Summer Vacation

Chapter 16

16

The ride back home wasn’t a very fun ride. It was a silent one. A completely silent one, the kind that’s void of any sound whatsoever. I tried to keep myself calm the whole ride and a few times I actually considered starting a conversation with Erica. For a few moments, I believed that what I had said earlier wasn’t true; our friendship was more than me doing things for her. The moment I looked at her though, my whole demeanor changed because of her attitude. She was sitting as close to the door as possible. She was facing the window and was as far away from me as the car would allow. I’m sure that if we hadn’t been on the interstate and had been going any slower, she would have jumped out the car. She was gripping the handle as if she was still mulling it over.

When I saw her that far away, it hurt me. In my mind I just couldn’t comprehend why she wouldn’t want to do this for me. I wasn’t asking her a lot; in fact I was asking her to do something that I know for a fact that she wants to do. Ricky wouldn’t have asked me to ask her to stay if he thought she didn’t want to. If he had even the slightest inkling that she had wanted to leave, he wouldn’t have asked. He wanted her to stay, but she wanted to stay too. I know my brother. He thinks we’re so different, but we’re not.

We both want to help Erica, but we’re going about it in different ways. I want to help her by being her friend and doing what’s best for her. Ricky wants to help her by protecting her from all the mean things in the world, but he can’t do that if she’s at home.

I focused on the road for a while and tried to think of plausible reasons for her to be acting like this. I haven’t done anything for her to be mad or spiteful towards me. In fact, I’ve only been helpful towards her. She said herself that she would love to stay with Ricky and that being there is great for her, so it can’t possibly be Ricky that she’s avoiding. Her mother isn’t the best mom in the world, but I guess that she still might want to see her, but I can’t imagine Erica actually wanting to go home. She’s there as little as she has to be as it is, so I can’t see why she would be on her head to go back now.

I struggled with these thoughts all the way back home. I pulled up to Erica’s house first. I finally looked at her when I stopped the car. She looked at her house but didn’t say a single thing to me. She looked normal; her hair had been combed and she had on a sundress with some pretty sandals. She had done her makeup and she looked like my best friend.

But she wasn’t.

That realization cut me deep. I could tell it by the way she looked at me. It wasn’t the same. I looked at her and to know that just a week ago we had been laughing and getting ready to enjoy our summer made this all seem so unreal. I looked straight ahead, trying to disguise my nostalgia.

“I’ll be back in a little while. Be ready to go when I get here.”

“Okay.”

She got out of the car as soon as I unlocked the doors and I drove off. I pulled up into my driveway a little while later and when I saw it empty, for the first time in a while I was grateful to be alone. I walked inside and the first thing I did was go to my room and cry. I cried hard. I cried harder than I expected. I was hurt that Erica wasn’t really my best friend, but the hurt went deeper than I could have imagined. I had expected a few tears would fall for a lost friend, but nothing like this. I shed all the tears for our broken friendship and I thought about all the fun times in the past, and the ones we wouldn’t have anymore.

 Erica was such an important part of my life that it felt weird for her not to be there. She was one of the few people that I thought I could depend on, but it turns out that, that isn’t true. I cried for all of our shared memories and inside jokes that I feel have fallen and completely shattered on the ground.