Together Again II Mat Barzal

Three: Mat

 Bela and I have been best friends since Kindergarten. If I'm being honest, I've always had a crush on her since then.

Ah, Kindergarten. One of the easiest and most fun years of my life. That was the year I met Bela. She was different from the other girls and she knew it. All of the annoying girls wanted to be her friend because of course, Bela was the prettiest girl in the grade. Bela knew that she didn't want to be with those girls. They weren't good enough for her. Hell, I wasn't even good enough for her, but she stayed with me anyway. I was glad that she did because she is the best thing to ever happen to me.

I remember when we were about seven years old and she was sitting alone at recess. Nobody had any friends on the first day of school, not even me. I asked her if she wanted to play with my new football.

"Football?" She asked.

"Yeah, it's fun!" I said.

"Okay," She smiled, getting up.

I threw her the ball. It landed right between her feet.

"You're supposed to catch it!" I laughed.

She picked up the ball and threw it to me like it was a baseball. She had no idea how to throw it and I thought it was the cutest thing ever. I went up to her and showed her how to throw it.

"See these white things?" I asked.

"Yeah," She said.

"Hold it like this," I showed her as our hands touched.

Granted, this was Kindergarten, and we knew nothing about love. I just knew I wanted to be her friend for a long time.

Towards the end of recess, I taught her how to throw pretty well for a Kindergartener but apparently not how to catch. I threw the ball and it hit her face and gave her a bloody nose. She ran to the teachers and they rushed her inside. I felt so bad after that. I thought she was never gonna speak to me again. I was surprised the next day when she came back to do it again.

I only gave her two bloody noses in our lifetime together, both were in Kindergarten with a football. You'd think that she'd learn her lesson and not play with me but I guess she had a good time.

Then there was the time in middle school when I skipped class. I was a fucking idiot at the time and it ended up giving me detention, but the price was worth it.

I asked to go to the bathroom and just wandered out to the football fields. Luckily, no one caught me. I hung around under the bleachers where I asked Bela to meet me during her lunch break. We sat together for a while and before she left, I kissed her. I didn't even know if it was a good kiss or not because we were in Middle School. Honestly, I thought it was good.

Back in Middle School, neither one of us was allowed to date, so we just stayed friends until our Senior Year of High School.

Middle School was weird too, I didn't see much of Bela. I was super busy with hockey and she was in the middle of soccer. She ended up making really good friends with this girl named Shreya. She was super nice and real smart. To be honest, I was kinda jealous of her. I didn't want her to be friends with Bela if I was slowly fading out. I told Bela about it and she wasn't mad at me. She loved us both, which I found kinda weird, but whatever. She told me to make friends with Shreya because she was friends with her. I ended up getting to know her and I couldn't stand her at first. She was literally the opposite of Bela which made her super unbearable. The only thing I liked about her, though, was her ability to roast the hell out of someone. People used to call her Varsha which was nothing remotely close to Shreya, and she had the guts to call them a dumbass bitch. I gave her props for that one, because honestly, I wouldn't have even done that. Since then, we've just roasted each other and made fun of each other. That was our friendship. Bela found it weird, but she didn't understand. Shreya and I were good friends and deep down we could actually get along, we just didn't want to.