss was about. But the next September, we would find out.

When you're young, everything seems of earth-shattering importance. You'll absolutely die if you don't get that cool toy or pair of jeans. No-one will talk to you if you haven't seen that new movie or heard that new album. And the first girl that catches your eye or is nice to you is the girl you'll love until the day you die. I wonder how much of me is still that timid little boy, hoping for a look, a word, a smile from that special someone.

Her name was Audrey, and she was perfect. I know now that she wasn't, that she had just as many issues as all of us do at that age, but then she could do no wrong. And, like all the women we idolize at that time, she had no idea who I was. Our paths never really crossed until 9^th grade, when, thanks to a teacher with an alphabetical seating order and my fortunate ancestry, she sat behind me in math class.

By this time, my classroom persona had relaxed somewhat. I had learned one of the three major lessons I took from high school: I could coast. I didn't really need to work all that hard for my grades: I didn't have to study, I didn't have to do homework and I didn't have to work on my papers ahead of time because I could go to class, write my tests and type up essays the night before and still get 80s and 90s. I avoided class participation like the plague, leading to a corresponding increase in social standing as well as a litany of, “Edward does excellent work but needs to speak up more in class,” comments on my report cards. Teachers. Don't they remember what it was like to be in high school?

Audrey and I progressed quickly through the, “Do you have a pencil I can borrow?” stage and soon were passing notes all through class. She was as charming as she was beautiful. But how could I make the next move?

My mom was no help here. Her advice to me about girls had always consisted of the same few words: “There's plenty of time to worry about girls after you get your MBA.”

Thanks, mom.

My dad was similarly tight-lipped. In fact, he never said a single word to me about girls; for all I knew he had no idea they existed. Granted, I didn't ask, but I would have assumed from my moping that it was obvious what was wrong with me. Maybe he figured that my mom would have the talk with the kids about the birds, bees, snips, snails and puppy dog tails. If so, he sure misjudged that one.

There was another reason why I never got any guidance from my father on the subject: it was around this time that he moved out. I've never been exactly sure when he left. He had a habit of leaving on business trips for several days at a time, and I was lost in a heady fog of Audrey most days anyways. One day my dad was gone; on a trip, I figured. He never came back. I saw him a couple times a year after that: at Christmas, and my and my brother's birthdays. We'd have dinner, he'd give us $50 or $100 each and that would be it. My mom never spoke of it, nor did he; I saw no reason to be the family freak, so I didn't talk about it either. It would be 8 years before I would have the courage to break that silence and fill in any of the details of this time.