1. World Outside Your Window

“Tell me if you want to see / A world outside your window / A world outside your window isn’t free.” Tanita Tikaram

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In a dictatorship, creativity is your lifeline. My high school in communist Romania was a clever deception with two worlds: the one inside, where the Party controlled everything, and the one outside, where we ran our own improvised democracy. While our days were dominated by stressful tests and memorizing facts we’d forget within days, we found ways to navigate the cracks in the system that allowed us to be ourselves. Inside the school walls, we had uniforms that looked like we attended a funeral, along with a curriculum based on communist ideology and teachers that supported it out of conviction or out of fear. The dictator’s portrait in every classroom was a reminder that the system was controlling our lives and was always listening. Everything changed when the bell rang. 

During class, girls wore uniforms the “proper” way, but, during recess, they adjusted them, hiking them up and cinching them with thick belts hidden in their bags. Then they’d swipe on their favorite lipstick, pink, sparkly, and called Margareta. An entire generation of girls wore that same lipstick, paired with a white headband, navy blue jumper dresses and light blue shirts with a cloth patch on the arm displaying the school name and their identification number: matricola. Unlike other numbers in history stamped permanently on people, ours could be removed. We certainly did exactly that, with passion and hate once we stepped outside school grounds. Both the headbands and matricola patches disappeared into our bags. The reality was that they made us feel vulnerable. Anyone could report us by calling the school and giving our number, accusing us of smoking or sneaking into “forbidden” places like The Spanish Salon, a restaurant where we would slip past security guards when they weren’t looking.

Most students came from far away because admission to high school was based solely on merit and our school was at the very top. Even now, decades later, we carry ourselves as if we’re still part of that elite group. Back then though, the truth was unavoidable: our school was deeply segregated by academic ability. We spent four years with the same group of kids. Each classroom was identified by a letter and that was a public declaration of where you stood in the hierarchy based on the entrance exam. 

That day, as I arrived at school, my friend Cristian was pacing up and down the hallway. I heard his footsteps echoing against the polished floors as I was going up the stairs. I have always felt a lingering sense of history in that building, thinking of generations who had walked those same halls before us, including our own king exiled by the communists.

“What are you doing in the hallway? Did you get kicked out?” I asked even though I knew the answer, hesitating at the door of my own classroom. I was late again, standing there and debating whether to go in or not. The humiliation the teacher would put us through for being late sometimes just wasn’t worth it from our point of view. 

“Yes,” he replied with a shrug. “He said I needed to get a haircut.”

“Now?”

“I guess so. Let’s just leave.”

The temptation was there. I was already late anyway. We walked out, lighting our cigarettes as we stepped onto the cobblestone streets.

“Let’s go to Alice’s,” he said. “She’s home alone. I talked to her last night, and she’s not coming to school.”

We left quickly, careful not to be caught by one of the teachers standing in front of the school to watch for students just like us, taking off during class. I was aware of my awkward walk, almost kicking my feet to the side as I walked, so I held my cigarette in a way that felt like it balanced me out somehow. Smoking was such a social ritual, as much as it was an obvious act of rebellion, kind of like the girls’ altered uniforms. 

Alice was one of the rebellious girls at school. Her father had taught at the high school for a time, and when he passed away, he became something of a legend. He wrote one of our manuals and everybody knew she was his daughter. Her mother worked long hours at the hospital, so Alice was one of us, the kids everybody called “key-around-the-neck” children, meaning our parents were at work and we had to take care of ourselves during the day, making us very independent and resourceful. 

That day, Alice had decided to skip school and stay home to listen to her vinyl records. We could hear the song as soon as we reached her apartment door: “A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star.”

“Xanadu again,” Cristian said, shaking his head and pressing the doorbell even harder. 

Alice showed up in her slippers and a knitted mini red dress.

“You are dressed up, are you going out?”

