The Passed Note Issue 7 June 2018 | Page 28

balloon between our bodies and instruct us to “leave

room for the Holy Spirit.” In solidarity, during the last

slow song, our friends will all dance around us to hide

us from the principal. Their bodies will become a wall

to hold in our desire. A net of balloons will open from

the ceiling and fall on everyone and under the

weightless mass we’ll kiss, a long kiss. Everyone will

cheer and hit balloons and we’ll pull away. This is like

a movie, I will think, until I feel the long trail of spit

hanging between his mouth and mine. I’ll swat at it

with my hand and wipe my mouth, but my face will

burn red and someone will yell, “gross!” And I wish

that, at fourteen, I’ll have the courage to laugh and

start hitting balloons, but instead I’ll look at my

boyfriend for reassurance and he’ll just laugh and

wipe his mouth and exclaim, “That was a wet one.”

Then he’ll walk away with his friends.

He’ll break up with me the next year, when a few of

us from our small Catholic school go on to the public

high school. We’ll stay together for the first couple

months. He is my anchor in this bigger school, with

three-story buildings and science labs and four

thousand students all trying to get from class to

class, moving like herds of animals through the

narrow alleyways of the buildings, to cross the street

to the portables where kids will make a break for it

at the crosswalk, start running down the street

towards the bus stop. They lock us into this school