Young Love Knot

Young Love Knot

The cord stretched from the panelized wall in the kitchen, harvest gold base, carefully tucked into a dent in the aluminum screen door frame. It swung connected from the glowing earpiece to the gray door like a jump rope as the spiraled cord was continuously being wound around my fingers, nerves I guess, as I spoke. “Do you think Lucas will ask Cindy? Do you want to go with them?” And then her ear-to-ear smile on the porch under the hideous green and white striped awning. “YES”!” she screamed into the patio bars, carefully cupping the bottom of the phone now raised in her hand like a small trophy above her head. “Any couple, any friend, is fine with me. What do you think?” My heart sunk because I loathe decisions, especially crucial decisions like this one. The ultimate night, the perfect girl, maybe the first precious kiss. 

I met her, Shani Blu, coincidentally having the same locker number, 7th grade. Not logistically correct, but yes, #1023. Both assigned the glorious number by some clerical error that was now correctly licensed to me. She screamed, “Yay!. Awesome number!”. Apparently, her birthday, October 23rd, duly noted. I stood just far enough behind her to be engulfed by the morning shampoo wafting from her precious, red hair. I didn’t quite know how to approach this. This incredible disappointment I was about to unload upon her apparently amazing, first day of Junior High School. “I love October and 23 is one of my favorite numbers!”. My thoughts ran wild as the words tornadoed in my head. There are so many other fulfilling dates and numbers, I thought, to make an insignificant metal closet, well, meaningful. Her eyes, puppy dog brown, shifted to the left, head still, eyebrows lowered in a “V” to catch my uncomfortable, acknowledging, crooked smile. Her head turned and her gaze traveled from toe to hair, back to my t-shirt “Here And Now” planted on my chest and painfully, deliberately locked in on my wide eyes. I hoped the stillness of my green-eyed stare would help avoid a scene. A scene I did not want to be a part of on this colossal, first day. “Please, please, chill, compose”, I thought, respond with your heart, Shani. I knew she would. “Excuse me?”, she blurted. “And you are….?”. I was ready for my rebuttal in my imagination as the owner of locker #1023. 

I fell for her the minute her words floated through my head and throughout the hallways. Words, emotions, a message that the whole school should embrace. She nodded once at each member of her entourage. Molly Story, straight “A”, musical theater; Sarah Presco, bound for three kids, suburban patio, Mercedes SUV; and Laura Feldtup…oh yes, I said “Feldtup”. Laura was Shani’s bodyguard, filter and second mother all rolled into one. As Laura identified the intruder, me, Shani’s voice broke all the tension.

“Cool, we can share!”

The rest of my week was all smiles. The periodic table was a musical alphabet, Dickens was an old friend and the Quadratic Equation was “Me + You = Love”. The daily struggle was “the meeting”; every school day at the locker. My nerves on edge, my heart racing, my feelings challenged regularly.

“Ah, did you just get out of gym?”, she inquired. I was sweating and mumbling but tried to be sharp most days. Usually, the words were scripted in my head, in my way. I started each morning with a brainstorming session with myself to come up with the perfect lines and dialog of the day; for her, to impress her, to win her. But every event of the morning triggered a set of emotions and images to deal with and carry with me throughout my whole class schedule. These, along with my imagination, sculpted how I pictured each and every single school day would end at our special destination, #1023.

The locker meetings led to so much more. We lived so close and spent many dark, street-lit nights roaming our streets, laughing, sharing, growing. She wanted more than this life, more than this neighborhood, more for her little brother and sister, really than anything else. And she was hell-bent to get that for her family. Many school day lunches when her Mom was gone, we learned about each other and life and how “we” could have more and live a dream. All was beyond amazing words, beyond perfect, above my wildest expectations. But high school, youth, distractions and imperfections invaded us. As special as that locker had become, as many times as her laugh had carried me through a moment, we had conflicts that to this day I know were not worth the time. She cried, I cried, she knew it was wrong, I knew it, too, ending this was the only way but we forced it, childishly. We were too young to understand the depth of “US”. It was just a stupid locker anyway that brought us together, we thought. We all have regrets in life, but we will break up and we’ll get back together for sure. Right? I didn’t even realize that day was going to be one of the deepest wounds.

6:00AM the cell phone alarm clock blares from my night stand. “How alarming that connection between us had become and then lost,” I thought. 6:20AM, the shower belts the tub and tile as the songs reverberate from that phone, on the nightstand. Why today, why was I overcome with this guilt, today?! All I can think of is why didn’t I shower you with gifts and words of compassion? All I can think of is why didn’t I overwhelm you with moments of quiet conversation, holding hands, selfishlessly listening, smiling, considerately laughing, embracing us? As fast as the water became silent on the tile, the message in a bold, vibrant marquee explained the guilt, the loss. A message, a moment no one ever wants to receive, think about, analyze, or worse yet accept. December 13th, oh my. A day to remember, a day to forget!

I hadn’t seen Shani Blu in years—not since those echoing high school hallways, where lockers slammed in rhythm and every emotion felt amplified. Back then, everything mattered too much and not enough at the same time. But even now, I catch myself remembering the little things: the way she’d tilt her head and smiled when she knew I was wrong, how she always smelled faintly of citrus from the morning shower shampoo, or the way her notebooks were covered in doodles of stars, tiny music notes, my initials and a Wildcat. Certain people settle into your memory like they were always meant to stay there. Shani was one of those.

Last week, while clearing out some old boxes in storage —boxes I hadn’t touched in years—I found the bracelet she’d made me. Blue beads, slightly crooked, tied with a knot she swore would “never ever come undone.” Of course it did. Time has a talent for loosening knots we thought were permanent. I held that bracelet for a long time. It was lighter than I remembered, like somehow the years had changed it, broken it. But it wasn’t the bracelet itself that hit me—it was the way it took me back to those school days when everything felt new. She had been the first person who made me feel like being my awkward, unsure self was enough and I should get up on that stage.

She was a chapter, yes. But she was also a compass—pointing me toward the kind of person I hoped to become without ever knowing she was doing it. Through her small kindnesses, she taught me gentleness before I knew what that was. She showed me what it looked like to be seen, really seen, even if just between shared jokes at lunch or quiet conversations on the walk home. I placed the bracelet back in the box, carefully this time. And as I closed the lid, I realized something simple but important: not all stories need dramatic endings. Some don’t need reunions or confessions or an epic finale. Some stories end quietly with powerful meanings—with gratitude for who we were, and for the people who helped shape us along the way.

We lost Shani Blu on December 13th, but I still remember her laughing that same laugh, the one that could cut through the noise of a crowded hallway. On her last day, I hope she was surrounded by everyone who see her the way she once saw me. To this day, I struggle….why didn’t I follow her lead? Why did I give up? Why didn’t she hate me? Why did I leave her? Why did she move on and accept it? Because that was her; that was her approach.. This day happened, tomorrow will happen and the future will happen, most importantly, be kind through it all.

Locker 1023! What an amazing number and place. We all remember a number, a place, a classroom, a hallway… that moment, that girl, that one boy, that amazing time…. Those are the places, those are the memories, those are the lessons we need. Never feel guilty, never feel ashamed for reminiscing, reliving, resurrecting a time, a past, the love, the heart, the soul, the mistake, the victory that helped lead us to who we are today.

Every now and then, I think back to those crooked blue beads on that bracelet and remember the version of us who believed the knot would last forever. Maybe not forever, but let’s just say, a goodbye for now.