Youth!

What Now?

Claire telling me "Don't be a stranger" was probably a prediction for the future, because that was the last time we ever talked. When somebody moves away, especially to somewhere as far as Washington, which is literally the opposite corner of the map, you tend to make a promise between y'all that you will still be friends despite the distance. As time goes on though, everybody gets caught up in whatever their life brings them, they make new friends, see new things, and have new responsibilities. Although you may never be able to forget old friends, life just gets in the way and makes it hard to stay connected. In my case with Claire, I really don't know what exactly happened.

At first when she moved, I maintained contact with her for a bit. She told me that she was just getting settled in Seattle, met her roommates, and was enjoying the outdoors. Apparently, there's a good amount of stuff to do there if you like the outdoors, and Seattle isn't too far from the water which is nice considering it was summertime. So, I was happy for her. Hell, I was always a big fan of the outdoors, I was just never able to really experience it to the fullest because I was broke and my friends weren't really into that stuff. Washington sounded like the type of place I'd like to visit when I got older. Beautiful views, mountains, lakes, hills, just a whole lot of land, as she explained. One day, I gave her a call, and she didn't answer. Not thinking anything of it, I shrugged it off deciding that I would just call her back later on. I called her again days later, after not hearing anything back, and still I did not get a response. This time, I decided to text her.

Hey, just wanted to see how you're doing, things are going good for me! I decided I may as well give college a try, so I'll be doing the same thing as you! Call me back when you can cuz I'll be waiting :)

And I left it at that, because after a while my hopes of her responding thinned out. I couldn't really be mad or assume she was ignoring me, because she hadn't posted anything on her social media since she had just got there, and she was probably just focused on settling and everything that was going on. As time went on though, I just got the feeling that I wasn't gonna hear from her. I even went as far as to follow one of her friends from that little barbeque to ask about Claire. The girl, whose name was Katelyn, followed me back almost immediately and to my surprise, dm'd me "hey!" We had a little conversation, and I asked about how Claire was doing, and she replied that she hadn't heard from her since around the same time I last talked to her. That was weird. This girl was supposed to be one of Claire's main friends for years, yet she was just as out-of-the-loop as I was. It was at that point that I decided the only thing I could do is live my life waiting for her to respond in the back of my mind. Katelyn and I continued to text for a bit, and we even talked on the phone occasionally, and would go on to be friends. I would share my writings with her and she thought that I was pretty good! As time went on, I found myself thinking about Claire more and more at random points in my days. Without her around, what was there to do? There was the rest of summer ahead with plenty of fun to be had, but I didn't know how to spend it. When I saw Jake, he asked me about her.

"So what happened with that chick..... Her name was....um..." "Claire?" I finished for him. "Yeah, yeah, the one who's tent you went into that one night." He said. He laughed, as he took a pull on the joint and passed it to me. It was around 6 pm, we were chilling by the train tracks in garden city waiting to hop on the train and go to the beach. "She never responded to me. I told him. "Damn she got you on read bro? He replied. I laughed and coughed so much from the weed burning my throat. "Yeah, she hasn't gotten back to me." I said. He scratched his chin."Damn, you should just forget about her, she has a new life to worry about and you have yours." He said. Jake ashed the first joint before pulling out the bong. "We smoking well today, so you can forget about that. She didn't even look good man, you can do so much better!" He said. I tightened up immediately. "Man, just shut up." I said. Those words alone spoke volumes, he stopped talking after that until we boarded the train. "Man, I was just kidding, don't kill me! "He said as we stepped through the doors. Even though I didn't want to admit it, Jake was right to an extent. Even though in a short period of time I was able to grow close with this girl, I had to carry on. She made life so interesting, I had someone to look forward to talking to and hanging out with, which spiced up my boring life. Still, I had to carry on. Even though I blocked Claire off my phone right in front of Jake so I would stop thinking about her, I would later end up unblocking her, but I didn't tell him about that. "Talk to people at this function man. It'll take your mind off of it." He laughed.  "Oh, and get drunk too! It's mad easy talking to people when you're drunk, am I right?" He said, as he nudged me. I couldn't help but burst out laughing as the train took a dip towards Long Beach station. There was nothing to be stressed about, nothing at all.

That summer ended up being one of the best ever. Jake and I went to that party on the beach with kids from our school where we met a whole bunch of new people from different parts of Long Island. So for the rest of the summer, we spent our days hopping on the train everyday heading out east to hang out with them, skate, go to parties, play basketball, and smoke a lot of weed. I even tried acid with them one day and ended up on the edge of a hill at least a hundred feet up, and everyone had to pull me back so I didn't fall to my death. It was so fun!!! I was seventeen with only a couple months to go, so I decided to make the most of it. While at the beach one day, which was really just a lakeshore, one of the guys Chris, looked over my shoulder to see what I was doing on my phone. I hid it immediately, but he saw it, so he asked me about it. I was going through pictures from months ago, and came across a video of us at the mall where Claire was trying on some shoes. "OOH, who's that?" He asked with a grin, this kid was high as shit. I showed him the video, in which you could clearly identify her. "Yo, yo, yo!! I know her!" He exclaimed, to my surprise. "Really, you know Claire?" I asked. I got excited, maybe he was friends with her and could help me figure out what happened? {Should've known better.} "Yeah, I used to hit that. Easiest box." He said with the most shit eating grin, like he was flexing something. The smile on my face disappeared. As if on instinct, a switch flipped in my brain, and I pointed my finger in his face. "Yo, shut up." I said. He was clearly taken aback. "Woah Woah, chilI man, I was just joking. I don't even know her." He said, laughing but still looking somewhat intimidated. I calmed down, realizing what I had just done and my temper returned to normal. "Alright, whatever. My bad." I said. It got awkward after that. "Hey, you ladies gonna keep gossipping or come take a dip! The water feels amazing!" Jake exclaimed, having the time of his life in the lake. I put my phone in my bag and laid it down on the sand. We looked at each other, and dapped each other up to show that there were no hard feelings, before hopping into the water. To this day I still don't know if he was serious or not. It wouldn't be that hard to believe, Chris did say he knew some people from Lakewood High School and Claire did have her way of getting around. Regardless, there was no reason for me to care, even if he did and it was stupid to get heated over something like that. I deleted that video from my phone as soon as we got out of the water. It angered me that she had just basically ghosted her old friends, for no reason. Yeah, she has other stuff to worry about at her new home but not even answering people who love you and care about you is fucked up. I've barely known her compared to her other friends, but people she's known for her whole life she can't even make an effort to communicate with? It's unbelievable. I cried a few times over it but eventually I learned to get on with my life, and despite Claire and our friendship being in the back of my head for a while, I had to keep going.