Ten

And even as some things began to shift, some remained constant.

Derek Matthews was in love with Madelyn Harrison. Or at least he thought himself to be in love with Madelyn Harrison.

As was the way of most crushes (or love affairs) of freshman boys, she didn't know he was alive. But God was she beautiful, playing tennis, or doing math, or really just existing at all.

But the heart of a fourteen-year-old boy is not quite so delicate as that boy himself believes, and so Derek never had any trouble playing football with his friends on Friday afternoons.



"Yo," said Matt as Derek trudged across the field. Matt thought he was "gangsta", despite his lifelong residence in upper middle class suburbia. Nothing would dissuade Matt from this image, either. "S'up?"

They bumped fists. "Not too much." Derek dropped his backpack on the ground.

And then something happened. Because, even in upper middle class suburbia, sometime things happen. Distressing but true. Sometimes things just happen.

"Yo," said Matt, as they were taking a break and eating the sandwiches that their mothers had packed for them that morning--there were other boys all around, some of them older. Derek liked the older guys. Recognizing their faces make him feel a little more comfortable at high school. There were just a lot of people. Around. Always.

And then Matt said, "I think I'm gonna ask out that girl from my history class. Maddie."

In twenty years, when Derek was married to a girl named Jessica and was about to have a kid (his second) and had a beautiful daughter named Maggie and was a teacher in a public high school two towns over from where he went to high school, he wouldn't even remember Maddie's name. He wouldn't remember how beautiful she looked in her tennis skirt, or that she liked math. And he wouldn't remember that she had gone out with his best friend, though he would remember Matt. Barely.

But at the time the fact that Matt wanted the same girl that he did seemed of paramount importance. It seemed hugely important, and in those moments, nothing else could possibly matter to him.

Everyone present, all those older boys who had made Derek feel so much less intimidated, would later say that they didn't know what came over him. He had just punched Matt, and Matt had punched back, and the next thing they knew, there was a full-fledged fight going on right under their noses.

Derek was big, especially for a freshman. He managed to break Matt's nose before the whole thing was over. He really didn't think that was a fair exchange for what he felt was his heart being broken (it was really his pride)--but then again, Matt's nose would be slightly crooked for the rest of his life, and in twenty years Derek wouldn't even remember. He'd be too busy worrying about writing lesson plans.

But at the time, in that park that was only a block or two from school, pumped and tired and sweaty and exhausted and exhilirated from being fourteen and from playing football, Derek didn't know that his memory was so short-lived. He didn't understand that everything was so fleeting and that in four short years he'd be gone, too, and that nothing he did would matter.

And because he didn't realize it, he didn't start to lose his grasp on sanity. He didn't start to feel trapped. And because he didn't start to feel trapped, he never did anything particularly insane, such as leave his life and home and friends and family for no (apparent) reason whatsoever.