“Ha, this is a dress my mom wore in the 1970s but I wear it indoors when I feel like I could go out, yet I choose not to,” she explained. Among the rebellious girls at our school, Alice stood out in a different way. Looking back now, I realize she was a feminist, though I didn’t have the words for it at the time. She read voraciously and cared deeply about things most of us didn’t even think about. We weren’t taught to care since caring meant having opinions, and opinions were dangerous because then we could question the regime. Instead, we were taught to judge those who were different in any way, maybe because judgment kept us in line.

She opened the door wider and let us in. “I desperately want cafe frappe,” Cristian said as he kissed her on the cheek. “Want to make us some?”

“Cigarettes out of the room,” she said firmly, grabbing his cigarette before he could protest. “I don’t want the place stinking when my mom comes home. Let’s smoke in the kitchen.”

“Prison style?” Cristian teased.

She smiled knowingly. “Sure, prison style.”

Prison style meant closing all the doors and windows until the room filled with so much smoke we could barely see each other. We followed her into the small kitchen and sat around the table covered in glossy vinyl that stuck to your arms if you leaned on it too long. Alice pulled out a jar of Nescafé, very precious to have at that time, and sugar from the cupboard..

“Here you are, boys. Make your own,” she said with a grin.

“C’mon,” Cristian whined, “you always get it all foamy and delicious.”

“I know,” she replied as she grabbed her mug, “and I’ll make mine that way. You can put in the work for yours.”

Cafe frappe and cigarettes were adult things and, of course, teenagers always want to do adult things. But for us, it wasn’t just about pretending to be grown-ups. It was the taste of freedom in a cup. 

“I have a new Bravo,” Alice said, pulling the magazine off the shelf with her left hand while balancing the cigarette in her right. We both reached for it at the same time, eager to get a look. Bravo magazines, along with our cherished tapes of music from the West, were everything to us. They were more than just entertainment; they were a window into a world that we almost did not believe existed. 

“I love how this magazine smells,” Alice said, pulling the cigarette to her lips as she held the glossy pages in her other hand. “Have you noticed how people coming from Western Europe smell?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “When they open their luggage, there’s that distinct scent. At first, I thought it was perfume, but now I think it’s their laundry detergent. Remember that kid from elementary school who moved to Germany? We went to his grandparents’ house when he came back to visit this summer and I still remember the smell in his room.”

Alice smacked the back of my head and laughed. “Andy, it’s the smell of freedom, dummy.” She changed the subject quickly: “We have to air out this kitchen soon. I want to give it a few hours before my mom comes back.”

“Your mom doesn’t know you smoke?” I asked, surprised.

“No, of course she doesn’t,” Alice rolled her eyes. “Although she found a pack of cigarettes in my bag once. I lied and said it belonged to that girl whose mother works at the school and she didn’t want to get caught.”

“And she bought it?” Cristian asked, skeptical.

“I think she did, but only because she couldn’t deal with something else like finding out I smoke. My brother hates smoking, so she never had to deal with that before me.” Alice paused and took another sip from her cafe frappe. “Remember when the history teacher said the other day that I’m always his challenge, and I replied that I’m everybody’s challenge? True, right?”

We both laughed, but secretly, Cristian and I were in love with her. Alice had an older brother and seemed far more advanced than the rest of us. She hung out with his friends, guys we couldn’t compete with, and yet, we clung to moments like these: impromptu visits, her sharp words, and the wisdom she seemed to pull from nowhere. Maybe it came from the books she devoured, or maybe it was borrowed from her brother or even our literature teacher, who adored her. She always raised her hand in that class but stayed silent in most of the others. I often wondered if she wrote anything; reading so much and thinking so deeply usually led to putting pen to paper. But aside from the essays we were forced to write for school, I never saw her writing nor heard of her doing so.

I, on the other hand, wrote every day. I did not write with the discipline of a journal since I didn’t want to leave anything behind in my room for my parents to find, so I wrote mostly fiction. My stories had roots in current events, though they were disguised so well that no one could trace them back to me. Writing was my way of processing a world that didn’t make sense and also, I realized years later, my own form of therapy.

“I have to go back. I can’t miss my math class,” I said, standing up.

