Letting Go - L.A. Fiore Page 0,3

distance between us, pulled me to him and held me there for a long time. After that night, Brock pulled away from me. It wasn’t lost on me that it was the day after my fifteenth birthday. Four years to the day…I met him on my eleventh birthday, and I lost him on my fifteenth.

2005

Sitting at lunch, my pizza went untouched. I’d had a thought in class, an idea for a shoe. Chewing on the tip of my pencil, the image formed in my head before I started sketching. My black rim glasses slid down my nose, but I was too engrossed in the design. I wanted to design clothes. Much of what I wore, I had designed and made.

Mom called me eclectic…quirky. They were compliments in my opinion. Practically born with mismatched socks, she always teased. I was a little left of center, moved to my own beat. I learned it from my mom, Mother Nature incarnate. She owned a small florist, loved gardening. She rarely wore shoes, preferred flowing skirts and tank tops. She too moved to her own beat. That wasn’t always popular, standing out, particularly in high school, where everyone was so determined to blend in. It wasn’t without its problems. I’d gone home many times with tears rolling down my cheeks. Sometimes, I even pondered losing the colorful clothing, taming my wild dark brown curls, conforming. Those thoughts never lasted long because Mom was my biggest cheerleader. She encouraged me to just be me, whoever that was. Find where I belonged and stay true to it, and anyone who had a problem with it weren’t people I wanted in my life anyway.

I glanced up when Brock walked into the cafeteria. It was like I had a sixth sense when it came to him. He looked good. His brown hair…calling it brown didn’t do it justice. It was like milk chocolate laced with caramel. Like when we were younger, it was always just a bit long, curling around his ears and at his neck. He had developed a way of walking, a confident kind of swagger that came from someone being completely comfortable in his own skin. He had a smile that was rare these days, but, when bestowed, could stop hearts, and eyes that shifted between gray and green, depending on his moods.

He’d been my best friend, and now he was my crush. I think every girl in high school had that one crush, their very own version of Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles, but unlike a John Hughes’ movie, most of the time, he really didn’t know you existed. I’d stopped existing for Brock at fifteen. He wasn’t cruel; he didn’t bully me. He just avoided me.

I’d tried. For a year, I tried to get my friend back, but when Brock made up his mind, there was no changing it. There was a part of me that hated him for that because, for four years, he had been my family. I loved him like it, too, but he wasn’t there anymore.

I smiled thinking about some of our antics. The turkey we’d rescued was safe from being hunted because he’d become a kind of urban legend. It was considered very lucky to spot him, the turkey that roamed the woods of Saratoga Springs, New York.

My focus shifted back to Brock. He disappeared in the food line, so I got back to my design. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look up every once and a while to get a look at him, so you can imagine my surprise when one of the times I did, it was to find a pair of gray eyes looking back. The connection didn’t last long before he looked away. Those glances always hurt the most because I knew Brock, knew he was hurting too, but for whatever reason, he wanted distance. I didn’t like giving up, but sometimes, you had no other choice but to let go.

After school, I grabbed a pumpkin spice coffee at the local café, before taking a stroll down Main Street. I had homework, but I loved this time of year. It wasn’t cold enough yet, summer refusing to give way to fall, but the garden committee had filled the pots lining the street with mums. Cornstalks framed many of the doorways of the shops in town. In a few more weeks, the temperatures would drop. Pumpkins would be added to the décor, kids would be discussing their Halloween costumes.

I was walking back