Her

I used to ride the train home from Kindergarten at the same hour that the high schoolers took the 1 train back uptown. I was about... four feet, clinging to a pole and looking up at giants. There was a girl in skinny jeans and bright white Nikes. She had the most perfect curly hair that was always perfectly tousled and was wearing gold hoops, and a backpack thrown over her arm. The subway car would be packed in tight, so that everything was dark at my height - people's legs and bags. So I would just look up at her, with the perfect hair and the perfect look, surrounded by her girlfriends who were laughing, and she was laughing too, a big beautiful smile, with gum tucked in the back. And in front of her was some guy leaning against the subway door, flirting with her and she just kept laughing back. And these people were in some realm of superiority, which seemed like perfection, and where everyone should land in by the time they were teenagers. At that age, being a teenager, was one notch below a deity. It was a place I dreamed of, when I would be at the peak of life and freedom and identity. And beyond that, when I had my identity, I knew exactly who I would be. I wanted to be her.