Letters To You

#21

May 11

The biggest day in our friendship — the day a nine-year-old girl with no filter and boundary issues walked up to a little boy and said they were now friends. To which that little boy shrugged, gave a small nod, and said, "Okay."

Of all our traditions, the one on this day was the biggest and brightest. We'd pull out the old scrapbooks, grab the tubs of paper and pens, and run to the treehouse in your backyard.

We wouldn't come down for hours, flipping through the tattered pages and adding to the blank ones. Those scrapbooks were ongoing projects, filled from cover to cover with memories, good and bad.

You always teased me for a page in the third year book, when we were twelve and never turned down a dare. Because of you, our parents had to come to the park and separate me from a frozen light pole.

I always teased you for a page in the sixth, when we were fifteen and Missy Locke dumped a smoothie on your head after you broke up with her.

There was no teasing this year, no piling into the too-small treehouse, and no additions to the eighth year. The ninth year book didn't exist at all, since we would've bought it today.

Together.

Instead, I walked out of my last class alone, with nowhere to go but home. You weren't prancing next to me, babbling about the latest school gossip or how much homework you had to do. You weren't going to race me to the store, with the loser buying this year's book.

You weren't there, and I'd gotten used to that fact.

So, when I saw you on our day, I was at a loss.

Tears stained your cheeks, your eyes red from constant rubbing. You didn't bother hiding from me; a few months doesn't erase years of comfort.

I wanted to stop, say something to you, but I couldn't undo the months of moving on for one moment.

No matter how badly I wanted it.

You called my name, the first time I'd heard it from you in what felt like forever.

But I kept walking.

It wasn't my job to be there for you anymore.