“Your math teacher is a legend. I would go to that class too if I were you. I can’t stand my math teacher. Only boys get to go to the Olympiad. Girls are cut from the start. I couldn’t even take the first test to see if I qualify. When I asked him about it, he didn’t even respond. He literally just turned his head away.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that. Your guy’s a misogynist.”

“And a hardcore communist,” Alice added.

I stayed quiet. Conversations like this made me uneasy. There were always whistleblowers in every class, both teachers and students alike, and most of us did not know who they were. Plenty of kids with parents in high-ranking positions had ties to the Communist Party. It could have been anybody.

“You don’t have to leave as well, Cristian,” Alice said.

Cristian looked up, grinning. “I certainly won’t. My teacher does not even take attendance and I haven’t finished reading this Bravo.”

“This is a good one,” Alice added. “It had the Bon Jovi poster in it but it’s now on my wall. You should have seen how mad my mom was when she came back from work one night and saw all the posters.”

“They knew about the magazines, though, right?” Cristian asked.

“Of course they did. One of their friends who emigrated is the guy who sends them. They were furious because I had to make holes in the walls to put them up. She told me to remove them, but then the popcorn wall paint started coming off where the holes were. She can’t afford to repaint the entire room, so she told me to put the posters back to cover the damage. Ha!”

I left with quick steps down the gray stairs, not really wanting to leave but knowing that flipping through a magazine wouldn’t actually transport me to the world it came from, a world I often dreamed about. It was a place where boys had all kinds of sneakers, the real ones with three stripes, not the knock-offs with two stripes made in Romanian factories, and where girls had endless lipstick options, far darker and sexier than Margareta. I liked to think that when surrounded by so much color and choice, those girls probably would not need a glossy pink lipstick to brighten their life.

By the time I reached school I was late for math class, but the teacher didn’t seem to care. He didn’t even notice when I came in. He was too absorbed in a problem he’d come up with the night before while drinking at home with another math teacher. Their conversations probably veered into topics that could have landed them in a communist prison, all while listening to Free Europe and brainstorming math problems. We, the students, only got to see the math problems, minus the backstory behind them.

I enjoyed trying to solve those problems. The first person to finish would get to go up to the blackboard and write out their solution. If they were wrong, the second person would give it a shot. Most of the time, it only took one or two tries to solve it. I just sat there quietly, working on the problems for fun and trying not to let my excitement show when I solved one. The thrill of cracking a tough math problem was real. It made you feel like you could do anything. The reality of “doing anything” in a dictatorship was different. From where I look now, it seems like a story from another world. I refuse to call it a nightmare because we made our own fairytale inside a nightmare of a situation. 

There was one thing they couldn’t fully control at our school, no matter how hard they tried: recess. Even during recess, we were divided into two groups: on one side, there were the high achievers, the ones who thrived under pressure and excelled academically, and on the other, there were those who either had the misfortune of scoring lower on the entrance exams or were pushed by their parents to enroll in the top school in the country, despite not being a natural fit. What made the latter group particularly intriguing was that many of them had more interests and talents than the high achievers. Some would often sneak away to the backyard during recess, where they’d pull out guitars and play. There were kids who were always sketching at the back of their notebooks. Despite the academic pressures, these kids were able to create a vibrant undercurrent that ran beneath the surface of our strict school environment.

The backyard was a shared space, but it felt like a secret world. The soccer field wasn’t just for soccer, it was where kids gathered to play guitar, smoke cigarettes, and see friends from other classes or even other schools when they visited. It was the place to be. Some kids lingered longer there, even after the bell rang, risking getting caught by the principal. Her raids were our worst nightmare, because she’d call parents without hesitation if she caught anyone skipping class. Many kids jumped the tall fence right into the boulevard, but some were caught at the top of the fence, brought back to the teachers’ lounge and forced to tell the principal who else was there. 

But for us, every day, recess couldn’t come soon enough. We literally went to school for the thrill of recess. For me, it was also Mona. I liked watching her lean against the fence, her long fingers holding foreign cigarettes while a group of kids passed one very domestic cigarette near the goalpost. We had met at a few parties, but our social circles overlapped a little, mostly because I was riding the same bus as some of her friends. I was aware that she had feelings for me, though she expressed them in an odd, arrogant way. 

