Courtney Khail “Last Day Of Play” Original painting, 18”x24”, watercolors, inks, and graphite on paper. Part of the 2022 Sugar & Vice Collection
Courtney Khail “Last Day Of Play” Sugar and Vice In Process photo
Last Day of Play
For his tenth birthday, my friend Andrew had a slumber party.
Andrew and I had been friends for as long as I could remember. We went to Pre-K together, then elementary school- arranging our red and blue mats side by side for naptime and challenging each other to four square battles at recess. He was apparently my first kiss- outside our K-4 classroom back when kisses invoked nothing besides a fear of catching cooties. (I say apparently because neither of us could recall if it actually happened, or if it was just a repeated story told by our parents until it became accepted family folklore.)
I was the only girl invited to the party, a guest list primarily made up of boys from our fourth grade class. We played tag, ate cake, and trampled in and out of his house on Johns Road. Around dinner time, my mom came to pick me up. The invitation for me to stay over was extended, but my mom declined. (In the car she ended any further discussion stating it wouldn’t be appropriate because I was a girl.)
Summer break started soon after and by the following school year I felt everything had changed. I was no longer “one of the boys,” dropped from the world of freeze tag and double dog dares right into the unfamiliar world of butterfly clips and glitter lip gloss.
If I would have known that would be my real last day of play, I wouldn’t have let go so easily.