Say When

Say When (2)

Forever didn't last long for Tianna and I. Like most elementary school friendships, we started off high school together, swearing that we would be friends for the rest of our lives, and then got put in different classes and lunches (she, the lucky one as I considered her in the beginning, got put on Lunch A with most of the popular kids and I on B). It was like a drawn out breakup of a long distance relationship - at the beginning, we'd call and text every night that we couldn't be together, drawing out every little detail of our day and whatnot, and things were good. And then she started skipping answering my calls, and I realized that was okay with me, and eventually, we stopped talking altogether when I said a metaphorical Rest in Peace to the girl who'd been my best friend for as long as I could remember.

We actually held her a mock funeral, sitting on the floor of the Captain's bedroom (the Captain's real name was Cooper Colonol, but after deciding that Cooper sounded like a dog's name and he was not a dog but the leader of the little group I hadn't been a part of at that time, he rechristened himself at the tender age of eleven years old). We lit candles, the Captain (who was playing the priest) accidentally-on-purpose set a picture of the two of us hugging and smiling on fire, and then we drank half of a bottle of vodka to drown our sorrows.

Oasis, an interesting character who got bored fast and found a way to cure it faster, then led us on a mission (that the Captain quickly took over) in the neighbourhood, first to the corner store to buy eggs and then to Pigeon's house (her real name was Abigail, but Oasis, God bless her drunken soul, insisted we use code names), where we laid on the roof and used one of her bras to slingshot eggs at Tianna's window.

Our first year of high school passed by as quickly as school can for someone who couldn't care less, and then we hit the summer. I turned fifteen, at which time the Captain and Oasis took matters into their own hands to learn how to drive the Captain's brother's car and at which time we all got grounded from seeing each other and had to sneak out to keep each other entertained, and we spent our first summer as a whole getting into trouble, finding ways to get ourselves out of trouble, and repeating the process all over again.

Fifteen days before school started again, I was debating on whether or not to wear a new skirt that I had gotten over the weekend (on one hand, it was cute and would look good with my outfit, but on the other, the Captain would have no mercy and would made me climb fences and flash the world if I wore it) to an emergency meeting called by Oasis.

A knock on my window exactly three and a half minutes after I'd gotten the original call made me decide the skirt could wait - this was important. From outside the window, there was a scream. "Zoe! How long can you take?"

"Come in," I called back as I wriggled into a pair of jean cutoffs. The window, which I always left cracked open an inch, slid open and a tall, golden-skinned girl wrestled her way past the curtains, sliding to the beanbag chair with a thump in a tangle of braids and limbs.

"Hurry!" Oasis urged, jumping to her feet as I pulled my dark red hair from the neck of my black tank top. "This is too important to wait and too long to tell twice, let's go!"

I rolled my eyes and opened the door to the hallway. "Well, come on then, we're going to be late!" I mocked, making her grin as she darted past me, clomping down the stairs. "Hey, Mama Walker!"

"Hi, Oasis," Mom called back. "Zoe, are you going somewhere?"

"To the Captain's," I answered, shoving my feet into a pair of black vans. "Ill be back later, I'll text if I'll be back for dinner!"

"You'll be back for dinner," she shouted back. I rolled my eyes before following Oasis out the door. "Right, where are we going?"

She was already at the end of the driveway, bouncing on her toes. "Pigeon's. Could you hurry up?"