Premonitions - part 1

It happened again last night and it has me scared. The first time it happened was when I was 18 years old and prior to last night, it's only happened twice since.

Everything had been going great my senior year. The football team had gone undefeated to win state as underdogs. Between my legs as halfback, and my best friend's arm as quarterback, we pretty much carried the season. Same thing in basketball, I'd bring the ball down the court and pass underneath to Matt, our power forward, who would put it in. Matt got most of the recognition with 1st team All-State honors in both sports, while I only made 2nd team. Still pretty cool in my book.

Both of us had been dating the two hottest girls in school for most of the year. Matt was dating Amber, the head cheerleader, and I was dating Angie, the captain of the volleyball team. Our relationships looked to last, at least to a couple of high school kids. We planned on asking our girlfriends to marry us on graduation night, although the girls didn't know it at the time.

School was going great. Having just aced my last history test, I was able to slip by Matt in the race for Valedictorian. It was going to be one of us to get the honor at the end of the year as 3rd place was far enough behind that neither Matt nor I was worried about it.

Seeing how the year was going for us, I'm sure it will be no surprise when I tell you that we were always invited to the popular parties. It surprised us, though. Matt and I regularly talked with the A/V Club kids, hung out in the computer lab all the time, and although we were never good enough to get parts, we always helped the Drama club build their sets. We hung out with the so-called 'uncool' kids often enough that it came as a shock to us when the school newspaper named us among the popular kids.

It wasn't just our senior years that were going well. Our futures seemed to be falling into place as well, albeit along different paths. Matt had received a full ride scholarship to Oklahoma University for football and basketball, and I received scholarships to Vanderbilt due to academics and football.

I should have known it would never last.