Azalea

Childhood: Part One

"Sam! Stop that's embarrassing!" I beg as my lifelong friend, Samuel Key, continues to tell the story of how my pants ripped in school today...TO HIS PARENTS!

They laugh and my cheeks flare the color of tomatoes. I bite a piece of my grilled chicken and kick Sam under the table.

He jumps, "Ow!" His mom gives him an odd look. "You okay Sammy?" He nods and makes up a quick lie to tell. "Yeah,uh, foot spasms. Don't you just hate those Azalea?" He asks and kicks my sock covered feet with his steel toed boots.

I yelp and grab them. He knows how sensitive my feet are! He has a grin of an Olympic champion holding up their prized metals.

"Owwww, yeah I just hate them!" I rub my feet until the pain subsides. When it does I've already lost my appetite for grilled chicken, sweet potatoes, rice, and dinner rolls.

His parents clean up dinner when they realize we both aren't hungry anymore. We ask to walk around town more and they give us some money to buy stuff or to see a movie.

I slip on my gray boots, thankfully my mom brought in clothes for me when the nurse called about my pants. She brought me some other pants to change into. My second favorite pair that are a very dark gray.

Sam comes in with our coats with a knowing smile. "What?" He asks maintaining the smile,"You kicked my feet and embarrassed me!" He laughs and I do too. It is honestly too hard to stay mad at him.

He has his black coat, hat, and navy blue gloves on. "I'll help you with your jacket. You know don't want you ripping it."

"Oh ha ha ha, very funny Sam." I take my cream colored plaid coat and shove my arms through and quickly button up, then I put on my gray striped mittens.

"Ready?" "Yeah." We head out with our money and backpacks. It's only 5:00 and the sun is slowly lowering. "Damn, winter." Sam laughs, his breath making swirls of cloudy air puff from his pink lips.

His cheeks are already dusted with pink, the tip of his nose going a darker shade of his cheeks. "Winter sucks." I nod in agreement and see my hair bounce a bit from the movement.

"Movie? I wanna see this certain one and-" "Yeah sounds great, I'll get the snacks." Sam shakes his head and shows me the inside of his pockets.

Two cans of Coke, Sour Patch Kids, and Skittles. He has always been known to be sneaky. I know he must of took that in front of his parents without them noticing.

I shake my head, "Soon enough you're going to sneak in a box of large pizza with a liter of soda." He puts his hands back in his pockets. "I'm not doubting that."

I've known Sam forever. Our moms met through our dads who were childhood friends. Sam was one and I was a newborn when they met. Sam and I met when he was three and I was two. He had accidentally taken my favorite ball home after our play date and I had gotten mad at him. But, like I said, even at three he was hard to stay mad at.

I have other friends. Like Mari Chex who is great to have sleepovers with when you want to do girl stuff. But, I still prefer to hangout with Sam and sleepover with him. But, we really can't now. He's fourteen and I'm thirteen. Our parents just tell us most of the time " Well we don't want you two having sleepovers just in case."

We both know what just in case means and the last sleepover we had on his birthday that we really didn't have to convince our parents to approve, we talked about it and said we won't ever, That we're only friends.

That's how I like it. Just friends, someone you can talk to and not expect for them to ask you out because you hangout with them a lot. I don't really know how Sam feels about it.