My Friend Terrance

Chapter One

It was 2013 on a cold February afternoon. So cold, in fact, that I could feel the terrible and hellish cold breeze through my thick jacket. It had to be somewhere in between 30 and 40 degrees. Although at just 10 years old, there's no way that I could've been able to tell that.

It was now winter break, meaning that we would have from today (Thursday) to Monday without having to go to school. As a kid this excited me beyond human comprehension, it seems. Having to do schoolwork bored me to the point that it was most likely that I was bored beyond belief in every other universe that I existed in. It was just a theory, but it had to be true. But of course, these are just thoughts that I have in retrospect.

Terrance Powers lived about two streets over from me, making it about a 25 minute walk, mainly because our streets were so long, I made the walk anyway. Me and him had been acquaintances at school since kindergarten, but we never really took the time to get to know each other. On this day, though, he asked me if I wanted to come stay the night at his house. I happily accepted his offer because I hadn't had a sleepover since the first grade. In fact, it was the only sleepover that I ever attended.

I was pretty sure the only reason Terrance invited me over was because he thought I was truly interesting. That I shared a lot of the same interests as him. Although the main problem was, I sort of lied about most aspects of my personality in order to befriend him. As a 10-year-old, I didn't think that far ahead about what would happen if he found out that I lied about most things. I didn't start worrying about it until he was leading me down the hallway to his bedroom. it was one of the very few times that I felt nervous while being so young at the same time.

His house was a single story, and he led me through the side door to get inside because apparently nobody used the front door. There was a hallway in between the living room and dining room that led to his bedroom, along with his brothers bedroom, and his parents' master bedroom. There were also two bathrooms on this hall. His room was the first door on the right. His bed was dead center in the middle of the room, there was a nightstand with a lamp on top on the left side of his bed, and a shelf full of video games on the right side of his bed. Right in front of where he slept, was a desk with a small flat screen on it and an Xbox 360 hooked up to it.

Terrance was about 3 inches taller than me, at maybe 4 ft 8 in. Or at least that's my guesstimate from memory alone. He was a bit overweight, unlike me who only weighed about 65 pounds, I was so skinny that I looked as if I had recently escaped a concentration camp. Terrance looked more like a very wealthy king from the Roman Empire (basically a nice way of saying he was fat).

"Do you want to play COD zombies?" he asked with an infectious grin on his face.

This was where one of my lies was about to slip out into the open and turn me into a fraud. Well, what am I saying? I can't be turned into a fraud if I already am one.... I told him that I played a lot of Xbox games when in reality all I owned was a Nintendo DS. A DS Lite actually...and a Wii. I was a 10-year-old that played video games for five -year-olds.

His iPhone began to ring has soon as he asked me the million dollar question. This was clearly a blessing in disguise. While he spoke on the phone, I could come up with a way to distract him from completely blowing my cover....

I think back on this situation so many years later, and realize that if I was so worried that he would ditch me or make fun of me for not playing adult games, then I shouldn't have considered him a true friend. I was 10 though, how could I have known any better?

Maybe I could ask him to ride bikes, or teach him how to ride a skateboard, I thought. Maybe even watch a movie or some YouTube videos.

I was so terrified of him finding out about the real me.

At home I wasn't allowed to play any video games above an E for everyone rating. I was only allowed to own a DS and a Wii. Apparently an Xbox was made for violent video games for violent people (according to my parents). I started to realize that my lies would catch up with me, and I couldn't hide these things from Terrance forever. I would have to come completely clean to him. Maybe he would understand and not completely abandon me.

After about two minutes, he hung up the phone and turned around to face me. He began to speak.

"do you want to ride with me and my mom to pick up my friend Henry?" He asked.

"Sure" I began, "but who's Henry?"

He grinned. "You'll see"