It was always there

A Silent Cry

March 2005

Anu

A little boy in shorts and a t-shirt with bouncy long brown hair runs through the grassy field chasing after a little girl in a cotton sundress. Their squeals and giggles are carried with the warm air swirling through the greening leaves of the tall oaks. My back rests against the smooth bark of a magnolia tree as I stretch my feet out on the green checked picnic blanket.

Today is an exceptionally warm day for this early in March. The past winter months have been brutally cold and any chance of an escape I took it. Although nothing is how it used to be, this is the one change I gladly accept with open arms. A soft wind continually blows from the east bringing in the freshness of spring. Birds grace the skies, flower buds prick out from between the leafy branches, and little bugs and critters crawl out from their hiding.

Char, Penelope, and Shreya walk across the field from the Italian ice cart on the other side. A couple of older guys throw around a football close by to my friends' designated walking path. One of them wearing a cap backward, a plain t-shirt and gym shorts punts the football across the patch of the field toward his friends on the other side. The football barely missed Shreya as it goes flying right in front her face. Even from here I can see her deep scowl and squinted eyes. She stops walking and spins on her heels yelling profanities at the guys playing and proceeds to throw the football targeting the chest of the guy who threw it.

"Bunch of stupid idiots! Can't throw a fucking football correctly," she rants as Char and Penelope giggle behind her. Shreya is a temperamental, daddy's girl who gets everything she wants by just asking for it. No isn't in her self-learned dictionary and she doesn't plan on adding it either. She's been my best friend, that is best girl friend since we were both put in the same pre-k class and it was that same courageous self-righteous attitude that made her stay my best friend from since then. She's a tell it like she sees it type of girl, no fluff, it's always the cold hard truth with her.

"It was an honest mistake, he wasn't aiming for you," I tell her taking the tropical blended Italian ice from her. Moisture cooling through the flimsy white paper cup holding the two scoops sticks to the pads of my fingers as my tongue swirls around the smooth spheres of red-orange ice.

"He needs to aim better then! My cat can throw a football better and he's diabetic and about to die," she flops down on the blanket laying flat on her back while still managing to eat her pineapple coconut chocolate chip concoction.

"He's cute, though, that was the perfect opportunity to strike up a conversation with him," Char ogles the group of guys gnawing on her bottom lip, completely unaware of the blue and pink ice melting over the brim of the cup onto her fingers.

"They're all older college guys, keeping dreaming," Pene rolls her eyes twisting her lips. If it weren't for Penelope I might go insane with Shreya and Charlotte. Pene is my solace of logic and understanding she's my support when Shre and Char attack me to go on ridiculously obnoxious adventures they call fun.

"I'm dreaming all right, and it's with the one in the striped tank top, he looks at least seventeen or eighteen, kind of like Sidharth," Char mindlessly gazes slurping her now completely melted cup of Italian ice. I follow her dazed staring to a lanky guy in gym short and a gray and green striped tank top his brown hair in a neat crop top.

"Have you spoken to him?" I look down at Shre's head now resting close to my thigh. Her eyes are filled with the gleaming hope of a child asking for a puppy for her birthday, only wishing to hear one answer, yes.

"Not since his birthday, and that was for five minutes," I mumble back to her sighing heavily as I pull my knees to my chest. It's been over three months since Sidharth moved to California. In those many days and weeks, I spoke to him twice, on my birthday and his. Christmas and New Years I sent quick text messages after he didn't answer my call and he only replied a generic "same to you" and that was it.