A Grand Staircase

It was hard being a teenager in the Midwest in the late nineties.  It is hard being a teenager anywhere at any time.  Still, our own coming-of-age Odyssey seems so much more significant because we know the results and consequences of our journey so intimately, making it seem more powerful.  It is as if our milestones are these bright epiphanies no other human has experienced.  I am not unlike everyone who looks back at the road, finding these beacons of shining self-revelations so monumental that they shed sunlight on humanity's collective history,  or I am full of it.

I stood on the edge of the grand staircase.  Yes, my high school has a grand staircase.  It is a tall, sprawling semi-circle staircase that floods into an open-air commons with an area for students to congregate below.  For me, the top of that staircase is the scariest place in the world.  I don't know how I even ended up here.  Lost in my thoughts, I took a wrong turn, leaving me on the edge of these ominous stairs.  It was like a stage, and all the students below gathered at the tables to look up and judge all those perched in the congested river of other teenagers.  It was here, in my petrified state, that I saw him for the first time.  He was tall with unruly blonde curls, a square jaw, and a lean build that seemed so comfortable floating above the other faces in the crowds.  His smile was the definition of accessible, and it seemed to slide across his face.

I had a short frame and long, equally unruly, fawn brown curls that swept the top of my belt.  As usual, those curls were in the way.  I swept yet another wild lock out of my face.  I lost sight of him for a second, which was all fate needed to bring him to stand before me.  It was like someone pulled him up to me.  Standing next to him, I had to tilt my chin to the sky for our eyes to meet.  My mouth fell open without words, and then he did it.  He spread that big bright smile across his perfect full lips.  He looked at me with cerulean blue eyes, and it seemed he could turn on a light behind them.  Without warning, his words shook me.

"Cecilia... you are going to fall.  Come back." He said softly, reaching out with two lean, strong hands to grasp my forearms.  I didn't realize in that brief moment I had been inching my way backward from him, putting myself perilously close to the edge of that ominous staircase.  My whole body tensed as much from his touch as the proximity to the stairs.  His grip pulled me back to him.  I tore my gaze away from his eyes, looking down at his hands still holding onto my forearms.  Looking at his pale skin against my bronzed arms put me in a trance.

"It is a little imposing for the first time.  Isn't it?" He said as he pulled us away from the crowds of students streaming past us to the side of the hallway.  How did he know I had been avoiding the top of this staircase?  It was November of my first year.  How did he know I hadn't been down this way in three months?  Wait, how did he know my name?

"Oh, sorry." He turned red as he released my arms once we were off to the side.  He slid his thumbs under the straps of his backpack.

"Thannnnk you," slowly slipped from my mouth as an equal amount of embarrassment warmed my face.

"Ty...I am Ty, and you have no clue who I am, so I just totally creeped you out, huh?" He said, smiling effortlessly again and dragging one strong hand through his hair.  He looked into my eyes, and suddenly, my vocabulary shrunk to the same saying.

"Thank you...Thank you, ah Ty." We stood looking back at each other for one bright, silent moment.  I felt a bubble of heat travel up my chest, knowing I should look away, but I felt unable to, and my mouth finally formed something I meant to do: a smile.  I pushed out one happy breath.

"And she's back." He exhaled in relief, coating his face with that smile again.

"I bet you are wondering how I know you.  I'm Darci's friend from pre-calc.  Sorry, we haven't met yet.  She talks about you a lot and brought me to your show.  I think it was her way of showing me you existed." He gave a short laugh