“I like you,” I told him.
“I like you, too,” he replied.
“No, I like you, like you,” I said.
“OK fool. I know,” he said.
We stared at each other for a second before going back to playing with our action figures, until my aunt said it was time for dinner.
During the last days of summer, he and I hung out as always. The night before the first day of school, he said, “I want to give you something.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring, his mother’s. It was gold with a medium-size amber stone in an oval basket setting. The ring was so tiny that even as a child, though a chubby one, I could fit it only on my pinkie.
The next day he and I walked to school together. Once at school we went to our different classes but I was still wearing the ring. That whole morning I played with it, waiting for lunch and recess. This would be the next time we’d see each other.
I got my lunch tray and sat down to eat, spotting L. in the sixth-grade section. I waved at him from across the room. He smiled widely, just enough to expose a chipped left incisor, and he gave me a soldier’s salute and sat down. I smiled and turned to my lunch.
As I picked up my spork to eat, I looked at the ring on my left pinkie and began to daydream of our beautiful summer together. My daydream was interrupted by the voice of a classmate, the school gossip. She was an adolescent Black Barbara Walters, full of questions. Once she set her sights on you there was no escape.
