that he was moving back to town now, when she’d be leaving in a few months. Several times over the years she’d been tempted to try to contact him, but had pushed the thought aside. After all, Dylan was only a high school crush. He probably wouldn’t even remember her and the brief time they’d been friends.
Her smile faded. If he did remember, would it be the good times they’d shared or the bad things everyone had said later?
She pushed aside the memories and opened her briefcase, intending to grade papers. The folder containing the students’ journal entries lay on top. If anything could take her mind off herself, these would do it. Despite her permission to keep personal things to themselves, her students seemed eager to pour their hearts out onto the page. She felt privileged to read their secret desires and troubles and was often amused by the minor things they took so seriously.
But that was life as a teenager, wasn’t it? You were the center of your own universe and everything that happened to you was new and painfully important.
If she found and reread her own journal, it would no doubt be filled with as many petty worries and moments of high drama. She pushed aside the stack of student papers, distracted by the thought. Had she made too much of the events of her senior year? Had what happened back then been no big deal after all?
She stood and carried her empty tea glass to the sink. There was only one way to find out. Unable any longer to avoid the idea that had nagged at her mind all day, Taylor went into the hall and pulled down the stairs that led to the attic.
Her old footlocker sat under the eaves beneath a layer of dust. She opened it and carefully lifted out a stack of yellowed college dance programs, followed by a shoe box filled with withered corsages, the peppery smell of carnations rising up when she slipped off the lid. Next came the thick, bound volume of the school annual. The Cedar Sage. Beneath, wrapped in brown paper, she found the blue leather diary her grandmother had given her the day the family had left California for Texas. “Write all your problems in here,” Grandma had told her. “Then maybe they won’t seem so bad.”
She ran her fingers over the diary, tracing the gold-toned metal heart that served as a lock. Who knew where the key was now; surely she could find a way to open the book. She lay the diary on top of the annual and replaced everything else in the trunk. Then she carried the two books down to the kitchen.
She poured another glass of tea and looked at the books laid out on the bar, reluctant to open them. Thank God no one was here to see her being so silly. Finally she took a deep breath and opened the annual. The plastic cover was stiff with age and the first grouping of pictures, of the freshman class, made her laugh. Had they really worn such awful hairstyles back then?
Quickly she flipped to the back of the book, to the section devoted to the seniors. She found her picture: a pretty young girl with short dark hair who smiled shyly at the camera. Beneath her name were the words “Voted girl most likely to…”
She frowned. Mark Wilson, the yearbook editor, had put that in after she’d refused to go out with him. She closed the book. Maybe digging up all this old stuff wasn’t such a good idea, after all.
But the diary beckoned her. In the bright light, the cover looked scuffed and faded. Harmless. Why not revisit her seventeen-year-old self in those pages? It might be good for a laugh.
She found a pair of kitchen shears in a drawer and sliced through the leather flap that held the book closed. Carrying the diary into the living room, she settled herself at one end of the couch to read.
The entries began with her arrival in Cedar Creek.
Well, we’re here, and all I can say is it’s hot and dusty and looks like a set out of some old Western movie. The only kids I’ve seen so far are wearing boots and jeans and cowboy hats and they all stared at me when I rode by on my bike and didn’t say anything.
Well, I didn’t say anything to them, either. Next time I will. We’re here and I have to make the best of it. Dad is always saying things like that, as if clichés are going to make everything all right.
Anyway, I do want to fit in here. I want to make friends. I’m sure things will be a lot easier when I start school next week.
She flipped over a few pages, past entries about shopping with her mother and arranging her room. Finally she found an entry written after the first week of school.
I’m really tired of everybody staring at me as if I’m from another planet. You’d think they’d never seen cool clothes before. There’s this one particular girl, Alyson. She’s a cheerleader and she and her friends think they are so “all that.” She makes a face at me every time I go by….
There is one boy, though. He’s on the staff of the literary magazine. His name is Dylan Gates and he is sooooo cute!!! And he writes the most awesome poetry.
She read on, about her growing friendship with Dylan. She and Dylan ate lunch together in the cafeteria. She and Dylan worked on a project in chemistry class. Dylan let her borrow his history notes when she was out sick.
I think Dylan must be the sweetest guy in the entire world! She smiled, the feelings rushing back as if it all happened yesterday. She would never have admitted to it then, but Dylan had been her first big crush. She’d have given anything to really be his girlfriend, but he’d never given the slightest hint that he’d wanted to be anything more than a friend.
She flipped through a few more pages of boring entries about homework, television shows and records. It might be fun to share some of this with her students sometime, to show how things had changed and how much they’d stayed the same.
I hate this place!!!! The words were bold and underlined three times. Apparently the cause of all this angst was the annual senior camping trip. Taylor hadn’t wanted to go, but Dylan had talked her into attending. If only she’d listened to her gut and stayed home, none of the rest would have happened.
Today I found out what everyone really thinks of me. Saturday night, after everyone else went to sleep, Dylan and I stayed up talking. It got colder and colder and we kept putting wood on the fire, until we ran out of wood. It was so cold, I knew I’d never sleep, so Dylan invited me into his tent with him. We were both wearing so many layers of clothes, it was completely innocent. We only wanted to get warm. But the next morning, when Mr. and Mrs. Healy got up and found us, they had a cow. You’d have thought we’d committed murder or something. We tried to tell them nothing happened, but they wouldn’t believe us.
By the time our parents came to pick us up, the Healys had calmed down some. Thank God my mom and dad believed me when I told them Dylan and I didn’t do anything in that tent—or out of it—but sleep. I figured most of the kids didn’t know what happened and by Monday everything would blow over. I should have known better.
She scanned the pages, her stomach in a knot. It was all there: the jeers from other students, the whispers, the rude propositions from some of the bolder boys. She stared at the words at the bottom of one page, the writing cramped and small. Dylan wouldn’t even look at me. I felt so awful.
She closed the diary, blinking back tears. That had been the beginning of the end. Every day a new rumor developed. She and Dylan had been caught showering together in the boys’ locker room. She and Dylan had been skinny-dipping at the old gravel pit. By unspoken agreement, they avoided each other, hoping this would scotch the rumors, but the gossip escalated. When she left school, everyone was sure it was because she was having Dylan’s baby.
What would have happened if she’d found the strength to face
