No Matter What

My sweaty palms tremble as I unfold my speech one last time and internally recite the opening words. The paper is yellowed and brown at the creased seams, stained with coffee and salty teardrops. After all this time, I’m finally ready.

Sally is standing with her small group of friends outside the science block, leaning against the red bricks with the sole of her right shoe pressed against it, her knee bent. She’s so effortlessly confident, showing her friends her new manicure, squealing about how perfectly the colour will match her prom dress.

She cares about small things like that. Like how last month she'd noticed that my new school bag was the same brand as hers. She’d laughed at the funny coincidence, but I alone knew it was intentional. Sally is a girl of excellent taste, as always.

It’s been like this since we were five years old and sharing toys in the sandbox. She and I were always drawn to the same ones, but we never argued about whose turn it was first. That meant it was fate, right? It’s written in the winds of nature: Sally and I are designed for each other. Tailor made perfect matches. Not many other kids could say that about their best friend.

Storm clouds rumble, announcing their presence and demanding attention. My time is limited. The netball team will come thundering through this quiet corner of the campus as soon as the rain interrupts their daily torment of the new kid, and I don’t plan on being anywhere near here when they do. There’s something about girls like me, skinny with no curves, that inherently grinds their gears for no discernible reason whenever they see one of us.

Sally glances at the sky and shifts her position; I know she’s thinking the same thing. Everyone around here knows that going to Oxford University is her dream, and the netball girls never let her live it down, as though it’s something she should be embarrassed about. Sally has told me more than enough horror stories about them for me to understand the threat they present not just to her, but to her friends as well—most of whom she befriended in a study group and have similar scholarly ambitions. But she’s never let anything dull her shine. She and I have already spent many lunch breaks mapping out the city of Oxford and planning our itinerary for when I would inevitably come to visit.

She and her study group friends are collecting their things to head inside. It’s now or never.

“Hey, Sally,” I call out, waving more awkwardly than I intended. She doesn’t seem to notice the strangeness of my gesticulating movements.

“Hi! How’s it going? We’d better get inside before it starts raining." Her voice is perky and higher pitched than mine. She used to get teased for it, but it was never something that bothered me.

“I want to talk to you about something.”

I hope I’m not coming off too strong.

She smiled and nods.

“Sure thing. I’ll meet you inside, guys,” she says to her friends. They say a quick hi and bye to me and head inside. She turns back to face me. “What’s up?”

I unfold the paper with my speech on it. I wrote this years ago, after an incident where a netball girl was on a rampage looking for me, but Sally came to my rescue and threw me into her locker to hide me, taking the brunt of the netball girl’s rage in my place. She later promised that she would always have my back, no matter what. That’s when I knew that I would never meet any else with as golden a heart as hers. That night, I wrote this little speech and have kept it with me all this time.

I read from the paper, not daring to look up and see her reaction.

“Sally. You are the most selfless, loving, good-hearted person on this planet. My favourite human, more than just a best friend. Your kindness is matched only by angels. Your generosity only by saints. Your intelligence only by your future self when Oxford makes you into even more of a genius.”

God, this sounds so stupid when I say it out loud. These are just the lovesick ramblings of a stupid teenager. Why did I think this was a good idea? The rain has started, a misty smattering of droplets clinging onto Sally's curly hair. I need to get this humiliation over with. I speed through the final sentences.

“I’m honoured to be in your life, and I know I don’t deserve you. But, Sally, it’s always been you. I love you. Will you be my prom date?”

All at once, the rain hammers down, fogging up my glasses and staining my stupid speech even more. Sally’s eyes are barely visible behind her own orange frames. God, this is so embarrassing.

Neither of us can see the other with any clarity in this rain. I shift my weight from foot to foot, willing her to put me out of my misery. The netball girls will be here any moment.

“Come with me,” Sally says. I think I can hear a smile in her voice. I hope we can look back on this and laugh about it later. I can’t stand the thought of losing her as a friend.

She grabs my hand and pulls me into the science block, upstairs to where our lockers are. The corridor is starting to sprout with people as more students shelter from the rain, but they haven’t reached us yet. I wipe the outside of my glasses with my sleeve, smearing the droplets.

Sally opens her locker and pushes me in. The humming chatter of crowds of students draws closer. They will see us soon.

Through my rain-smeared glasses, I see her freckled nose draw closer to mine. Before I can comprehend what’s happening, her lips are on mine. Warm. Marshmallow lipgloss. Safety. Then, as quickly as it started, it’s over. She pulls back, smiling.

“Took you long enough, stupid idiot,” she says with a lopsided grin. I pull her into a deep, enveloping hug, relief seeping out of me at every crevice.

The thumping of the netball girls’ white trainers echoes down the corridor. Without thinking, I grab Sally’s shoulders and pivot, switching our places and thrusting her into the safety of the locker as rolling thunder crashes outside, rain pattering hard on the windowpanes. I grab her collar and kiss her again.

“I’ve got your back,” I say. “No matter what.”