What people didn’t know was that I was a master at self-sabotaging. My moods swung wildly. One moment, I’d be on top of the world, charming and confident, and the next, I’d feel like I was sinking while pushing everyone away. It was a cycle I couldn’t seem to break. I’d get close to a girl, let her in just enough to feel something real, and then, like clockwork, I’d find a reason to end it. Sometimes it was because she annoyed me; other times, it was because I convinced myself she didn’t really care about me. But then, as soon as I let somebody go, the regret would creep in. I’d start missing her: her laugh, the way she looked at me like I mattered, and suddenly, I’d want her back. It wasn’t fair to anyone, least of all me, but it was how my mind worked. With Mona, though, things were different. She didn’t chase after me or try to win me over. She acted like she didn’t care whether I liked her or not. She was too much work, sure, but there was something about her that made it hard to look away. Still, I ignored her most of the time. It felt safer that way.

“Hey, how was math class?” Alice and Cristian arrived walking side by side with a relaxed attitude that made me envious that I took off that morning.

“No homework.” 

They disappeared into the building quickly. The stairs leading to the upper floors had intricate iron railings and the steps were worn smooth in the middle. To us, it was magical seeing them flooded by streams of light filtering through the tall, arched windows and illuminating specks of dust. The faint scent of chalk lingered in the air, bringing everything together. 

Alice and Cristian’s class was full of what we called “Olympians,” kids who lived and breathed math and physics competitions. The others had long since stopped trying to keep up but still enjoyed the challenge for what it was. Then there were the kids aiming for medical school, or at least hoping to get in. They spent their time buried in anatomy and chemistry books, and the math teacher usually left them alone. He seemed convinced that Cristian was heading to medical school somehow, so he never asked him anything in class. As the teacher wrote equations on the board, pockets of conversations bubbled up quickly. 

“Hey, ask Mona if she has her lipstick with her.” The girl behind Cristian tapped his shoulder. 

Cristian tapped Mona on her shoulder. “Do you have your lipstick?”

Mona sat with her head down. When she finally looked up and turned to him, her lips shimmered with that unmistakable pink sparkle of Margareta.

“Shut up,” she said, her tone sharp but playful. “Why do you care?”

Cristian turned to the girl behind him, rolling his eyes. “Don’t drag me into this. Ask her yourself. Do you girls seriously share one lipstick? Gross.”

It wasn’t unheard of for girls to share their lipstick back then and I guess it happens now too, but Mona wasn’t one of them. The lipstick was hers alone with that pink, glittery shade that had become legendary among teenage girls. With stores offering little variety in general, whether it was food or cosmetics, Margareta was a rare gem. It would appear briefly after the delivery truck arrived, only to vanish as the saleswoman set some aside for her friends and relatives. The rest went to the lucky girls who waited by the store near the high school, hoping to snag one before they were gone.

Mona had hers, of course. The girl pestering her didn’t. Her lips carried a faint natural pink hue that looked better than any lipstick, but she wanted to be one of the Margareta girls badly. 

“Mona,” the girl snapped, getting up as the teacher was packing his bag and blocking the narrow aisle between our seats. “You said you didn’t have it, and now you are wearing it!”

Mona shrugged. “I don’t like sharing my lipstick. They’re probably getting another delivery tomorrow, so go get one for yourself.”

The girl slumped back into her seat, burying her face in her hands. Mona didn’t linger; she did not feel guilty at all, the sanitary reasons were very clear in her mind, so she quietly made her way into the backyard. 

The “caste system” at our school functioned smoothly most of the time, even during recess. Some advisory teachers subtly, or sometimes not so subtly, discouraged students from the top-performing classes from mingling with those in the lower-ranked ones. It wasn’t an official rule since no one could really forbid anyone from walking wherever they wanted during recess, but the message was clear. Hanging out at the soccer field, especially with the kids who smoked or spent most of the time there, was frowned upon.

