Old Friends

 

Boy, how do I start? It's been a while since we last talked. I guess I should say that I'm sorry about what happened between us. I totally stepped over the line. You're probably wondering why I'd even bother to talk to you now. Well, I've had a lot on my mind lately, and I needed to talk to someone, and you were the only friend who'd listen to me. Not to say that I picked you as a last resort, but...oh never mind.

 

This is so awkward. I wish you'd say something back to me. Anything. You never were much of a conversationalist, though, and it wouldn't make sense for you to start talking now. But I said I was sorry. Can't we just get back to the way we were? Or were we never that tight to begin with?

 

I remember when I first met you, back in the third grade. We promised to be friends for life. We hung around a lot back then. At my house, at your house, even at school sometimes. Not so much at recess. I'm not quite sure why, but for some reason I was afraid to be seen with you when I was around all the other boys. I guess it was because they never liked you very much. But after a while, when they decided they didn't like me either, you bailed me out a couple times there. You could be a pretty handy friend to have around sometimes.

 

You were a good friend when I first entered the sixth grade too, when I got my first load of hormones and nothing in the world made sense anymore. Looking back, I'm glad I had you there, even if I usually didn't say so at the time. I think it's because you don't notice the most important things in your life until you have to live without them: air, water, food, people.

 

Every now and then I was surprised at how many friends you had, what with you being so unpopular at our school and all. I remember when you introduced me to one of them. It was after gym class at the end of the day, and I was crying in the abandoned hallway between the court and the locker rooms, my grimy shorts still crooked on my waist. I can't remember why I was crying specifically, maybe because of all the “fouls” when the teacher wasn't looking, maybe because they called me a wuss, maybe because they ripped my pants down in front of everyone; it could have been all three. I had to go through some sort of humiliation every day at P.E., and the days started to blend together after a while. But everyone was gone by the time I slunk alone into that narrow hallway; I made sure of it because boys my age weren't supposed to cry. I still don't know how Amber found me or how she knew I was there. I still think you sent her in, since you were always our mutual friend. But there she was, walking around the corner with her backpack slung lazily over one shoulder, whistling through her braces as if she came this way every day of her life. And when she saw me, she asked me if I could come over to her house that weekend because she and some other friends were going on a hike, asked as if she didn't notice my puffy eyes and running nose. And when I gave a stuttering yes, she skipped—skipped, dear God—on down the hall, the plastic pink jewelry dangling from her backpack and her baggy boy's pants bouncing on her hips.

 

Over the next several years, I got to know her house and farm and woods better than I knew my own. She told me a couple times that she wanted to go hiking in the mountains more than anything, but her family couldn't afford the trip. Seven siblings had a way of shrinking the family budget, you know? When I was with her, we were real children again, not a couple of lanky kids caught in those awkward middle years. She didn't mind my awful haircut or my goofy grin, or even the way I always seemed to smell back then. There was simply too much fun to have for little things like that to get in the way. Remember that time I broke my leg falling out of a tree while we were goofing around that one time? Amber was the one who gave me her shoulder while we walked five miles for help. Or at least it seemed like five miles.