anonymous because I’m not drunk enough to say this with my name attached. My wife doesn’t know I liked her in high school. Not really. She thinks we barely crossed paths. I remember the fourth row by the window. I remember the flowers outside. I remember getting first in the class because seats were chosen by rank and I wanted the desk behind hers. The track meet injury was fake. I wanted her to help me walk to the nurse. That’s ugly. I know. It was also the only time, at seventeen, that I got to be close to her without inventing a better version of myself first. People say she was spoiled. Maybe. She should have been. She deserved the best things before I had any chance of becoming one of them.