Can you recall the happiness
Or get back the years?
Nights around the kitchen table
Saturdays in cars with myths and aspirations
Mouthing many secrets with useless connotations.
-A Reunion of Sorts; Sorry About Dresden

Keesha and Tim were a strange couple.

They knew it, and they didn't deny it.

It started in fifth grade, when they were the only one's in the same class. Everyone paired off that year, Wanda and Carlos were in the same class, as were Phoebe and Dorothy Ann, leaving Ralphie and Arnold stuck in the class they all had dreaded the possibility of being in.

Of course, Ms. Henry, their own teacher, seemed to be a smidgen on the racist side, and always paired them up for projects.

The two token black children partnered up. They were told they made a good team, but it didn't stop Keesha's mom from pondering, out loud, in front of Ms. Henry at a parent teachers conference late in the school year.

In retrospect, they did make a good team. He was good with the artistic elements of the projects and she could really buckle down and churn out those reports on whatever lame topic they were assigned.

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They started dating as almost a requirement.

It was the freshman formal, and the rest of the eight had paired up for the dance. They paired up awkwardly, not wanting to embarrass themselves by asking the person they really liked, so they settled on good friends who wouldn't let them down.

Phoebe managed to take Carlos, who was making puppy eyes at Dorothy Ann, who went with Ralphie, which positively infuriated Wanda, who went with Arnold, who wished he could have mustered up the courage to ask the lanky-limbed girl of his fancy, who had wished the same in return.

That left Tim and Keesha, who were just friends.

So it wasn't too awkward at first.

When the dance came around, they all met at the large house Arnold shared with his mother and father. It became quite apparent that, while Phoebe and Wanda were both relatively flat chested, and Dorothy Ann had a little bit of "meat on dem bones," Keesha had been hiding quite a bit under her sweatshirts and jackets.

That made it awkward.

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They started actually dating in their Sophmore year, discreetly.

They broke up and made up twice before anyone even found out.

They guessed that made them mature. Mature-er than their other friends, with secret kisses behind the school and quick touches at each other's cars after their after-school clubs.

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They were each other's firsts. It was sloppy and painful and they didn't know why everyone thought it was so fun, until they tried a second time, a few months later.

Then it was just sloppy.

-----

They applied to the same colleges, and they both managed to get into to ones that were close to eachother. That made them happy.

-----

Until, visiting, one night, Keesha caught Tim cheating on her.

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They broke up, then got back together, then she cheated, they broke up, they got back together.

They stuck it out.

They graduated.

He asked her to marry him.

She said yes.

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Tim and Keesha were a weird couple.

But they liked it that way.