Wish I Had Danced

Mine was not the epitome of angelic behavior in high school. Somehow, I managed to escape detection for the majority of my transgressions - I was, however, constantly in trouble for skipping school.

There were four of us - Melissa, Shelley, Becky and me - and it was so bad that if one of us missed school, the clerk would immediately check absentee records to see if any of the rest of us happened to be gone that day, too (pretty good trick when you consider that I graduated in a class of 300 - almost 1000 in the entire school).

Each morning, Melissa would pick us all up. Me, then Shelley, then Becky. One morning, we pulled into the parking space at school and just sat there. No one said a word.

Finally, I said, "We could just go have breakfast - skip first hour. Say we overslept."

That was all it took. We were gone for the rest of the day. We went shopping, had lunch, drove around and listened to the Butthole Surfers, Beck, Rage Against the Machine and The Doors, Melissa and Becky in the front seat and Shelley and me in the back.

So much fun.. so much acceptance.. so much love in that car. So much trouble when we got home.

If I had known that Shelley was going to die in 3 years, how different would that day have been? What would I have done to make it even more special - to make sure that I remembered it more than a decade later?

Would I have agreed to drive the "getaway car" after she stole the bottle of nail polish from Osco in Olathe? Would it have irritated me that she wanted to spend time with her boyfriend when it was supposed to be a girls only afternoon?

Would I have danced while we ate lunch, instead of doing my math homework? She danced with Melissa.. that's what she did. She was always dancing.

She died in the fall, and it makes me miss her even more when I see the leaves start to change. I wish I had danced.