Let me make one thing clear: I don?t miss high school at all. I don?t miss the rules like ?no hats worn inside the building.? I don?t miss the excuses for football games where gangly, awkward young men played a game built for older versions of themselves. I don?t miss playing wiffle ball in P.E. for weeks at a time, or the sound of gunmetal gray lockers banging shut in between classes.


There is so much about that time that I hated. Not just the classes or the restrictions, but most of all the people. I had moved into a small town in the middle of fifth grade, therefore thrown into a lion?s den of established cliques and age-old small town politics. By the time I was a sophomore, I was so used to being made fun of that if it happens, now, it is more or less a source of amusement to me. Last year a girl in my psych lecture made fun of the clothes that I wore. I decided that wearing a pair of skin-tight purple vinyl pants and rubbing my legs together while sitting just behind her right ear was the best way to see what else she could come up with besides, ?That girl dresses like she?s an extra for the Rocky Horror Picture Show.? Shaped by endless years of teasing, my motto had become ?If I can?t make everyone happy, at least I will give people something good to talk about.?


I am a junior in a University 7 hours and a state line away from that place. I walk on campus secure in the knowledge that no one knows who I dated in high school or that I wore black for three days in seventh grade when Kurt Cobain died. I am happy, successful, hardworking, reasonably attractive, and blessed with a good sense of humor and a great set of flaws that I can call my own. However, when the time comes for me to spend a week or two at home, it seems that my newfound sense of self fades to the familiar insecurity and suppression I grew up with.


The first time I came home was Labor Day weekend of my freshman year. I had not been in school a month and I came to see my unofficial boyfriend, who I had broken up with in preparation for our difficult separation, as he was going to school close to home. Not allowed to have my car my first semester to prevent me from doing things just like that, I paid $118 dollars to ride 13 long and miserable hours on a greyhound bus. 13 hours just for the touch of his honey colored skin and the look of his languishing eye. He had been my first. I had dated others before him, but he was my heart?s first. I remember the clumsy silence that hung in the dimly lit bedroom of our best friend?s house as he lifted his head from my pale, goose-pimpled chest to look in my eyes and say, ?Are you ok? Was it ok?? I shook my head yes, and felt my heart break for something I knew I shouldn?t have given away. ?Because it doesn?t matter how I feel, I just wanted it to be special for you. My first time wasn?t special for me, and it hurt. So are you ok?? he whispered, his green eyes moist and open wide. ?It was wonderful.? I lied. As I slipped on my black satin and lace Victoria?s secret underwear, my tired heart swelled with something I had never felt before. Not knowing what it was, I hooked my matching bra, pulled on my jean shorts and T-shirt and decided to ignore it.


I came home that weekend, and after a night of drinking around a campfire in the usual old barn, we stood face to face in the middle of a patch of weeds so tall, they almost blocked the clear star-spangled sky from my average 5?7? height. ?I?ve missed you, Kim,? he said, his voice oddly husky and quivering over the syllable of my name. ?I?ve missed you more than you?ll ever know.? I said back, searching for the words to convey how many times I had cried in the yellow-tiled dorm floor shower, or how much I daydreamed during Math 105 about his lanky brown frame wrapped around mine. I wanted to say that all the boys walking around my campus could never compare to him. I wanted to tell him I loved him, but like the warm vodka we always drank, the words got stuck in my throat and, deciding whether it would be better to swallow it down or throw it back up, I swallowed, and stayed miserably silent.


That weekend came and went, and was the last time I remember returning home with a shred of affection for the people and politics of that place. Within the three months following my return to school, my relationship with the boy faltered and died. Passing away with it was the group of people I had thought of as my friends, who I now realize were just bored kids looking for a bottle of vodka and somewhere safe to drink it; two things I usually could provide.


Over the next two years, I made good friends in college. You know, the kind you send Christmas cards stuffed with pictures of your kids to when you are forty and finally beginning to get some sense. I have been to great parties. I have been to not-so-great parties. I have learned that no sorority house has room enough for me and that it really does help to go to class. I have found my calling as an English teacher and a deep love for the mentally and physically handicapped. I have discovered that church is, indeed, very important?and that drunk, lazy, and stupid is no way to go through life. Two one-night-stands, an abusive relationship, a terrifying run-in with a sexually transmitted disease, and a wonderful dose of God?s never-ending grace later I drive into that small town I call home, with plenty to be proud of.


I am leaving for England in less than two weeks. I am going for a year abroad at a University south west of London. I have been at home now for over three weeks, and successfully managed to avoid most everyone I graduated with. Tonight I am wondering what it is that my heart has been aching for all this time. At first, I think it sadness for the years that have passed. But after looking though my senior yearbook, I realize that?s not it at all. It is a guilt that I cannot pray away, like the rest. I lay in bed, the clear night sky a constant reminder of the things I should have done differently and the boy whose heart I broke. And I am sorry.