| Woven by Kellyann Zuzulo |
than all the boys back then. Kevin was the only
one who didn’t call me beanpole.
Is that why I loved him with my fraught, juvenile
perception of romantic love? Even back then,
through my scratched glasses and heavy bangs
that let me peek at the world unnoticed, I saw that
Kevin Spinelli was everything I wanted. Straight
and considerate, with a twinkle in his cobalt blue
eyes. When he told me a new knock-knock joke
every Monday, no matter how corny, I always
giggled. Then his family had moved away the
summer after eighth grade, and I never heard from
him again.
He continued to stand there, across narrow
Sansom Street, hands thrust into the pockets of
a dove gray barn jacket. We stood five years and
five yards apart. In the settling shadows of dusk,
he appeared transparent, a figment of the past.
In a sense, he was. My heart clutched. For an
instant, I was twelve, gangly, and tingly all over
again.
I glanced behind me. Snow sparkled on the
sidewalk, held in suspension by the dropping
temperatures. My breath clouded around my
mouth in a heavy sigh. I could turn and walk away.
It was the cowardly, but safe, route. He hadn’t
seen me yet. We wouldn’t have to be forcefully
polite and ask all the right questions: Where do
you live now? Where do you go to school? Do
you see anybody from the old neighborhood? But,
really, it was only one question that made me want
to run: What if he doesn’t remember me?
Snow began to fall in earnest when I looked back
across the street at Kevin. He had tilted his head
upward as though to feel the flakes on his face.
It was a magical moment. He appeared ageless,
innocent. The face of the boy I once watched
sprint past my bedroom window in full football
regalia, heading home from practice, chin tucked
in, cradling an invisible football, a Homeric warrior
of intramural sports.
104 | www.BTSeMag.com
I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it was that image
of a resolute Kevin running across green lawns
that stretched for suburban miles. Maybe it was
the prompting chirp of the pedestrian signal. On
impulse, I hoisted my fatigue green messenger
bag onto my shoulder and stepped from the curb
toward him.
Black tar shone beneath my feet like onyx, frosted
by the first flurry of the season. One heel of my
brown leather combat boots slipped sideways as I
pressed down for traction. It crossed my mind that,
were I to actually talk to Kevin, I hoped he would
glance down at some point and see the knee-high
splurge I had allowed myself. The sleek wraps of
leather were mod and sassy. Wearing these boots,
I felt like someone who had somewhere fabulous
to be.
At the blare of a car horn, I jerked back the foot
that was still poised in midair. One arm flailed. I
clutched my bag and stumbled back just as a blue
sports car whooshed past me, trailing a loud wail.
A yellow metal newspaper box broke my fall, but
a hard corner cut into my hip. Shaking, I looked
down to inspect myself. Sharp burning prickles
radiated up my left thigh into my lower back.
My beautiful brown boots were splattered with
dark flecks. My tablet slipped from the bag into a
mound of slush. I peeked back toward Kevin.
There would be no escape now. Kevin was
rushing across the street toward me. A sweep
of black hair had fallen across his brow, and
he pushed it back with a flick of his fingers. He
smiled, revealing that—except for the charcoal
dusting of a late-day beard across a square chin—
he looked very much the same.
Seeing him like t