The Incident
A moment of silence distracted Michael from the paper work, which seemed never to lose its way to his cluttered executive desk. Michael’s expression scrunched on his slim, masculine face. Tension and stress had placed knots of pain in his defined muscles. Muscles had been absent for most of his youth, though Michael had reached the height of 5’11” when he turned fifteen. As a teen, he had looked as if someone had placed him on a rack. His thin frame made him less appealing to girls in the small town high school from which he graduated ten years ago.
Only once had Michael been this tense or stressed about something. The one time occurred during his senior year in High School and involved the interest of two girls. The memory of that painfully nerve-racking week filled his mind and senses, taking him back to that first day of October at the homecoming dance on a cold Friday night.
Michael found himself in a dark cafeteria room, which also doubled as a gym. Bodies moved to rhythmic music, as lights roamed about from the disco ball borrowed by the Sophomore class who were hosting the dance). Black and purple streamers and matching balloons dangled above the dancing crowd. The scene was similar to every other year he had attended homecoming, except this time he had a date.
Student body president, along with being one of the most well-liked guys in school, Michael still had major problems with girls. After three weeks of building up enough gumption to ask someone out, Michael had finally nerved his lanky body to ask someone. Focusing on a sweet and reserved girl he was barely acquainted with in his drama class, Michael finally had gotten a date for the dance. Melissa was her name, a girl whose lack of attention from guys in the past had made her suspicious of Michael’s innocent intentions. Though she was actually cute and nicely built, Melissa held herself as if she were expecting the world to cave in on itself.
Both had started out the night excited and eager about the evening. However, the night had ended like a hammer dropped on the foot. At the dance Dana, another classmate told “Krack,” Michael, of her feelings for him. So shocked from such an unexpected development, Michael had forgotten about the date with whom he had arrived. Spending the last dance with Dana, he spun her about on the dance-floor and in his humorous way charmed her more.
For the longest, loneliest, time no one had expressed any romantic interest in the gawky boy. He kept his hair short to hide the curls, in his thick, brunette hair. Contacts replaced his dorky glasses, showing Michael’s deep brown eyes. His slight frame continued to make him insecure of his appearance. Simple things could shake his masked confidence and his compassionate heart would grip fiercely with guilt.
Guilt had lain heavily on his heart at the ending of that evening. Michael had not meant to hurt Melissa, but she was hurt and crying none the less. In his soft voice he had tried to apologize and make Melissa understand he never intended the sadness that occurred that evening. Michael tried in vain to make Melissa forgive him. Her grudge rooted deeply inside her, stronger than her reserved appearance. Drama class had become a tense and awkward situation with no way for Michael to fix it. The comfort of Dana becoming his girlfriend and bringing joy into his single life was not quite enough to leave the situation between Melissa and him in the past.
Then one day Melissa abrubtly forgave him. Out of the blue, she let him know that the grudge was gone. It almost seemed too good to be real. Curiosity so possessed him that Michael made a few inquires to Melissa’s friend Jane. A mind-boggling change in moods seemed worth some investigating. As it turned out, Melissa had received counsel from a man on the Internet, though Jane had been telling her the exact same thing since that very night of the incident. Though the tension had not completely gone, at least it had softened enough to allow Michael and Melissa to be in the same room. .They still spoke awkwardly to each other, especially if the topic of homecoming emerged, but at least they were able to talk. Their civility had amazed all 125 students of the combined high school and junior high school. The small town had known all that had happened and unfortunately how much both had been affected by it.
Micheal scarcely could believe Melissa’s decission to forgive him. The joy that had infused his heart still warmed him ten years later. Remembering the depths to which his spirit had sunk; then the precipitous heights to which his heart had flown still astonished him even today.
Just then Michael’s secretary walked in, her plump form waddling across the room. In her bare white arms was another pile of paper work. A groan escaped from Michael’s lips as more work was piled onto his overflowing desk. With one more batch even his planted palms next to his metal desk would be decorated by paper. When a good-humored laugh emerged from Michael his secretary’s strange look showed exactly what was on her mind: what was so funny about more work?
Michael had hoped that someone, anyone, would make his stress go away, as Melissa had with the “incident”. His wish was unlikely to be fulfilled. But he could hope, couldn’t he?