2024-05-28: walk/run

we were talking about how if you wore sweatpants as a kid, you were instantly the sweatpants kid. sweatshirts were fine up until, i don't know, grade four? or five? and then they were considered declasse, only the slightest step up from, you know, sweatpants.

yeah, i said, or like, d&d. it's fine now!

you really walked so everyone else could run, she said.

i used to play with a few of my friends in the cafeteria at high school, at a corner table, i said. i remember people used to throw food and garbage at us.

i don't think i'd ever told her the cafeteria stories before. a long pause. i'm so sorry high school was so unhappy for you, she said quietly.

the unexpected kidness of this knocks me sideways. i can feel tears coming. i'd told her about the worst stuff that went on my first two years, but not comparatively minor stuff like this.

why didn't you tell anyone?, she asked. i know she isn't talking about the cafeteria anymore.

i wait a few seconds. probably 20 or 30. i think i felt if i didn't talk about it, that was the same as healing.

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