Rewind (PAUSED)

Chapter 2: BFTWD

July 31, 1998

"You're all I ever wanted,

You're all I ever needed, yeah,

So tell me what to do now,

WHEN I WANT, YOU-"

I was on the front lawn, dancing and singing along to *NSYNC, when someone rudely interruped me on the last part of the song.

"He-ey!"

"-BACK!  What? Who said that?"

"Over here. I'm on the sidewalk. I'm not even that short. He-llo."

I whirled around. Girl on the sidewalk. Blonde, about my height.

"Umm, hi? What brings you here?"

"I'm Lydia. I moved into your neighborhood yesterday."

Really? No one told me we had new neighbors.

"Seriously? Oh. Well, welcome to the neighborhood. I'm Mia." I awkwardly held out my hand. What else was I suppose to do? Embrace the stranger?

She shook it. "Well, see you around!"

And that, my friend, is how I met my best friend. Pretty simple. And see you around is right. Starting the day after that, we spent every day of the rest of summer together. Well, except for this one day when I went back-to-school shopping, but whatever. 

Lydia was an interesting person. She talks to you like she's known you forever. Which is why it was easy for us to become best friends. Or BFTWD (Best Friends 'Til We Die). She also had an extremely good taste in- boys. Yup. She was boy crezeh, I'm telling you. And the boy would like her back. Lydia did have the looks. She was blonde, and average height. Pretty face, just the right skin tone. What guy didn't fall for her? 

As for me? I was okay, I guess. I wasn't as boy crazy as she was. I was just the average sweet girl. Listens to *NSYNC, reads books, has a nice family and a nice house and a nice dog. Lydia's life, as I soon found out, was hectic. Her parents were divorced, she lived with her mom, had a baby brother, and their front yard was a mess. But her spirit was like that of...well whatever spirit contains boy crazyness and outgoingness and adventurer-ness (as you can see, I need to expand my vocabulary).

You know, if I didn't meet Lydia, I would be like, a hermit crab. Those are those crabs that stay in their shell, right? I dunno. But yeah. I'd be really shy and socially awkward. I wouldn't be married to who I'm married to right now. I would live in an apartment with 30 cats. Or dogs. I like dogs better.

Anyway, Lydia was always there to advise me. About boys and my social life, of course. She'll tell me if a guy's checking me out. Even if we're at the grocery store. She'd whisper, "Mimi, that guy's checking you out like he's checking our groceries out." 

And you know how I kept saying she's boy crazy? Well, sometimes that gets in the way of things. Like this one time...you know, let's rewind again...

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Blaahrg. Stay tuned for the next chapter.

-M