#184 What Happened to Us

by Rowella Samuels

We smoked a lot when we were in high school and spent most of the days in exile in “the cage” with the girls from Mr. Francis’ room. Yeah we were bad kids, but we were the only ones who paid attention to what was really going on. I guess you could say we saw the light.

We were the most important things in that place, we were enigmas and we were cool. Now we’re business men and strippers and all that mattered then like losing your lighter or running out of condoms didn’t matter anymore. Now it was about who could hide their “other woman” from their wife the best. We never really grew up, we never realized how precious it was to be rich and fortunate. All we knew was life was too precious to waste studying Shakespeare’s most memorable works.

I met this girl named Scout, she was my “other woman”. She was nice, had a lot of potential. She was 20 and I was bridging 35. We were good together. But I had to go home to my wife. One day she got tired of waiting for me to stop leaving at night and to stay, and treat her like she deserved. She left.

Now I get it, now I remember why we smoked in school. Why we only worried about losing our lighters or running out of condoms. Why we were enigmas. Because sometimes the light was too dim and the pain was too much.

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