“Hi there, do you remember me from the class of 85 ?”, she asked the guy behind her in the queue for name tags, a broad smile on her face.
She was in her late 40s now, hardly any resemblance to her 16 year old self. But then, that was true with most of the people gathered in the hall.
It was their 30 year school reunion.
They took the name tags, only first names with their pen names in quotes, pasting them on their chest starting to mingle with the crowds. It was good to see some of them, hard to recognize some of them and very difficult to remember, that some of these people were actually ever in the same class as them.
It is common, to have very few people from your school to be still in touch, but it seemed that they had forgotten a lot of their own classmates.
Eventually, they ended up sitting at the same table.
“Do you remember how you used to throw colour pencils at me?”, she asked him.
“Of course I do. You used to be very good at art and craft, I was just helping you out”, he answered with a sheepish smile on his face.
His hair was grey now, she noticed, but he still had that mischievous sparkle in his eyes that he had even when they were kids. It seemed time was not able to touch that aspect of him.
“Well, I did help you out once or twice. When the teacher was not looking, remember ?”, she asked.
“Well, drawing a mustache on the face of queen Victoria from our history books, does not count as helping out”, he remarked.” It cost me a week’s worth of detention . My parents were furious. Dad thrashed me like anything that day. And this was all because of a girl ! That thought kept me awake. I had to take my revenge”, he said while filling up her glass with water,a grin on his face. ” Well, I don’t think that revenge should have included me sitting in the library for a month as detention, for allegedly throwing a chalk at the teacher while she had her back turned to the class. I did not even have a good aim, and I used to sit next to the captain of the cricket team, famous for his accurate aim at throwing the ball onto the stumps from great distances. I wish they would have made that connection”, she said, responding to his grin with a smile .
“Well, I definitely was very good at cricket back then. I loved to spend time on the field. Joining the national Cricket team was my live goal back then, but life had other plans it seemed”, he said. Looking down at his bulging stomach. He missed playing cricket .
“You know, that was the day, I developed a small crush on you”, he confessed.”To be honest, I had a crush on you from that day as well. Maybe a teenage crush for a rebel, but a crush all the same.”, she admitted.” I wished I had proposed that day, but I was too scared and proud for it”, he confessed. ” When I was in the library, I spent most of the time day dreaming about how I could have spent time with the team captain”, she said and blushed. I was a long time since he had seen her blush. He missed it so much.
The conversation went on for hours, they did not notice that the other people on their table had a completely different conversation going on between them. It was as if they were immersed in their own world, they had traveled in the past, re-living their school days.
Now, the party was coming to an end, it was time to bid a goodbye to the batch of 85. The host called for an attention from everyone. Lightly banging the champagne glass with a spoon, he announced,”Ladies and Gentleman, fellow classmates, it has been 30 years since most of us saw each other. During this time, we have changed, we have grown, we now have separate lives which we share with loved ones. Some of us are still good friends, but some of us were less remembered by us. Some are just a memory and some, a missed call”
“However, most of us here still remember our “Head-boy” and “Head-girl” , who were always loved by all, during their school days. A strong example of how strong love is. Please welcome, Mrs and Mr… ”
She touched his shoulder and said,”Honey, I think they want us to go on that stage and give a speech. Think you can manage it ?”. “Sure”, he said” Just help me with the wheelchair.I see they have a ramp , just push me onto the stage, will you ?”. “You should have a lot of practice by now darling. After all, it has been 31 years since the accident. ”
They started going towards the stage, accompanied by a thunderous applaud . The high school sweethearts remained so, even after being married for 28 years.
