Mark and Sally met in the school playground. He was six and she was seven and that meant that they couldn’t be friends. He pulled her pigtails and she pushed him off the swing. He dragged her Barbie in the sand and she sat on his firetruck. He put leaves in her lunch box when she wasn’t looking and when she found out, she slapped him.
She was taller than him by nearly four inches and he hated it. Taller always meant better but she was definitely not better than him. He told his dad about it. He told him he wanted to be bigger. Daddy just ruffled his hair and told him to wait. In the meantime they would meet in the playground, and they would fight, he would stick his tongue out at her and she would slap him, but she was taller than him, and somehow, that meant that she was winning.
---
He went to her 13th birthday party. He didn’t want to go but his mom gave him a look and threw the most hideous yellow polo-shirt towards him.
He knew it was a mistake to go the minute he heard songs from The Backstreet Boys blaring from her front yard. The yard was full of girls, there were literally no guys he knew that were his own age. She saw him and the scowl she gave made him shudder. She bounded towards them and he found himself staring. She was different and her hair was curly and she smelled nice and his palms were sweaty. She kissed his mom on the cheek and gave him a fake smile and a party hat supposedly reserved for the children.
“I’m 12. I’m not wearing that.” He glared at her and flushed in spite of himself when she raised her eyebrows at him. Why did she have glitter on her lips? Why were her eyelids purple?
“Go join the other children.” She stood right in front of him and he was made painfully aware that she was still four inches taller than him. She jammed the party hat on his head and turned around; leaving him surrounded with her 5 year old cousins. He watched her go warily, watching her blue dress swivel around. That was when he noticed that she was wearing heels, two-inch heels. He smiled to himself because soon, he’ll be taller than her.
---
She saw him in the hallways sometimes, but they never acknowledged each other. Her friends would gush over him and she would grimace in disgust.
“He’s a junior.” She emphasized disdainfully but she would stare at him too and wonder where the chubby, short boy she used to play with went.
One day he stood by her locker and she gave him an oh-so-familiar scowl and told him to go away. He just looked at her curiously and then stepped closer to her. She found herself inches away from his solid, football-player chest and wondering why her throat was constricting and why her cheeks were on fire. He started laughing and she felt like he was making fun of her and her blushing and she pushed him away but he was as solid as a rock.
“I’m taller than you.” He said simply.
“A high point in your life then?” She rolled her eyes and stared up at him but she looked down when she noticed how he was looking at her, gazing down at her. And she felt like she was thirteen again and silly and awkward, but he wasn’t 12 anymore and he was taller than her and she wanted, so badly, to lay her head on his chest.
---
He didn’t want to go to her graduation party but his mother had given him a look and was holding a hideous yellow polo shirt to him, which he politely refused. He was pacing his room, wondering how he could excuse himself from the dinner at her house. His mother came in, about to yell at him for being so slow until she saw her son staring at a framed photograph on his desk.
It was a picture of Mark and Sally on the swings in the playground. He looked utterly miserable, with chocolate smeared on his shirt. She had that familiar scowl on her face.
“You used to hate her, remember?” His mother said, softly.
“Still do.”
“You kept the photograph.”
“I only kept it because she got so mad when I showed it to her friends.”
His mother smiled and Mark picked up the photograph and shoved it inside the bottom drawer of his desk.
“She’s leaving for college tomorrow, you know.”
“I know.”
“This’ll probably be the last time you’ll see her.”
“Good riddance.”
He picked up his jacket and pushed past his mother, annoyed at the knowing look she was giving him, annoyed that he was being dragged to a party he didn’t want to go to, annoyed at her for leaving tomorrow, and most of all, annoyed at himself for caring.
---
He saw her standing in the middle of the yard and felt his heart drop to the pit of his stomach. She was leaving tomorrow. And she was so damned happy about it. She saw him and smiled, but he frowned because she’s never smiled at him before.
She walked over to him and he wondered whether she’d notice if he ran away right now. He could hear his heart beat like a bass drum in his ears. He felt the beads of sweat appear on his forehead as she walked towards him gracefully.
“Hello.” It came out like a squeak, as if he was 12 again and his voice had not broken yet.
“Mark.” She stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and she smelled like flowers and vanilla and childhood memories he was going to miss.
“Why so friendly all of a sudden?” He murmured into her ear. She had begun to pull away but on instinct, he had wrapped his arms around her and held her to him. She had stiffened at first, and then allowed her head to fall on his shoulder. He was waiting for an answer but she didn’t respond. He felt her father’s eyes on him so he pulled away reluctantly, but retained a firm grip on her hand.
“I should go back.” She said quietly. She didn’t want to go back though. She looked down at their hands, entwined together perfectly, and wondered why they hadn’t held hands like this before.
He nodded slowly and released her hand. She stood there for a moment, remembering how simple it was to hate him when he was six and how complicated it became once she realized how tall he had become.
“You know, I used to hate you.”
“Likewise.”
He was silent again and she was waiting for him to say something more but nothing came, so she turned to go.
“But I still have our picture, the one taken in the playground and I—” He paused and waited for her to turn to him. “I wish I was six again and I’d still see you everyday. I’m just so used to having you near me. I’m not sure my day’s complete unless you scowl at me.”
She scowled at him.
“It sucks that you’re leaving.”
He was looking at her in that way again, making her feel like a 13 year old who doesn’t quite know how to line her eyes properly, or how much blush to put on. She used to see him as a kid… and now, she didn’t quite know what she saw him as.
“I have to go.” Her voice shook slightly.
“I know that.”
“You should have told me this before. I—I wish you had.”
“So, too late then?" He frowned, reminding her of the times she had pushed him off the swing and into the sand.
“Too late.” And then she walked away, leaving him feeling like she had broken his favorite toy in the playground.
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