*Louise**
after school
Maybe twelve, maybe thirteen. That’s how old I was the first time I fell in love. She was older by two or three years, and so infinitely cool that every time I saw her stroll by with her friends, those lesser beauties, my heart would beat like the bass line of Stand By Me. She smelled like blossoms even in winter, and sometimes I’d walk where she’d been just to breathe the air she’d passed through.
I studied her. Like an astronomer searches the night sky, I studied her. Like a Talmudic scholar pores over the Mishnah or a detective probes for clues. I knew her tastes and her habits. I knew when she was deep in thought she would unconsciously tap her lips with her thumb. I knew she preferred Pepsi over Coke, and thought boys from the East Side were low rent. I forgave her her sins. I took her sins for my own; I stopped drinking Coke and tried to convince my parents to move from the East Side, though I wouldn’t say why. I suffered as only a twelve year old can suffer.
Oh darlin’, darlin’, stand by me. Oh stand by me.
But she never did. I never spoke to her and she never did.
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