balloon between our bodies and instruct us to “leave
room for the Holy Spirit.” In solidarity, during the last
slow song, our friends will all dance around us to hide
us from the principal. Their bodies will become a wall
to hold in our desire. A net of balloons will open from
the ceiling and fall on everyone and under the
weightless mass we’ll kiss, a long kiss. Everyone will
cheer and hit balloons and we’ll pull away. This is like
a movie, I will think, until I feel the long trail of spit
hanging between his mouth and mine. I’ll swat at it
with my hand and wipe my mouth, but my face will
burn red and someone will yell, “gross!” And I wish
that, at fourteen, I’ll have the courage to laugh and
start hitting balloons, but instead I’ll look at my
boyfriend for reassurance and he’ll just laugh and
wipe his mouth and exclaim, “That was a wet one.”
Then he’ll walk away with his friends.
He’ll break up with me the next year, when a few of
us from our small Catholic school go on to the public
high school. We’ll stay together for the first couple
months. He is my anchor in this bigger school, with
three-story buildings and science labs and four
thousand students all trying to get from class to
class, moving like herds of animals through the
narrow alleyways of the buildings, to cross the street
to the portables where kids will make a break for it
at the crosswalk, start running down the street
towards the bus stop. They lock us into this school