Out of all the days, why did the airport decide to be filled with every single person in the world today? I hated crowds as it was and trying to pick out one girl in this mess was going to be next to impossible.
Flight 134 out of Logan - destination: Austin, Texas. It was a JetBlue flight, terminal C. The flight leaves at 10:15. I checked my watch for the millionth time. It read 9:35. She’ll be boarding in no time if I can’t find her stupid gate! I checked the monitors. Flight 134: gate 23.
I made my way in that direction as fast as I possibly could, clutching the black box in my hand as I went. Kacey Foster meant more to me than I could say. We’d been through everything together: school dances, three years of middle school, three (almost four) years of high school, six years of being in productions, two years of newspaper as co-editors (four of them just being on the staff), and lastly, five years being in a relationship.
We’d known and been friends with one another since age 8. When we made it into middle school, we joined the drama club there. Our first roles were as members of Robin Hood’s Merry Men. We went to our first school dances and didn’t miss one since. We had an amazing time at all of them.
We made it to seventh grade, when we had our first (and completely innocent) kiss. Not many other people seemed to think so and we were pretty much the ship that our entire grade wanted to sail so much, that they said we were dating. This is where we started our relationship, even though it wasn’t true… but at the same time, Kacey and I agree that we did. We got our first roles as actual characters here - me as Macduff and she as Lady Macbeth. We loved it and Kacey found her niche: psychotic and deranged female villains. We also joined another production outside of school: the musical Oliver. I found out that Kacey could sing. She landed the part of Bet and I became Noah Claypole.
Eighth grade - finally we were the kings and queens of middle school. We helped run the drama club at this point and we nailed the roles of Wynona Elmsley and Desk Clerk in Hotel Escargot. Once again, we joined outside productions as well: Cinderella at the Hanover Theatre - as Jacques, the mouse and Anastasia, the wicked stepsister - and Midsummer Night’s Dream - as Nick Bottom and Titania. On our field trip to Washington DC, during our night tour, we found out how much we really loved each other. We decided that we were officially dating… though, nothing changed much. We were in middle school, so there wasn’t much to do in terms of dating, really.
High school brought on many things. We both loved to write and so we joined the newspaper. By junior year, we were running it. As freshmen, we joined the production of High School Musical as Sharpay and Ryan Evans. Kacey taught me how to sing that year. As sophomores, we were Violet Sneed and Henry VIII in A Night at the Wax Museum. We also started a well-liked, anonymous advice column in the paper: “Dear Friendly”. As juniors in Beauty and the Beast, we finally got the lead roles together as Belle and the Beast. Kacey was completely out of her comfort zone - being a sweet and nice Disney princess - but she was amazing, nonetheless, and she was more like herself. That was the best show I had ever been in and from then on, life was going exactly the way I wanted it to. I was inducted into the honor society, I was studying hard, hanging out with friends, going on dates with Kacey…
And then, I had my accident.
It was a hit-and-run on the way home from a friend’s house. The car rolled over my right leg and broke it… really badly. I became an amputee from the knee down. I go around in one of those Hoveround chairs. I stopped theater after that, much to Kacey’s disapproval. I lost a lot of my friends, mostly because now I couldn’t do things like ride bikes or skateboard; things that we used to do. Miraculously, Kacey was one of the only people I didn’t lose.
The gates were flying by: 19… 21… 23. And there she was, green eyes focused on reading a magazine. Her curly red hair was in a ponytail. I rolled over to her and she looked up, shocked.
“Ben?” she realized. I nodded. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you off,” I explained. “What? Did you think you were going to leave without a proper goodbye?”
She studied me for a few minutes. “You know, I would’ve guessed that you came to convince me not to go.”
“I love you more than anything,” I confessed. “But, I know that you have your own life to live.” I handed her the box I carried. “Just something to remember me by.”
Kacey stared at me curiously for a minute but then opened the box. It was a silver bracelet, laden with emerald beads. Hanging off the bracelet were three charms: a pair of theater masks, a quill pen, and in the center hung a picture of the two of us from last Christmas. She gasped when she saw that; it was our favorite picture.
“I… I don’t know what to say,” she managed.
And then, Kacey leaned forward to hug me and I returned it. I whispered, “Look in the box.”
She hadn’t even noticed the small piece of paper I’d slipped in. Kacey pulled it out and first read it silently. She teared up and I gestured for her to read it. Her voice was thick when she did. “‘Thanks for laughter, thanks for love. Everything you do is wonderful, everything you are is beautiful. You helped when I was hurt, you stayed when I needed it most. And that’s a debt I can’t repay. With all the love in the world, Benjamin D. Radcliff.’” She refolded the paper, holding back tears. “What the hell, Ben?”
I laughed and I took her hands in mine. “Love knows no boundaries, you know.” We kissed and the sound of the intercom saying that Flight 134 was boarding made us separate. Now, Kacey looked unsure but I gave her a reassuring smile. “Let me walk you to the gate.”
“Okay,” she said, starting to stand.
I stopped her and shook my head. “No, let me walk you.”
She looked confused and I produced a collapsible cane out of one of the side pouches in my chair. I unfolded it placed it firmly on the ground. Kacey informed, “Umm… you don’t have to-”
“But I will,” I insisted.
And for the first time in a long time - with some help from Kacey - I got myself to my feet (or rather, foot). I was able to hobble with her all the way to the gate; an impressive thirty feet. I watched her plane leave and went back to my chair, exhausted. I hadn’t walked in over a year, but I will always walk for Kacey.