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⚯ ͛
Growing up, there was a lake nearby my house that only I knew about.
I stumbled upon it one day at the age of six when my dog, Skittles, decided to run into the trees behind our house, leaving me to find him ten minutes later swimming. Mum and Dad thought I had gone mad when I told them about it, and honestly, I thought I had too at first. But, when I went back the next day, it was still there. And it was there the next, and the next, and the next.
It's just that I was the only one who could see it.
And Skittles, of course.
When I tried to show my parents it, though, it would vanish. We would just be wandering in the forest for half an hour before they would decide to either give up or pretend they see it too for my sake. But, if I were to try to find it again an hour later, it would be right out in the open.
At first, I would only go to the lake after chasing Skittles, but as the weeks went on, I started using it as a personal hideout. I had managed to build a pretty decent treehouse, or decent for a six-year-old, and brought over pillows and blankets and books and practically anything I desired to the lake. By the time I was seven, the lake was mine—and Skittles's. It was my hideout, my clubhouse, my reading nook, my personal paradise.
And then one day, a random boy just walked right into the clearing.
I didn't know it was possible—for other people to know of the lake, that is. But there he was, with messy black hair and crooked glasses, wandering around my lake.
When I first saw him, I hid behind one of the nearby trees to spy on him, thinking about what my next move should be to get this stranger away from my lake. Skittles didn't think to do so. Instead, he sped past me and straight to the boy, causing him to fall at the impact. I watched as Skittles licked the stranger's face, and the boy in return laughed and began petting my dog. His laugh made me smile, so I decided to come out of my hiding place.
I later learned the boy's name was Harry.
Harry came back the next day. And again the day after.
During school term, we would only see each other on the weekends, but the summer was ours. We would leave our houses early in the morning and wouldn't return until sunset. Our days by the lake were spent reading books we brought each other, climbing the surrounding trees, swimming, and telling stories about our lives or what we wanted our lives to be like one day.
One day, when we were both nine, Harry admitted to me that I was his first-ever real friend, and after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that he was mine too.
It's sad thinking back to that moment, realizing now, that that was the last day I would ever speak to him.
Weeks leading up to that day, Harry and I decided to build boats out of fallen tree branches and grass, so we could race each other across the lake on them. I took a couple of days longer than Harry to build mine, but that was only because I wanted my boat to be perfect. Harry just knotted together any branches he could find and called it a boat. But, mine was actually a boat.
