Friend always has an end. At least Timothy Williams and I are going to find that out. We had been best friends ever since my family moved down the street when I was four years old. Now we have come so far. We are in our freshman year of Beacon Hills High School and it feels like the best weather to welcome us in, ready to move forward. Timothy and I walk through the doors are towards our lockers and I hear, "Hey Timothy! Angela! Wait up!" We turn around to see Marcus Andrews, the captain of the lacrosse team speed walking towards us. I look at Timmy and he looks at me as if we were thinking the same exact thing. "Why is he running to us? He is considered one of the populars so why would he be talking to us." Once he got to us, he told us that Timothy had gotten accepted into the lacrosse team. We both jump and hug each other. I say to Timothy "This is great! Now you're not gonna get all popular and forget about me, you hear me now." Timothy just laughs and says "No way! Forever and always, remember." That's the thing that worries me, what if he does get all popular and forgets about me? I get pulled out my thought by Timothy pulling me towards our lockers.
As the day goes by like it normally does, I can't get that thought out of my mind. What if the popularity does get to his head, what if he forgets about me? Maybe "Forever and always" won't be as long as we thought. My mind is on overdrive, so it's like I'm a plane on autopilot just being automatically steered to my next route. I walk down these light blue halls with gray floors, just thinking. SUDDENLY Timothy is in my face, shaking my shoulders as if I had been unconscious, "Hey hey! Are you in there? I need to tell you something already so I can go! I have to meet with the guys after school to hang out, so I can't meet at your house today." As I hear that, my heart sinks like an anchor weighing down a ship, I think what if he really does forget me, what if this is only the beginning. Once I realize that he was still talking, I immediately push those thoughts to the back of my mind. "-so that's ok right? I just wanted to see if I can get close to them before the season starts. You're not mad, right?" My mouth can't even form words so I just quickly nod my head. Timothy's still looking at me as if my forehead had said I was lying. NEVERTHELESS he decides that it's a good enough answer and he walks off to the end of the hall. I decide to myself that I can save my thoughts for the walk home. So I grab the rest of my books, stuff them into my bag and head on my way.
WHILE I'm on my way home, I get lost in my thoughts of Timmy, myself, and our friendship. A part of me wants to think this was just a coincidence. That this was just a one time thing. That this was him getting a few new friends and tomorrow we can just meet up again. That this was an accident, ON THE CONTRARY the other part of me just knows that if I keep sugar coating it and trying to make it better for myself, I'm just going to get hurt or worse. As much as I know I shouldn't, I can't help but convince myself this was a random incident. EVENTUALLY I make my way home and walk up the charcoal gray stairs and inside to see the brown withered away couch. The couch, where Timmy and I have spent many sleepovers, playdates, and just plain hanging out. Just the thought of all the memories bring tears to my eyes and suddenly they just overflow as if they had just become faucets. I rush up to my room, where I'm reminded of so many more memories and I just run out of there. The memories and the thought of our forever running out just became too much. I have no idea where I want to go but NEVERTHELESS I keep running. EVENTUALLY I find myself in the middle of the town's local park, I figure that I shouldn't go any farther than this so I just settle on a bench. SUDDENLY I look around and see Timothy with those lacrosse friends of his, and without a second thought, I wave to him. I see one of his friends pointing to me WHILE speaking to Timothy and he turns around but what he did was not what I was expecting nor what I was hoping for. He looked at me straight in the eye, rolled his eyes at me and EVENTUALLY turned back around. I felt as if I was in a horrible nightmare and I did what I should've done before, I ran. I ran and kept running, and BAM! I felt as if I ran into a wall. When I look up, I see that my wall has turned into a young man. I quickly rise to my feet but my head feels as if the earth is spinning, I begin to stumble but the man is fast to help hold me up. Noticing the tear stains on my cheeks, he asks "Hey, are you alright? Would you, by any chance, want to talk about what's wrong?" I find myself nodding at his question. So he pulls me over to a nearby bench to sit on, and he patiently waits for me to start talking. I begin to tell him everything right from the start. From Timmy and I hanging out to the recent encounter with him and his friends. After about ten minutes of my rambling I realize that I'm probably boring him to death and he might have somewhere to be. I look back to him and say "I'm sorry. I don't even know I'm telling you all of this. You must have some place to go. I won't hold you up anymore." With that that I walk away BUT I don't make it very far because he is right behind me yelling out "Hey, wait up! I don't have anywhere else to go. Plus I've heard that telling a stranger your problems helps." His efforts put a smile on my face and at the sight, his face lights up and it's at this moment that I see how handsome this man really is. With his bright green eyes, his sun-kissed skin and his midnight black hair, he could be a supermodel. I FINALLY realize that I've been staring and by the looks of it he was too. SUDDENLY it was as if a dam had been broken. We just began to talk and tell each other everything. Time had gone by so quickly, we didn't even notice how late it had gotten and I realized that I had to get home. He offered to walk me home so we could keep talking. As we pull up on my doorstep, I realized I didn't even know this man's name. So I break our comfortable silence by saying "I just realized I never found out your name YET I just told you everything about me." We both laugh at our silliness and he tells me his name is Eric. Eric, it suits him. I tell him my name is Angela.
"And sweetheart, that's how daddy and I met." I look at the look of admiration on my daughter, Emma's face and ask her if she liked the story. She tells me "So you met daddy because your friend was mean to you?" I nod and tell her that sometimes you have to just be brave and keep going because soon enough you'll be rewarded. To think that if it wasn't for Timothy, I wouldn't have any of my new family.
