The One He Let Go

Dean

        So the dorky kid of the neighborhood-his name was Jimmy, and uh, well, Jimmy was getting picked on by some of the other neighborhood kids and that wasn't okay with me. I mean, hell, even today, if anyone gives Jimmy a hard time, that ain't okay with me.

        Ever since that first day I told those other kids to beat it and leave the kid alone, I think Jimmy and I have kinda sorta became, well, pretty good friends. You can say it was the start of a beautiful friendship. Well, that wasn't exactly the start of it. If it was, it'd be a pretty rocky start. Now that I think about it, I didn't even know it was gonna become a friendship. I didn't even want it to at first, 'cause I mean, it wasn't that big a deal, telling those dickbags to leave the poor guy alone, but man, Jimmy wouldn't let it go; always told me he owed me something. Told him, "All right, buy me a burger and we're square," but that apparently wasn't enough. He wouldn't leave me alone, so I was stuck with this kid just following me around like a big blue-eyed puppy and he'd do all these favors for me. And I kept asking him to do them for me hoping he'd eventually just say we're even and he'd leave me alone, but I could never shake him off, so I just went along with it, hoping we'd get to that day where I'd ask him for that one favor that'll finally make things square between us, according to him anyway. I thought we were way past it at that point. We ended up hanging out a lot because of all that and he actually turned out to be pretty cool. I didn't think he owed me anything then. We were buddies and buddies just do things for each other. I even forgot that he never officially said we were even.

        It wasn't until that one day we were tossing a football back and forth and I told him to go long. He ran, went pretty deep, but I miscalculated and hit a window. I started to book it outta there pretty fast. I was even telling Jimmy, "Run, you idiot, run!" But that weird little kid was running toward the house whose window I hit. I was thinking, what the heck is wrong with this guy? I hid by the side of the porch to see what Jimmy was gonna do. It turned out to be his pastor's house. I didn't know that, and I didn't know how he knew that. I didn't even know he went to church, but that's besides the point. Jimmy went right up to that guy's front porch, took the fall for me, and he didn't even get it trouble! I think I even heard the pastor say, "thank you." It was weird. When Jimmy hopped off the guy's porch, the first thing he said was, "Dean, we're even." So he knew I was around, but it didn't look like he was gonna come look for me. He was just leaving. Then it hit me. I'm not gonna lie, I felt pretty guilty. It's like he knew I never really was looking to be friends after that whole bullying incident with the neighborhood kids, but that's not exactly what was going on. I didn't expect to become friends with him, but hey, it happened. Okay, I'll admit, I didn't wanna be friends with him either, at first, but things changed after we hung out a lot. I actually kinda got used to him following me around, and we had good times. It was like having a little brother, and I can't just let my little brother go like that. So what did I do? I went after him. And that was the start of a beautiful friendship.