the summer she stopped waiting

it started with caldwell. he was older than the rest of them and a complete insomniac so he would drive over to her house in the middle of the night and throw rocks at her window. she had these pink curtains that her mom had made for her in an uncharacteristic moment of domesticity, and when her bedside lamp was on they glowed like a present does when you know whats inside and it couldnt be better. she was almost totally nocturnal as well, so he wasnt scared of making her mad, though she feigned anger only for the moment when she pulled back the curtain, knowing full well it was him. she came downstairs in her pajamas and they sat on the marble steps of her front porch, petting her hugely fat cat and swatting at mosquitoes. he made her laugh harder than anyone else.

then ryne became friends with caldwell through her, because they both made music and they were both older and bored and disappointed with the way things were going. and so ryne would come over with caldwell, and then sometimes by himself, and they would toss rocks up at her window which once could be opened with a knob but now was paned over and made into a storm window. she was up there and awake, they knew. she would be cleaning her room, her room that never got clean, or writing or reading or watching tv or making some elaborate picture frame or collage. it was the summer before her junior year of high school but both of them had graduated.

it was the summer she stopped waiting on marcel. she used to be unable to go to sleep without pulling back her curtain to check if he was outside, across the street, underneath this huge branchless tree. there would be no logical reason for him to be there, he had graduated from her highschool three years ago and they had barely had a friendship while he was there, though he teased her in study hall and latin class. and she had liked other guys, she had kissed some of them and some of them had snuck into her house and laid on her bed, pushing aside her bear and talking in whispers. but no one had made her sad like marcel. no one had made her feel alone and separate, no one had given her looks that haunted her, no one had convinced her by his mere existence that there was more than what was said. she forgot when it started, the compulsive urge to make sure he wasnt waiting outside, but it became such a real superstition, she believed in it so truly, that she couldnt fall asleep until she did it.

but then caldwell started coming, and she never had to wait on him because he let her know when he was there. and she wasnt in love with him, and it didnt hurt to think about the shape of his fingernails. but it was good to sit there and listen to the crickets, it was good to talk about the people they had grown up with, and the people they had grown away from.

pretty soon she stopped opening her curtains at all. she still did even when caldwell started coming over, but she soon realized it was more to see if he was parking his car outside than to see if marcel, who she doubt even knew where she lived, was standing outside, waiting like she had been all these years. she figured if he ever did come he would knock, or he would play some song in the rain like in "the wonder years" to get her to come out, or he would drive up and see her and caldwell and ryne making fortresses out of sticks in the potted plants on her porch and he would either love her for it or he wouldnt. but he wouldnt wait, she told herself. theres too much else going on to just wait.