Handle With Care

One

Part 1- Noah

Chapter One

 “I’m moving away Quinnie,” he tells me. His dark brown eyes are glimmering with wet unshed tears. His lips are pressed together in a mix between a frown and a pout. He is trembling a little like people do sometimes when they are about to cry but are trying not to. He suddenly looks very fragile as if he is about to shatter into a million pieces. I am sure that I am mirroring him right now because it is hard to hold yourself together when your heart is breaking.

“Please don’t,” I beg. It is not like we had not seen this coming at all but we had hoped so much that it would not happen. His grandmother has not been doing well lately and his mom wants to move closer to her so that she can be taken care of.

“There’s nothing I can do. I told her I didn’t want to move but she insisted. She’s my mom so I have to listen to her. I have to go with her.”

I know that what he is saying is true but I do not want to accept it. I feel sick to my stomach and my chest hurts. I think I might throw up. I can’t seem to find the right words. My best friend of nine years is leaving. “I love you Noah,” I say, salty tears beginning to slide down my pale face. My dad would tell me fourteen year old boys are not supposed to cry but I can’t help it. Besides, I don’t think crying makes you a baby, I think it just makes you sad. It only means you are showing the emotions that all human beings have.

“I love you too,” he replies, also crying now. We lie down together in my bed and cling to each other sobbing. We hold onto each other as if we just hold on tight enough we can stay here together forever, as if we are each other’s life preservers in a stormy sea.

 Noah has been at my side for so long that I can’t image my life without him. How do I live without him here to laugh with, to smile with, to hug, and to tell all my secrets to? How am I supposed to go on like normal when I know I will never see him again? Time will go on but I will be at a loss.

I still remember when we met. We were both five years old and it was the first day of kindergarten. I was so scared but he just walked over and smiled at me. “I’m Noah,” he said. “Wanna’ be friends?” I followed him to the playground where a group of children were playing hopscotch. He drew some more boxes on the pavement with a stray piece of chalk then taught me how to play. By the end of the day all of my fears had vanished.

I never left his side except for when we played hide and go seek. Every single time he found me I would throw myself into his arms and he would giggle because he had won. The truth is I was the real winner. I was the lucky one because I had the privilege of being able to call Noah Thompson my best friend.

We spent that whole summer together. He used to push me on the tire swing in his backyard higher and higher until I felt like I was flying. We rolled down soft green grassy hills during the day and caught fireflies in jars at night. He slept over in my room a lot. We used to make a tent out of sheets and pretend it was our secret fort. We had pillow fights and we would stay up late just talking.

When we were eight years old he moved in next door. Everything was perfect. I could not be happier. We promised to be best friends forever. The world was ours and nothing could touch us.

Noah was always there to save me like my own personal super hero. When I tried to go too fast on my bicycle like the big kids I fell and scraped my knee. It bled and I cried. Noah hugged me and told me that I did not have to try to be like anyone else because I was already great the way I was.

Whenever I was sad or scared he comforted me. When I was afraid of thunder he wrapped me tightly in his blanket and let me squeeze his favorite teddy bear. He told me not to be afraid because he was with me.

One autumn we collected a whole basket of acorns which we spent hours drawing smiling faces on with colorful markers. We went to a pumpkin patch and chose the biggest brightest orange pumpkins we could carry. Our faces got painted and we went trick or treating. At the end of Halloween night we dumped all of our candy out on the floor, trading with each other and eating the sweet treats until our stomachs ached.

Winter came and we threw snowballs at each other playfully then built snowmen as tall as we were. We went sledding down icy hills, sometimes on the same sled. We built igloos out of snow piles and hid away together.

When we were ten years old my dad built us a tree house in my backyard. We put up a sign saying no girls and released balloons high into the sky in celebration. We spent so much time in that tree house. It was our ultimate hideaway fort, almost like our own little world. It wasn’t until later that things started to go downhill.