Not much I remember, not much worth remembering. Except, one image, forever burned into my mind, of a small clue of a mystery revealed, as if a tiny miracle had occurred for someone and I was tasked to be a witness to it.
Freshman PE. Mostly a lot of waiting, running, short activity, waiting. They'd try to keep us segregated as much as possible, girls to one area, boys to another, to avoid us mixing too much. Not that I knew how to mix. Sometimes it wouldn't be possible due to scheduling constraints, so we'd all just be lined up on two sides of a corridor. Once, we were all outside, in a grey overcast sky light drizzle, two sides of a dirty asphalt driveway between buildings, too far apart for even talking without shouting, which no one wanted to do. A lot of waiting, and people would just slouch, sit down. I remember sitting along the wall and happen to notice, along the far wall, a girl I'd never noticed before. She sat down across from me, smiled, and then slowly drew her legs up to her chest, her knees right below her breasts, tugging on the back of her shoes out of boredom. Nothing out of the ordinary. No one else around or anyone walking past would think it strange or unusual. But as she slid her feet out to the sides, the front of her PE skirt, draped over her knees lifted, so that I, just at my angle and elevation, could notice. Framed by her dark socks, and the red top and bottom of her skirt, a glimpse of a narrow white stripe of panties, too narrow it seemed, as they were within the grasp of the dark red lips that engulfed it, and the maze of fine hairs that threatened to escape from all corners under it. A show, mainly I think more for her than for me. Possibly I didn't really see as much as I imagined. Certainly I didn't understand it at the time, though she probably did; I just had a feeling. A few minutes later it was all over. Nothing more ever happened.
