amber raze she had straight blonde hair and blue eyes, and a smile that made it seem like she was always telling herself some private joke that was a little bit dirty, a little bit corny, with enough staying power that she never tired of telling it. she was the first girl who really talked to me in high school. all my grade school friends went other places. i went to a school where everyone was a stranger to me until they weren't strangers anymore. she was the second or third stranger to become something more than strange, but she had an agenda. back then my handwriting was different from the mostly-caps-and-cursive hybrid it is now. i wrote straight cursive. i was good at it, too. she noticed. she talked me into writing a note to excuse her from class while we sat as far from the teacher as i would be from you if we were eating in the same restaurant right now and you were one table ahead of me. i didn't want to do it. i had a bad feeling. but she had that blonde hair and those blue eyes and that funny smile, and she knew how to plead and pout without seeming to do either. so i caved. "dear mrs. garringer," i wrote. "please excuse amber from class today at 9:30 as she has a doctor's appointment. thank you." i signed it "mrs. hughes", because amber said my writing was nice enough that it could pass for her mother's. there was no way mrs. garringer wouldn't recognize my penmanship. she'd graded enough of my papers to know my writing. my stomach sagged down to some sick place and i watched amber take the note i wrote, walk it over to the teacher's desk, and hand it over. mrs. garringer read it and gave amber a nod. off she went to smoke pot or whatever she did when she was cutting class. success. relief. a little bit of disbelief. too bad i can't write like that anymore. 140501 what's it to you? who go blather from