Hayden High School sat at the top of the Catholic-school food chain. Like tributaries into a river, every parochial grade school flowed toward it, carrying us along whether we wanted to be carried or not.
Long before any of us were old enough to attend, Hayden began its quiet courtship with sporting events and social functions, small offerings disguised as harmless fun in a safe place where parents felt comfortable leaving their kids for a couple hours.
But the gatherings weren’t only about fun. They were rehearsals. Gentle introductions to a future meant to feel familiar by the time it arrived.
Because once a student finished their years at one of the Catholic grade schools in Topeka, the next step was already implied, waiting patiently, as if it had been decided long before any of us knew we had a choice.
I’d been going to Hayden sporting events since I was a sixth grader. Not because I cared about the school or the sports, but because it was one of the few places I could exist without my parents hovering nearby. It gave me a freedom I wasn’t used to and provided a social outlet I was otherwise deprived of.
I usually chose basketball over football because basketball offered seats that didn’t expose me to cold weather. But since Stephanie was going to be at this one, it was enough to sway my allegiance for an evening and shiver beneath the Friday night lights.
When I arrived Stephanie was waiting near the entrance, the stadium glow catching the edges of her face as kids and parents flowed around her in streams, like she’d stepped into a river and decided not to move.
“Hi there,” she said, calm and collected.
“Hi. You wanna grab a seat?” I said, motioning towards the home team’s bleachers.
“Nah, that’s boring.” she said, taking me by the arm. “Lets go down to the field.”
Hayden’s football field was wrapped by a track, a wide loop that let you circle the game instead of watching it from a safe distance. Close enough to hear it. Close enough to feel it. And that’s where she steered us.
She seemed drawn to the action of it all. The collisions, the noise, the bodies crashing into one another as expletives flew.
It was obvious that staying still in the bleachers had felt wrong to her. But here, close to the turbulence on the ground? That seemed like something she recognized and moved with instinctively. Like it was tuned to her own frequency.
Throughout the game we continued to circle the field, staying within arm’s reach of the school sanctioned violence. Talking with one another as pads cracked and breath left bodies while fans screamed approval and cruelty in the same sentence. It felt like being inches away from a car crash that kept happening on purpose.
And Stephanie, all the while, was hypnotized by it; the danger, the exhilaration. Smiling like she knew something the rest of us didn’t.
Like tends to find like and the chaos of the game pulled her in.
And her chaos, in turn, kept turning up that low hum inside of me, pulling me towards her. Maybe that hum was my own buried chaos, something dormant that had been waiting for a signal strong enough to wake it. Or maybe it was something born from years of quiet discontent, pliable enough to reshape itself around hers.
Either way, I felt myself wanting to be closer and closer to her and the chaos. A chaos that didn’t just surround me, but opened a door and invited me to step through.
I couldn’t tell you the score or who was winning. I hadn’t looked once. All of my attention stayed on Stephanie, her jokes, the way she brushed against me like it was accidental but never was and the ease with which she occupied herself with no apologies.
When the final buzzer sounded, the way the Hayden players and fans erupted made it clear the home team had won. People poured out of the bleachers and into the parking lot in a loud, loose swarm.
Stephanie reached for my hand and held it.
“My mom is picking me up at the Dairy Queen down the street,” she said, eyes wide, smile wider. “Will you walk me there?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to hide how excited I was that our own little game was headed into overtime.
The Dairy Queen sat a quarter mile away, across a street already choked with traffic, now made worse by the post-game rush.
Without warning, she grabbed my arm and took off, dragging me with her. We ran laughing into the street as tires screeched and horns exploded around us, darting through traffic like two squirrels with a shared death wish.
We made it to the other side, laughing and breathless, then kept going, cutting through a cemetery toward her destination.
As the traffic noise fell away, the sound of our shoes moving through fallen autumn leaves took over and we walked among the tombstones like two travelers passing through a city built for silence.
She eventually loosened her grip on my arm and allowed her hand to slide down until it found mine and laced itself there without asking.
For a while she filled the space, talking about our school’s volleyball team she played on, her excitement for their first game, her time at another Catholic grade school the year before and the half-brother she had who lived with her dad. Small facts. Normal things. Little offerings.
Then she went quiet.
Not awkward.
Comfortable.
As if all the frenetic energy she carried had finally burned itself out, leaving behind a calm that felt almost euphoric. We kept walking, the Dairy Queen sign glowing in the distance like a lighthouse, guiding us out of the city of the dead.
She was already close, but now she drifted closer still, our shoulders brushing, our steps syncing without effort. Each one sent a mix of excitement and dread through me, the sense that I was approaching an edge and that once I reached it, I wouldn’t be able to pretend I hadn’t.
So I stopped.
She turned to face me, calm and unreadable.
I leaned in and kissed her.
She tilted her head and kissed me back, slow and unhurried, like there was nowhere else she needed to be. My hands found her hips instinctively, resting there as we drew closer, fitting together without thinking.
This was my first kiss ever.
I had no idea what I was doing, no reference point to measure it against. So, I just stayed with it, took my time and let myself be there, allowing the moment to unfold instead of rushing it.
At one point I opened my eyes just enough to look at her. She looked peaceful. Focused. Completely present. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was curved into the faintest smile, as if this was exactly where she meant to be.
The kiss seemed to last forever. Rich, exciting, perfect. The night breeze carried her perfume into me, pressing its scent into my jean jacket like a keepsake. Eventually we pulled away, slow and gentle, just enough space to smile at each other before continuing on, hands linked, walking side by side.
When we reached the Dairy Queen, her mom was already there.
The car sat off to the side of the parking lot, a jalopy idling in the cold night air, engine sputtering, exhaust coughing into the dark. The lone light post cast hard shadows across her mom’s face, obscuring most of it, leaving me with an image that reminded me of Norman Bates’s mother, frozen in a window, watching.
Stephanie felt it too.
She stiffened and dropped my hand like it was something dangerous.
“Thanks.” she said, her voice suddenly flat, stripped of the warmth and humor it had carried all night. “Call me tomorrow.”
Then she was gone, walking quickly toward the car, disappearing into the murky shadows of the front seat. The engine lurched, the car pulled out, and she vanished down the road, one working tail light blinking until it finally disappeared into the distance.
My mom was supposed to be picking me up back at the school. Chances were she was already there, maybe pacing, maybe imagining new and inventive ways to ground me for not being where I was supposed to be.
So I crossed the street and ran back toward the football field.
I should’ve been worried about what waited for me. But I wasn’t.
Because my entire body buzzed with a kind of excitement and fulfillment I’d never known before, born minutes earlier, in a graveyard, with a girl who was already burrowing her way into my heart.
A heart that was open. Unprotected. And thought that it was ready for whatever she decided to bring into it.
Dear, Reader
I write these stories because I have to.
Because some things only loosen when they’re put on the page.
If this one meant something to you and you want to help keep the work going,
you can buy me a coffee here.
Either way, thanks for reading, I'm honored to have you on this journey with me.