You’d often see girls from the high-performing classes strolling toward the soccer field, only to stop short and turn back before stepping onto the field. They’d walk back and forth along the edge, as if testing some invisible boundary. It was like they wanted to cross over but couldn’t quite bring themselves to do it, caught between curiosity and the judgment that came with venturing into that space.

Cristian called out to me as I stepped outside the building to enjoy what everyone was there for: recess. He was with two other boys, both strumming guitars, their voices carrying a song about a girl with viper’s blood who’d broken their hearts. Two girls drifted over, cigarettes in hand, hanging back to listen. One started making out with another boy, her boyfriend du jour. Nobody paid attention to them; they blended in perfectly.

“Hey, Alice!” I called as I saw Alice passing by.

“Are you singing or just hanging around? We’re skipping class and heading to the Spanish restaurant if you want to come.”

“Bring someone with you,” I whispered.

She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Someone?”

“I don’t know, bring Mona,” I said, trying to sound casual.

The Spanish restaurant was as upscale as it could get in a communist city where grocery store shelves were bare and the heat barely worked. The Spanish restaurant seemed almost defiant like a silent challenge to the gray uniformity outside. 

That afternoon, Mona joined us. She looked fascinating to me as she sat there, her long hair spilling over the sleeves of her puffy shirt. There was an easy elegance in the way she carried herself. Maybe I saw it that way because I knew how much she cared about me, even though she always hid it behind that distant exterior.

Alice stubbed out her cigarette. “I want to go to the seaside!” It was March. Everyone knew that nobody went to the seaside before May 1. International Workers’ Day marked the unofficial opening of the summer holiday season. While May 1 was a major national holiday with parades and official celebrations, it was also the time when Romanians, especially young ones, would head to the Black Sea coast for a long weekend of parties, music and fun, kicking off the beach season. 

“I don’t,” I replied. “Not now, at least. I’d rather go to the mountains.”

Mona turned to me. “Do you ski?”

Skiing was the thing to do if your parents could afford vacations. Mine couldn’t.

“I don’t ski. Not yet, anyway. I hope I’ll learn someday. Are you any good?”

She shrugged. “Not really, but I never fall.”

“Never say never…”

She smiled. “I suppose, but statistically, I fall much less often than most skiers, even the experienced ones.”

“Maybe that’s because they take more risks? You don’t strike me as the risk-taking type.”

She raised an eyebrow, her lips curving into a half-smile. “And you say that based on what? How well do you know me, or are you just generalizing about a certain type of girl?”

Something shifted in me then and I felt that familiar irritation I couldn’t explain, the urge to push back again and again. I had the smarts or dose of sarcasm to match hers and continue that conversation. “Which type? Do you mean the type who sits on the sidelines, always observing, never jumping in?”

I wanted to hurt her and I remember how much I enjoyed it. Maybe it was because the more she talked, the more I remembered that the hierarchy at our school was real: only one third of kids were part of the elite academic group, and Mona belonged to that group. I did not, yet Alice and Cristian did. Even though the curriculum was standardized and heavy on STEM, if you weren’t in one of the top classes, you always felt a bit second-rate. The irony was, I was a high achiever myself, but I hadn’t done well enough on the entrance exams to make the cut. 

She grinned. “Maybe I just like to understand the game before I play.”

Alice chimed in, flicking ash from her cigarette. “You two are overthinking it. If you want to ski, just go. If you fall, you fall. That’s half the fun.”

Mona laughed, a sound that seemed to surprise even herself. “Easy for you to say, Alice. You’re fearless.”

“I’m just bored right now, so bored,” Alice replied. 

Cristian, who’d been quietly smoking next to us, looked up. “So, are we planning a trip or just talking about it?”

Mona glanced at me with her eyes searching. “Would you really want to learn to ski? Even if you had to start on the bunny slopes with the little kids?”

I shrugged. “Why not? Maybe I’d surprise you.”

She tilted her head, with the tiniest smile on her lips. “I’d like to see that. Maybe you only think you’re a risk taker until you have to prove it.”

There it was again, her signature jab, just sharp enough to sting.

“You always have to get your digs in, don’t you? But I think it’s your way of keeping your guard up.” I grabbed my pack of cigarettes and realized I was out.

