The summer we turned thirteen (Re-releasing 2025)

Chapter one: Funny how things change

Harlee

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"Harlee! Let's get a move on; can we?" Mom's voice called to me from downstairs.

I would have acknowledged her, but at the moment, I was concentrating on something else.

Staring down at my phone screen in frustration, I continuously reloaded my text message inbox, hoping for a reply to appear.

I'm not sure why I thought staring at the message would make a response get to me any faster or at all for that matter, but I hoped it would.

I needed James to respond.

It had been two weeks since we had talked or texted, and I couldn't stand it anymore. Every message I had sent the past two weeks had been in reply to the text James sent me, telling me he was ending our friendship.

We can no longer be friends, was all that he had written.

I sent him a series of texts asking why or if it was a prank, but to no avail. He never said anything back, and I'm not sure why that particular day I expected him to. He'd ignored all of my calls, all of my messages, and had even begun to avoid me at school.

Our friendship was really over.

My eyes glanced out the window at James' bedroom window that was directly across from mine.

The summer James and I had first met also ended up being the summer that we became next-door neighbors. James and his family moved out of their apartment in the Metropolitan area of our town Winnington, and into the house next door to mine. James had been homeschooled until fourth-grade, and in his first year of public school, we had been in separate homeroom classes.

Hence, why I had no idea he existed until Fairington. He was off on his own and low-key until he met me. After we became neighbors, James and I played outside in my yard or his all of the time. We'd run through sprinklers in the summer and jump into leaf piles in autumn.

And every night when it was time to go inside, we'd both go to our bedroom windows to keep talking to one another.

But instead of verbally talking, we'd write each other messages on small whiteboards with markers to communicate. We'd write one another a message then hold it to face the window, so the other could see. He and I could have just simply texted, but we liked our tradition better. Some nights we would text too, but most nights, it was writing to each other. There were also nights where we'd wanted to hear each other's voices, so we'd open up the windows. Then, one of us would give the other a call, so we wouldn't have to yell at each other, and we'd sit there talking on the phone but still eye to eye. Video chat would have been just as effective, but neither of us was allowed to use it back when we were ten.

I smiled at the memories. Then I set my phone down in defeat and stared at the ceiling above me. I tried ignoring the longing emotion of missing my best friend and tried for the thousandth time to figure out what could have gone wrong.

My mind slowly flashed back to the days that led up to James sending me the text. Everything had mostly seemed to be normal.

James and Harlee besties for life. There were a few instances where James' behavior was out of the ordinary, but I didn't question it.

I knew James and I were just growing up, and I'd been told that came with many changes.

But I hadn't known a change like this was part of the bargain.

If I had known, I'd have braced myself.

Braced myself to lose my very best friend in the entire world for a reason I still didn't even know why.