Her black hair fell gently about her shoulders, glinting a strange blue as some light broke through the fog and shone in from the window. Her bright blue eyes watched the unchanged dirt path beyond her window. The trees on the sides of the path have grown much over the past years. Their branches, seeming to tire of their weight, were trying to touch the ground below them.
Ten years, she thought. Her arms were wrapped around her legs. She sighed, her mind busy but moving slowly; her thoughts full but empty. She couldn't think, though she tried, so she gave in. She laid down on her side with her arms still around her legs. School. It was coming soon she knew, but this would be the first time she had ever been to school. Before hand she was home schooled, but now her parents thought otherwise of their decision. They were both too busy to teach her, and online school didn't seem interactive enough. The worse thing to her about going to school was the fact that she was going to start it in the fourth quarter. No previous experience of how everything worked in a timed schedule.... As far as I know this would be like the first day of kindergarten... first time... no idea.... This may not be as fun as Trisha had said it would be. “Trisha?” She hadn't talked or even thought about her for ten years. Not since she left.
Angela knew what her parents would think, what they already thought. They thought Trisha was just Angela's early age imaginary friend, and that she had had one because she didn't have any real friends to play with. Trisha was the only friend she had needed. Even now with Angela being sixteen years old, somehow Trisha still seemed real to her. If she was imaginary, wouldn't I have forgotten about her already? Was she real? The thought always plagued her mind. Especially today, in the spring and on the same day Trisha had left her behind. She left me....
Her mom drove her up to the school in her red mini-van. “This is pretty much pointless coming so late in the school year,” Angela said. Her mom turned her head to look at her. “We should have waited until the next year instead.”
“I know,” she replied, “but your father and I are busy with the divorce and work and a whole crap load of other things. Neither of us have enough time to teach you now, so you'll have to make up the time here. Online courses don't seem appropriate to either your father or I. That's at least something we can agree on.” Her voice cracked in the middle of that last sentence and she cleared her throat. “Besides, this is a chance for you to make friends. Real friends. Both your father and I have reaped this chance for you for too many years, and we're both sorry we had. It's time we did something right even if it may be a little late planned. We finally did something right together other than the divorce.” She smiled weakly.
“Mom,” she began, “Do you feel sad about you and Dad getting a divorce?”
“Your father... well, John and I really loved each other, and we were even closer when you were born.”
“What happened to change that?”
“We....” she shrugged, unable to find the words to say. “Well, I don't know. It seemed to have been here one day and then gone the next. It just... disappeared. Your father and I are still close, and I'm sure we always will be. We still love and care for one another.”
“Why are you leaving each other then if you are still in love?” Angela couldn't understand her mother.
“We're not in love anymore.”
“But you just said –”
“We love each other, but we're not in love. We're best friends, but not lovers. I don't think that will ever change and maybe it was never there to begin with.”
She saw the bitter-sweetness look in her mother's eyes. She was shocked. She could hardly believe what her mother just told her. She had never been in love with her father? How could she miss something so substantial as that? Her mom even looked lighter. Happier. The same look even her dad still held in his eyes. She knew that between the three of them nothing was likely to change, even as everything around them is changing.
