Wind Nearing Dusk: Childhood Sweethearts

The first time they met, she didn’t even get a clear look at his face. A pack of wild boys were kicking a ball around the sports field after study hall, and one of them accidentally sent it flying into a girl’s head. She stared at her friend, dazed from being hit, and felt dazed herself... Seven or eight boys ran over. He was one of them. Years later, she sat alone on a train. His number was on her phone, and she kept tapping to block the call, then canceling it, over and over... But he never called her. She opened her dust-covered message book and wrote: If youth were a song, I’d hope it could be sung forever, telling the story of our past. If youth were a poem, I’d hope it could be passed down forever, preserving what we once had. If youth didn’t have to end, I’d want to live true to myself.