Northern Lights

I had been going to St. Terrance my whole life. I started in preschool and I’m still here as a freshman in high school. They call the few of us “lifers”. Lifers, who have been here since preschool, know the campus better than anyone and sometimes, they have a new student shadow you to show them around. I had never gotten a shadow until today. I was called into the admissions office to meet my shadow. I walked in and there was this beautiful girl sitting in the recruiter’s office.

“Chase! So glad you’re here. Meet your shadow Chloe!”

When she turned around, three words went through my mind: oh… my… god. She was this tall beautiful girl. She was about 5”10, with long blonde hair that went just atop her shoulders, blue swimmable eyes, and an athletic hourglass figure that perfectly complimented her personality. How did I get so lucky?

“Hi Chloe, I’m Chase,” and I held out my hand.

“Hi Chase, nice to meet you,” and she shook my hand.

“Awesome. Glad you guys are clicking.” Said Catherine, the head of admissions.

“Yeah haha. Ready to go Chloe?”

“Yes! Let’s get started.” And we headed out of the office.

“So, any questions before we get started with classes?” I asked.

“Yeah. Any people or groups I should avoid?”

“Haha not that I can think of. As long as you stick with me, you’ll be ok.”

“Ok.”

We spent the first week just walking around campus and getting to know each other. After the shadow program was over, we still kept hanging out and we became the best of friends. As we became better friends, we even started hanging out outside of school. After 3 months of friendship, I finally brought her to my house to watch a movie.

“Hey mom and dad. This is my best friend Chloe. Chloe, these are my parents.”

“Nice to meet you Chloe. I’m Paul and this is my wife Nicole.” Said my dad.

“Nice to meet you too. Chase and I were going to watch a movie here. Is that ok? I haven’t seen Star Wars and he insists that I see it.”

“Totally fine with us. How did you guys meet?”

“We met through the shadow program at school and when it was over, we just became friends.”

“Glad to hear it. You guys enjoy the movie.”

I set up the movie, dimmed the lights in the living room, and pressed play on the silver DVD player. About halfway through the movie she put her head on my shoulder. I didn’t really react or think too much of it. Then, she held my hand and we interlocked fingers. That’s when I felt something for the first time. Feelings for my shadow, feelings for my friend, feelings for the girl I met 3 months ago. My heart started to race, my skin started to tingle, and I took a deep breath and turned to look at her and she turned and looked at me and our eyes locked. That’s when she whispered to me, “Don’t ruin it,” and she put her head back on my shoulder.

I had to think about it for a second, but I knew what she meant.