She didn’t say anything, just slid her pack across the table toward me.

“Oh, right, you’re the Kent girl. Don’t mind if I do,” I said, taking one and lighting up, the ritual between us as familiar as breathing. Certain foreign cigarette brands were status symbols in Romania. Not everyone could get their hands on Kent cigarettes during those times. In fact, Kent was a rare luxury, almost a form of currency in Romania at the time if you needed something and you would bribe with Kent cigarettes or coffee. Officially, they were only sold in hard currency stores that we called “shops,” which were off-limits to ordinary Romanian citizens, since these shops were intended for foreign visitors, who were required to show a passport to enter. By the 1980s, Romanians who had access to foreign currency, usually through working abroad or receiving money from relatives overseas, could also shop there, provided they declared the currency. Those shops created a visible divide since only those with access to Western money could purchase these otherwise unattainable goods. The others looked literally from outside in, although there was always a lingering fear even standing there in front of these stores. We feared the system. We also feared that we would never be able to step foot into a “shop.” Fear was always present. 

That day I wanted to walk her home. I smoked my cigarette quietly and when we passed my bus station, I said goodbye to my friends and continued to walk with her. She did not look at me at all, maybe afraid that I was going to walk away if she did, but I knew she wanted this walk as badly as I did. We walked in silence. She interrupted it as we reached this small store that carried everything from thread and needles to small, cheap jewelry items. 

“I saw this pair of earrings here the other day that I want to look at,” she said, glancing at me quickly.

“Let’s see them!” We walked in.

Communist-era stores, when not completely empty, always felt like an ongoing scavenger hunt. Most of the time, the people working there kept the “nice” things “under the counter” for themselves or friends. Occasionally, though, since most of them didn’t know what was trendy, you could actually find something good. We, on the other hand, read enough Bravo magazines to know what was hot. The big hoop earrings were still there.

“You can’t try them on,” the woman yelled at Mona as she eyed the earrings.

“I wasn’t going to, not unless I had rubbing alcohol to clean them with, so no need to tell me that,” Mona shot back.

The saleswoman didn’t reply, just sat there eating her sandwich.

“I want them, can I pay?” Mona asked.

The woman wiped her hands on a napkin and came to the counter. “If you have money…”

Mona turned to me. “At least she didn’t tell me to show her the money or else she wouldn’t show me the earrings.”

The woman heard her but didn’t react. She pulled the earrings from under the glass, looking annoyed. Mona paid. The woman returned to her sandwich.

“Put them on,” I said.

“Probably at home. I really need to disinfect them!”

“You’re the cleanest person I know.”

She smiled. “It’s just common sense. I don’t know why people are so surprised. There are lots of diseases you can catch. Well, drinking from an unwashed glass can give you syphilis, so there you go.”

“No, you can’t catch that!”

She looked at me. “Yes, you do! My mom told me. The bacteria that causes it dies easily if you just rinse the glass with water, though.”

“I would think it wouldn’t last long out in the air, but who knows? Your mom is probably just trying to convince you not to go out. What else does she tell you?”

She smiled. “That I’m too skinny to go to the seaside with my friends, because they would make fun of me.”

I laughed. “You are skinny, but you’re also beautiful. She is definitely trying to keep you home.”

It was the first time I told her she was beautiful. I knew she heard me, but she didn’t react. She kept walking with one hand in her school bag, clinging to her new earrings.

Then I noticed the pin on her bag strap, and it said, “I love NY.” Of course, in communist Romania, accessories from the West were rare and drew attention. A foreign gift wasn’t just a token; it could make someone a target for suspicion and questioning.

‘Do you love New York? How did you get that?’

She quietly unpinned it and said, ‘My former nanny’s daughter lives in New York. She brought it for us when she visited.’

“You had a nanny?” I asked, focusing on the ordinary part of what she said, trying to hold onto something familiar and safe amid the thought of New York and all it implied for us. 

“Yes, my parents worked a lot, and my grandparents couldn’t always help.”

