Entering the sociology class after seeing Kenny made me feel like some kind of interrogator. My eyes just focused and locked in on him.
While we were looking for our seats Kenny turned around and spotted me.
My composure immediately switched from a stalking predator to a deer staring at the headlights of an oncoming car.
He came over to join me at the table I was thinking aboout sitting at.
He nodded his head casually at me. "Hey Alf! What's going on, bud? You in this class too?"
"Yup." I giggled a little too quickly. "I've been peachy. How about yourself"
"I've been doing good."
He took a seat at the table and I went ahead and sat down as well.
It's been a long time since I actually had a one-on-one conversation with Kenny. I just sat there awkwardly for a moment while trying to think of ways to re-break the ice.
"Hmm." I leaned back into the chair. "I can't remember the last time we had a class together."
"Right! I was just thinking that." He pointed at me with agreement. "We were in almost every single class together back in middle school."
I started to giggle. "It was also a very small middle school compared to the others."
"True." Kenny started to nod. "Very true."
"Good times though." I sighed having feelings of nostalgia.
"Yeah." Kenny drifted into that same sense of reminiscing.
The teacher had passed around the class syllabus for all of us to read while she was going over it. Becoming more anxious, I had to really push and get to what I wanted to know.
"Soooo." I started to tap and fidget with my pencil while I was quickly thinking of how to steer the conversation. approach. "Did you have a good Christmas break?" (Perfect.)
"Actually, I did." Kenny became very excited. "My family wanted to visit Wales for Christmas."
"Whales?" I was confused by what he said. "Where did you go to see the Whales at? Sea world or in the wild?"
Kenny burst into laughter. "No Alf—Wales. The county. As in Welsh."
"Oh! " I smacked my head feeling like such an idiot. "Yeah I knew that."
Kenny shook his head still laughing. "You dork."
I smiled, sheepish. I'd missed this banter.
My curiousity wanted to hear more about his trip. It was one of the many topics I liked especially after hearing the many stories from the Military kids that have traveled to many places around the world.
"So what all did you do there?" I asked.
"Oh dude, it was awesome." Kenny's excitement started to have him gesturing and painting an imaginary picture on the table. "It was green with some amazing landscapes. Very medieval looking, too. They have these old castles and ruins you can go visit."
"Lucky." I started to feel envious. Kenny's description was making me think of the kinds of places I'd seen in old Fantasy movies like Excalibur or visualized from stories like the Hobbit.
"That does sound awesome. It sounds like a place I could easily get lost at." I rested my face on my hand, looking gloomy.
(Furthest out of the country I have ever traveled was to some of old remote village in Mexico.)
"What about you?" Kenny observed how melancholy I looked. "Did you do anything fun during break?"
I slowly shook my head with no emotion. "Not really. Family stayed here and I did a lot of self reflecting. Just trying to get my head straight."
"I guess I was doing that too." Kenny became very insightful. "Going to Wales really did help clear some stuff out."
I peered over to him with one eyebrow raised high. "How so?"
"Well...." Kenny leaned back into his seat and crossed his arms. "You know Eli and Alonso from JROTC, right?"
I nodded leaning in attentively. "Yeah. They were the platoon leaders in the JROTC class I was in during freshman year. Those guys were pretty cool."
"Yeah them." Kenny nodded with agreement. "Late last semester, I started hanging out with them and they really got me thinking about my future. You know?"
"I do." I nodded remembering how clean cut and disciplined they were. "I know those guys are very well set and on their way to be NCOs once they finish the college level of ROTC."
"Yes. Exactly. They have a plan and a Future set." Kenny tapped his chest. "I don't. A looked at the rate I was going, and compared to them, I was running way behind." He aggressively tapped on the desk. "This semester, I'm picking up the pace. They even got me to join the Armed Drill team with them."
My eyes widened. "Whoa! Seriously. "
"Yeah. It's going to be awesome. I'm really looking forward to it." He relaxed into his chair.
The Armed Drill Team was no joke. Precision. Discipline. Long hours of spinning rifles in sync and marching like a well-oiled machine. That was the elite tier of JROTC.
"That's awesome," I said. "Bet CC's proud."
(There. Trap set.)
Kenny's face shifted. "Oh. Um… we split up."
"What? I thought you two were tight. What happened?"
"Its just...we were fighting a lot," he said quietly. "And… it changed me. I didn't like the person I was becoming. It was like I was falling from grace."
I raised an eyebrow, confused by the phrasing.
"I've even started going back to church. Trying to reconnect with Jesus, you know?"
I did know. Kenny was a very devoted Christian in middle school. He did the church camps, prayed before lunch, wore the "what would Jesus do" bracelets. The works.
"I loved her," he continued, "but I felt like she was pulling me away from all that.".
There it was. The reason. And something about it rubbed me the wrong way.
Breaking up over religion? That felt like a cop-out. A way to cover up something else — something he wasn't saying.
I wasn't overly religious, but I was raised to believe you love people as they are. CC might be a little gothy, a little dark, but she deserved someone who saw past that. Someone who understood her.
And then it hit me.
A theory. Maybe a paranoid one, but it made sense.
He's doing what my father did before all the fights at home started.
Kenny probably met someone else.
Maybe at church. Maybe in JROTC. And instead of being honest, he wrapped it in a bow of faith and discipline.
By the time class ended, something in me had shifted. I couldn't see Kenny the same way I used to. Not anymore.
CC was heartbroken — and for what? A guy who abandoned her in the name of self-improvement?
I couldn't fix it. But I could be there. Not as someone harboring a crush, but as someone who accepted her for who she truly was.
A real friend