Higher Education - Short Story

Danette was sobbing.

“I love you so much!” she whispered as she hugged me.

My eyes stung.

Across the parking lot, he regarded us, hands on his hips. His t-shirt was skin tight. His biceps leapt out of his lower deltoids, traveled across the length of his upper arm and then dove aggressively into his elbow. Men, tough men, sought his company. Women sought his company as well. His walls were decorated with trophies from various martial arts tournaments and at least three from various regional comedian competitions. Was there a positive adjective known to man that did not fit this guy? I thought not.

However, I was having a difficult time repressing other, less kind adjectives that also fit, at least for the moment. After all, she was staying with him, even though she said she loved me. I couldn’t blame her. He took care of her in ways that I could not.

Up until just that day, we had all been one clique. When the more popular ones did something to hurt us, we retaliated as a whole or gathered around one another like buffalo around their young. In these instances Scott, the alpha male of us all, had defended us and our freedom to be who we were to be. Danette and I had become almost inseparable although we sometimes fought. I always waited for her in the morning. I was the first one she greeted in the day.  

Now I was out of the group. Removed unceremoniously like a bothersome tooth in the mouth of a shark.

Norman approached us solemnly. He had taught me, started me thinking about things in new ways. I had gone to him often with problems and questions about many things. From those conversations had emerged a mutual respect; he respected me for asking questions of him and for being willing to change, to become a thinking person. I respected his well-thought answers, although I had not always agreed. His eyes were large behind his glasses, and red.

“I didn’t sleep at all last night. When Scott told me yesterday that you were out of here, I just went home and sat there.”

I hugged him, feeling momentarily his rough cheek on mine, grateful when he returned my embrace. It reminded me of hugging my Dad; he even smelled the same. We parted. “Thanks, Norm. It’ll be okay.”

“We can still be friends, can’t we, Eric?” Danette plead. Norman looked at me like he had hoped she wouldn’t ask that. Or was the resentment at this question all my own? She put her hand lightly on my arm and added, “You have to promise that you’ll keep in touch, okay?”

I said easily, “Yeah, of course”, but I had a pit in my stomach that told me that I wasn’t being completely truthful. But how could I be? Danette had played that card, the “we’ll always be friends and keep in touch” card when she knew that it’s not possible. Our friendship had been wrapped up in an identity that had been created, strengthened and nurtured by common experience. Scott felt that I was hurting the group somehow and had told me that I was no longer welcome, no matter the tears, the sobs, or my feelings about it. There would be no discussion. Scott’s decision was absolute. Now I was going away and the group would continue a different path, having experiences that would not include me. As such they would morph into something else, as sentient groups always do. They would grow together in new ways and I would become something else away and apart from them, no longer a part, my path possibly not even parallel to theirs. How could I sincerely promise we would keep in touch, let alone be friends? We may as likely become the deepest of enemies, as quickly as Scott had turned on me. But I had to spare her feelings, so I had lied to protect them.

“You’ll be okay, then?” Norm placed his hand on my shoulder and searched my eyes.

“Hey, I’ll be fine.” I wasn’t sure of that, either, nor do I think he believed me.

Scott had been watching, out of earshot. He took a few steps in our direction, paused and then strode towards us. It was time for us to wrap this up. The group had to move on.

We embraced again, Danette, Norm and I. Scott arrived seconds later and I shook his hand as a matter of course before they all turned as one and walked to the building. Only Danette stole a look back at me as the building swallowed them. Had I really just lost my job - or had I been summarily dismissed from a high school clique? What would I tell my wife, my kids? What was the nature of this new voyage upon which I had abruptly embarked, unsure as of yet that I had packed well, or at all? A cold wind blew at my back and the autumn leaves shimmered. I walked away alone, my eyes fixed on a distant horizon.