People who had relatives or close ties abroad lived in an ongoing stress. Their letters were opened and read, and neighbors were often enlisted by the Securitate as informants, spying on them and reporting whenever foreigners were at their house. Having a pin from New York was a secret hope, but it felt dangerous.

I remember thinking how strange it was to long for a city you had heard about on forbidden radio broadcasts or forbidden books, and to wear a piece of that dream pinned to your bag in a place where dreams were so tightly controlled.

Those kinds of thoughts passed quickly. She smiled and handed me the pin like a key; for a moment, the world beyond our controlled lives seemed close, and, just for that moment, I felt we unlocked something. 

A man in a suit stopped us as we waited at the stoplight. “Move back!” A row of black cars passed. We tried to look inside but couldn’t see anything. They always stopped traffic whenever government officials passed by in their cars. Sometimes, it would take hours for people to get through these barriers. It was all part of the communist circus, designed to instill fear and respect for our dear leader, widening the gap between him and us. We knew we could have gone to jail if we didn’t obey, so we waited. At that moment, my hand brushed hers, but she quickly pulled away just as I was about to take her hand, pretending to push her hair back. Or so I thought. I didn’t try anymore and I just pulled a cigarette from my pocket. Smoking helped ease awkward moments. Her reaction stayed with me. I smoked quietly. She wasn’t good at staying silent and finally spoke.

“I walk to school every day while everyone else takes the bus. I hear the bus is much more fun.”

I looked at her and laughed. “Are you serious? You’re the downtown girl. We’re all suburb kids with the key around our necks, as they say. Don’t be jealous of the crowded bus!” Still frustrated by the hand rejection, I laughed harder, tossed my cigarette, and waved as I suddenly walked away. “I’m headed that way to catch the bus.”

“OK, bye!” She kept walking without looking back. If I had looked, I might’ve seen tears. Then I realized that for those few minutes, I had the proudest girl by my side, and all I wanted was to hold her hand.

I knew things were going to be different at school the next day, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. As she walked by, I grabbed another girl and kissed her, right there in front of her, loud and obvious just to make sure she noticed. Maybe it was revenge for her pulling her hand away the day before. I couldn’t explain it, but something pushed me to act out and I did. Looking back, those mood swings were already controlling me, even if I hadn’t put a name to them yet.

She didn’t look my way at all; she just stared straight ahead, clutching her school bag with those long, beautiful fingers. She showed no emotion and had no words for me. It only made me more curious. I nudged my friend who was right next to me. “Yell something quickly,” I said.

“There’s love in the air, people. Love’s burning hot today!”

That felt too subtle to me. It made me mad. I pushed the girl away, pulled a cigarette from my jacket, and lit it with shaky fingers.

That night, I called her. I didn’t say a word; I just smoked and listened. And somehow, she listened back. The silence between us spoke louder than any words could. I wanted to tell her everything: the confusion, the fear, the way my mind jumped from one thing to the next, but the words got tangled in my throat. Instead, I let the silence fill the space, hoping she felt it too: that maybe, despite the chaos inside me, there was still something there. If these were to become dreams to remember for later, I wanted to let them. 

The next day, she ran up to me from behind as I was walking into the schoolyard.

“Hey, do you have my New York pin?”

I looked at her, my hand nearly brushed hers. I wanted to touch her face so badly; instead, my words tried to do it, but they came out all wrong.

“I lost it.”

“Oh, that is…”

“Unbelievable?” I offered.

“It’s just not nice,” she said softly, then turned and walked away.

For a few seconds, I stood there, feeling the weight of what that pin meant. I hadn’t lost it, but I was just too afraid to give it back, as if returning it would break the fragile connection between us. I told myself that to her, it was just a piece of plastic with a message of freedom. To me, it was a symbol of everything we weren’t allowed to have or be, although, at that moment, I was more worried that I was not going to be allowed to have her. 

I skipped class that morning. I stood on the soccer field and smoked with two other boys. During recess, I hoped she would come out to talk. She did not. I scribbled something on a piece of paper for her, but then threw it away. Ironically, I continued to throw away things and people my entire life.