Zalfie - How to Live

Prologue--The Yearbook

"Alfie!" Regina, my wife, called from below.

"What is it?" I yelled back, buttoning up my collared shirt in a hurry.

"Something came in the mail for you!"0

I quickly jogged down the stairs, stopping to pull out my sixteen-year-old son's headphones.

"Dad!" he whined, putting them back in a couple seconds later.

I sighed and walked over to my wife, who was bent over the mail.

"Honey?" I said and she turned.

"Oh!" Her face relaxed into a grin. "You got this letter." She showed my an already-opened envelope and a piece of paper. I felt a shoot of anger, which I quickly buried.

"What's it for?" I asked.

Just as she opened her mouth to respond, our ten-year-old son came racing through the kitchen, a heavy backpack full of sporting equipment bouncing up and down on his back.

"Can I go to Michael's right now and after school?" he said, biting into a piece of bacon and disappearing out the door before Regina had time to yell, "Yes!"

"So the paper?" I prompted after she had reprimanded our son for listening to music.

"Right," she said absently, too busy flipping through bills to focus on what I was saying.

"What'd it say?" I pushed desperately, wishing I could snatch the glossy paper from her hands.

"Oh, that," she said, as if we had been talking about something else. "One second."

Once more she looked down at the bills, reading them over and sighing.

A couple minutes later, her head shot up. "What time is it?" she demanded, glancing at the clock.

"Goddamnit!" she swore, looking at me as though I was the source of her anger. "Get your daughter down here!" she told me, shaking her head furiously. "Lord knows I've called her name six times this morning."

I doubted that any information she provided was accurate. She had an infuriating habit of exaggerating things.

"Emma!" I yelled up the stairs. "Emma, get down here!"

"I'm almost done," my sixteen-year-old daughter's voice said shrilly.

I sighed. "Now!"

I could hear a loud huffy breath and then the loud echoes of footsteps telling me that she was stomping her way down.

"Took ya long enough," Lance said, grinning at her while he bit into a piece of toast.

"Shut up!" she ordered, grabbing a plate of breakfast and eating a forkful of scrambled eggs.

"There is no use for that language!" Regina barked, looking up from the mail. My letter hung at the edge of her fingers and I quickly grabbed it while she was distracted.

She strode over to Emma, who was now typing on her phone (most likely complaining about us) and grabbed it,

"No texting at the table," she said.

I heard Emma counter her mother, before I glanced down at the letter.

In big, bolded words it stated:

15-Year High School Reunion!

I began to walk out of the room, still reading. In the background, I could hear my daughter and wife battling, with Lance dropping snide remarks here and there.

Soon enough, I was able to completely tune out what they were saying and instead sat on the couch and read what the glossy page said.

Come celebrate!

It's your fifteenth-year high school reunion!

Come let old friends unite and feuds be solved!

Below was my class photo, along with the date and address of the reunion.

I studied the picture and my eyes rested on two individuals: Tyler and Troye.

I couldn't help but wonder if they would be there--I hadn't spoken to either one of them in years. If I were to go, I supposed that they would be the only reason why.

Despite that fact, I did want to go. Just seeing those two would make the trip worth it.

"Alfie!" My wife's shrill voice interrupted my nostalgia. "Your daughter is being a giant pain in the ass!"

Maybe going to the reunion would help me understand how I had gotten here, with a bossy controlling wife and three spoilt kids.

With my mind made up, I began to walk up the stairs, ignoring Regina's cries for me.

Once I was up, I opened the attic. The ladder swung down with surprising force, nearly hitting me in the head.

I began to climb it, my dress shoes clacking on the metal rungs.

I pulled myself into the dusty attic and sneezed a couple times before striding over to a trunk pushed against a wall. I opened it and began filtering through what was stuffed into the trunk.

At the very top was Regina's poofy wedding dress. I pulled this out and threw it a couple feet away from me without hesitation--no good memories there.

Hidden beneath the dress were a couple of stacked photo albums. Artfully arranged in them were pictures of our kids growing up, Regina and my wedding, and Regina's high school and college photos. I stacked the albums on the ground by the dress.

Five yearbooks sat dismally at the very bottom of the trunk. Regina had kept all four of her high school yearbooks, while I had only bought and kept one--my senior yearbook--the best year of high school I had ever had.

I pushed away Regina's and pulled out mine. I pointlessly flipped through the pages. After only a couple seconds, the book opened to a dog-eared page.

I quickly scanned it. After a few seconds, my face relaxed into a grin. Sat on the page was Tyler Oakley's face beaming at the camera. His happiness was real, his eyes were alight with excitement. He had been dating someone then--his first boyfriend. Unfortunately, it had turned out that he had been cheating on Tyler ever since the beginning of their relationship.

With my eyes wet, I gently felt his face before turning to the next page with a bent corner.

It was easy to see why I had marked this page as well: Troye's happy face smiled up at me. As I stared down at his minuscule school portrait, I wondered if he had liked Tyler even then. I wondered--if he did--how he managed to smile at the photographer. I'm not sure I could have.

After I had looked at Troye's picture for a little longer, I turned to the next page, which was also dog-eared.

At first I was confused as to why I thought it was important. I had already seen my two friends--who else was there to see?

But then I saw her face smiling radiantly up at me.

How had I forgotten?

She had been the one to make my senior year unforgettable after all.

I touched her name, brushing my fingers against the seven letters. As I did, I couldn't help but think how odd it was that most people would only know (or at least remember her) by that name, when she had so many labels to me.

Zoe Sugg

Slut

My First Girlfriend

Life-Living Expert

My Best Friend

Aneroxic

And then I was being sucked back to high school ....