2-Symphony No. 1

Wearing my headphones, I could almost pretend I didn't hear the small girl's shrieks at the loss of her balloon. If I closed my eyes and turned up the music all the way, I could pretend I alone sat in the park. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) for my mood in general, Sean's Symphony No. 1 was playing, and unless I felt like rifling through my bag to find the skip button, it was staying. I didn't.

The thing about the symphony was that Sean had written it for me. In the days before things got complicated, Sean (the musician and my best friend--this was high school, mind you) and I (the artist) had a running joke that you heard numbered symphonies--eight-six, thirty-two--but never the first.



Then we'd reached that point in most-if-not-all high school friendships: that weird point in between ew-boys-have-cooties and it-will-never-work-so-don't-even-try. It was in the maybe-maybe-maybe part that Sean had written Symphony No. 1 and sheepishly shown it to me.

Luckily, we'd quickly gotten past the oh-shit-I'm-in-love-with-my-best-friend and quite contentedly (and on good terms) gone to college. We'd met college friends and now only corresponded through the occasional e-mail, mostly around breaks: "Gonna be home for Christmas/Easter/Summer Break?"

Listening to Sean's music was not the best course to clear my head at this particular moment. Actually, it was likely almost as disruptive to the while calming process as the little girl who continued lamenting the loss of her balloon at great volumes.

Currently, Sean was asleep in my bed back at the dorm. That was disconcerting. Actually, it sort of made me feel like my brain was going to explode. The really truly crazy part was that I had no idea if I liked it or not.

We had, it seemed, come across another phase. Here was the crux, the place where we found out if we could make this work.

Sighing as the notes sounded in my ears, I leaned my head back against the bench, letting the weak winter sun burn red against my closed eyelids. Using my feet, I pulled my bag closer. Living on campus had led me to forget how much I hated and distrusted children with their grubby little fingers.

On the bright side, none of what had been in the way before mattered now. Sean wasn't my best friend now; I had a best friend in my roommate, Jess, who was majoring in interior design. If Sean and I were to happen and were to end, I would just lose a boyfriend, not the cruel double-whammy it would have been four years ago. And just maybe things could work, because we knew each other so well.

But on the other hand, it was Sean, and that could just be fricking bizarre.

I'd woken up this morning with my chin on his shoulder. I'd liked it. I could assure that it would never happen again, leave things as a one-night stand for the books.

This sucked.

I was just getting to the final minutes or so of Sean's symphony--I never did ask him who he'd gotten to play this for my recording; it would have taken him practically the whole orchestra; how had I never asked him that?--when the old devil himself sat down next to me. I peeked when the thump that joined me on the bench took my hand as if it meant nothing. I removed the headphones, draping them around my neck.

I smiled on instinct when I saw him there, hair tousled. At least he'd gotten dressed before he'd come to find me--good for public decency laws. The shrieking little girl would have been scarred for life.

"Cass," he said, grinning at me, "if you'd wanted to think alone, you shouldn't have left a note. Or"--this added as an afterthought-- "picked someone who didn't know you as well."

Lolling my head to the side, I eyed him contemptuously. "I did not pick you, Sean. You showed up at my room with a 'Hey, Cass, I'm in the city, in case you couldn't tell. How're you?'"

"And you seduced me," he countered. "I was perfectly prepared to get a hotel room. I just got lucky--not like that!" he protested when my elbow caught him sharply in the side. "You just saved me about a hundred bucks."

"That's me, the reverse prostitute," I muttered, too confused to make a joke that was actually funny. "Sleep with me and I'll make you rich!"

Sean slid down so the side of his head was touching mine. He thumped his knee rhythmically against my knee; our still-entwined hands rested on his thigh. The brain-pressure was mounting again, but it felt like the goo from whatever explosion would ensue would make better everything it touched. It seemed, then, that I had my answer.

We sat for a moment, the silence only broken by the little brat who was still throwing a shitfit about her balloon.

Then Sean asked, "Cass?"

"Yeah?"

"We gonna do this? I mean, for real? There's no use prolonging stupid crap, you know?"

I sat up sharply to look at him. "How did you record Symphony No. 1?" I asked. "I mean, who did you get to play it?"

Sean looked positively aghast. "Do not tell me that's what you were listening to on those." He indicated my headphones, winced when I nodded. "Damn, Cassandra, that's high school crap. Let me write you something better. Then you can listen to something that's not total crap."

I was touched by his offer, but I put my free hand over my headphones, protectively. "I like Symphony No. 1. Just tell me who played it."

Suddenly Sean was all sheepish smiles again. "Concert band. I made those bitches churn it out like nobody's business. That's why you can hear that one kid who sucked at trumpet play like it was a goddamned private concert." I remembered no such kid.

The urge to kiss him was strong. "Sean, I think I want to do this," I said decisively. There. It was done.

The boy let out a whoop that momentarily drowned out the crying girl and took my face in his hands, pushing back my bangs, and kissed the freckles to both sides of my nose and then my mouth. When he pulled away, we were both smiling. "I'd hoped you'd say that," he grinned.

"So I surmised," I laughed.

And so we took the backwards, fucked up, totally impossible high school cliche to a whole new level--one that was possible, maybe even probable. That made me smile.

Sean slung my backpack over his shoulder and pulled me to my feet, laying a dramatic, black-and-white-movie-style kiss on me. "Let's go back to your room, turtledove," he invited me teasingly. "I would adore a shower like no other thing."

I flicked a piece of red hair that stuck out at an awkward angle. "Ew, gross boy in our shower," I mock-complained. He took my hand in his and with a stuck-out tongue started to pull me along with him.

When we reached the still crying girl, I stopped. Another girl, of about my age, a nanny for certain, had been trying to soothe her charge for nearly twenty minutes, and now looked close to tears herself. I dug into the pocket of last year's too-small jeans and threw a crumpled dollar bill at her.

"Here," I offered. "Go buy yourself another goddamned balloon."