Looking For Lacey

The Book of Lacey

Elliot Winter-

Me and Lacey had it good. Great really. We met in grade eight in the first week of school. It was that rare, once-in-a-lifetime, love-at-first-sight scenario. The way she laughed even though I almost knocked her down the stairs, her smile reaching her eyes, nose crinkling and that cluster of dimples on her right cheek. I was in it deep.

That was on the second day of high school. I was running late to class, and Lacey? She was running an errand for a teacher. Even though I was the one that knocked her over, she got up and apologised, dusting off the back of her way-too-baggy navy uniform shorts.

We didn't meet again for a month or so, although everyday as she walked past me at lunch or inbetween classes she'd smile, sometimes wave. The next time we met was on a bus. I was sitting near the back, every other seat apart from next to this hunky year twelve guy was taken. She got on the bus near the beach and payed the driver, who seemed to know her.

As she neared the back of the bus, her lips slightly pouted at not finding a seat, I did the unthinkable. I'd been trying to build up enough courage to talk to her ever since that day I almost knocked her down the stairs, and today was the day.

"Hey!" I called out to her, standing up and banging my head on the low baggage racks. "Ouch."

"Hey." She smiled back and took a few steps closer. "Is your head alright?"

"Yeah, fine. Didn't hurt anyway." She laughed at that, and stepped forwards.

"Are you sure? That's a pretty nasty bruise there."

"What?" I ask.

"Here, I'll show you." She pulled something from her bag and handed it to me. "It isn't exactly a mirror, but it does the same job." I laugh and stare at the ticking clock face, at the enormous purple bulge on the top of my head.

"It sure does." I hand it back to her, and then notice my old backpack on the seat next to me. "Sorry. Did you want to sit here?" I shove it down under my seat and brush it off for her.

"Thank you." We sit in silence for a minute or so, and I can't help but sneak glances at her profile every few seconds. "Is something on my face?" She asks, turning to look at me, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Don't do that, you'll get wrinkles."

"I never want to be old and wrinkly. I'd rather live a super interesting life and die young, in some magnificent way."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yep. Like base jumping off of the Empire State Building or something cool."

"Really? Can you even do that?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to do it one day." And just like that, we became friends.

-:-:-:-

After that bus trip, Lacey and I started to talk more frequently. During lunch time she'd come over sometimes, and on Thursdays she caught my bus, to 'go and pick up my little brother from rugby'. We'd share our lunches, although I never really had any, so by the time the bus ride came around I was pretty hungry, and she'd always tell me how much of a fatty I'd be if I kept eating so much. One day, after about a month of us talking, we started talking about our families.

"Well Matthew, he's eleven. And then there's mum and dad, and my nan and pop live in Bingil Bay. What about you?" I had started coming to watch Matthew's football in the afternoons to keep her company, and we were sitting up on a branch of a Teatree, about fifty metres away from the showgrounds and ten from the Banyan Creek.

"Well I'm the youngest," it seemed I slowly fell for er more and more with every conversation. I loved the way that, no matter what we were doing, whenever I spoke both of her sparkling blue eyes would be focused entirely on me, her facial expressions mimicking mine as I told the story.