A Lost Friendship

Paige Rutledge

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   We’re strangers now. 

 

   Eyes jump away in the halls. Conversations are avoided no matter what. We're strangers now. Complete strangers.

 

   She rose up the social ladder like I once told her she would. She’s near the top of the class rankings. Rank Four last I knew. 

 

   I’m not.

 

   I fell down the social ladder. I’m in the middle of the class rankings even though I know I could rocket up if I tried. I don’t. 

 

   Her name is well known. Three syllables and her pretty face pops into mind. You say my name and no one knows who I am.

 

   It’s okay though. 

 

   We were once best friends. She was one of my first friends.

 

   I don’t remember how we met at first. I know it was in first grade. I was once a new kid, transferred from the large primary school to the small local one only seven minutes from my house. I remember her nice words and kind smiles. Her worry whenever I got upset and ran off. She was there. That’s all I remember.

 

   Second grade memories were a bit more strong. They were still pieces of memory floating around, lost to time, but enough to create a narrative.

 

   A rusted old swing set in front of the 4th and 5th grade windows. Brown wavy hair streaked with gold, now cut to her shoulders. She sat on those swings  alone, feet kicking up wood chips as she swayed aimlessly back and forth. 

 

   We were once best friends, but with that aimless stretch of summer we were now strangers.

 

   I approached her, “Can I swing too?”

 

   “Sure.”

 

   And then we talked like no time had passed at all, like two lifelong best friends.

 

   We spoke about our summer and birthdays. Hers was coming up in the following days.  We talked about family and friends. We talked about our teachers and classes.

 

   We were best friends once again.

 

   We didn’t share a homeroom that year, and not for another two years.

 

   I remember waving to her at lunch. Those striking blue eyes locking on mine. She would wave and then turn back to a table full of friends. I would smile and turn back to my own little trio.

 

   “We get to use iPads during indoor recess!” I remember her telling me that as we stood in front of our respective home rooms.

 

   “Cool! We have dolls!” I had told her, trying to one up her. She laughed. It was a pretty sound. I know she hates it, but I think it sounds nice.

 

   Third grade was a blur. I never saw her in classes. During recess, we sat outside of the doorway. She had taught me how to make those bracelets with the small rubber bands. They felt sticky and wrong in my hands. We had made a scheme to sell them. A quarter for a bracelet. 

 

   We never sold any.

 

   The teachers soon caught wind of our little scheme and they banned those bracelets from recess. She scrunched up her face and rolled her eyes in annoyance at that.

 

   Fourth grade came. We had a homeroom together. We had to earn our lockers. She got one first. She was always more  organized than me. Our lockers were nowhere near each other, but I waited for her every day. She had a lunchbox with JoJo Siwa’s face plastered all over it and the big pink bow on the front that I loved to play with.

 

   Fifth grade we were together again. We learned idioms.

 

   “You have to make an idiom literally!” Our teacher had told us.

 

   I remember turning to her. Her striking blue eyes had locked on mine and she had pointed at me.We did the idiom “take a page out of someone’s book.” She couldn’t stop laughing the entire time. Neither of us could. 

 

   Sixth Grade was the start of the strain. 

 

   It was when I started to question life and my relationships.

 

   I made friendships that tore my world apart. Ones that pulled me in the middle of arguments. She hated me, and my friends hated her. I didn’t hate her.

 

   She was hospitalized that winter. I remember the exact date.

 

   My family had been staying up watching a movie. My mother had called me into the kitchen. Her face had been carved into a deep frown, her brow furrowed. 

 

   “Sit down.” She told me, her voice far too calm to be normal.

 

   I did. My fingers gripped the oak seat until my knuckles turned white. “What’s wrong?”

 

   “Your friend.” She had said slowly, her watery blue eyes locking onto me.

“Josephine? She’s in the hospital.”

 

   My world tipped. 

 

   Everything felt cold and wrong against my skin. “Wait what!? What happened!?” I had practically shrieked.

 

   “She was in an accident.” My mother had said, reading her phone that was clad in that stupid cow print case. “She’s in the hospital.”

 

   “What!?” I screamed. 

 

   My mother handed me her phone and I sent a flurry of messages to my friend. She never answered them.

 

   In school, she zoomed in. I remember her small pixelated image of those sage green walls and the dark wooden bed with the tall posts. She was the only student allowed to lay in bed during calls.   

 

   She came back a couple months later. She wore grey sweatpants. It was completely against the dress code for girls but she was an exception. 

 

   “It’s because they are the only pants that don’t hurt.” She had told me one day during lunch. 

 

   She had sat in front of me at a small desk in the cafeteria. Her body was turned so she could look at me without having to crane her neck. I watched as she talked, focusing on her pretty brown hair with the gold and blonde streaks that I could never describe in words. I watched her striking blue eyes go from the sandwich she had been eating and darting up to focus on me. 

 

   I smiled and she smiled back. 

 

   She said a year later she had no friends, but I know that’s not true. I was there, after all. Wasn’t I? Even in the arguments and feuds I was yanked into, I still tried to be there.

 

   Seventh grade came around. I stopped seeing those friends I didn’t like. I started hanging out with her. I followed her around wherever she went. I told I would quit tap so we could talk in between two of our dance classes. 

 

   I told her things about myself. I ranted about my stories and obsessions. She told me about men she thought were hot. I listened. I wrote down the names of the men she liked. I made her art and stories.

 

   Eighth grade was the start of our fallout. It all started in dance class. She made friends with the popular pretty girls who liked boys and drama. She stopped talking to me, a girl who didn’t like boys and popularity. She said we were still friends. She told me about her favorite singers and her concerts and obsessions. I told her my obsessions, though my words were always chosen carefully. 

 

   That was the year I started questioning our friendship and my feelings for her.

 

   Freshman year was a blessing in disguise. We never saw each other. She had a completely different schedule than me. I saw her in dance, that was about it. She started ignoring me at some point. I continued following her around like a lost puppy but our conversations were few and far between. 

 

   Our last full conversation happened on a Thursday when we had a combined dance class. We talked of the eighties and the AIDS epidemic. 

 

   I haven’t talked to her since.

 

   I quit dancing, more because of her than my own faults. I see her now in school, we have our fourth period and homeroom together. I cut her off. I limit our conversation to just a few passing words. I don’t wave to her unless she waves first. 

 

   We’re strangers now. Two complete strangers with so much in common and yet nothing at all. Two strangers who don’t even look at eachother in the halls anymore for fear of something happening. 

 

   She’s found her people and I’ve found mine. 

 

   Maybe in the future we’ll reunite and become friends once again, but for now we’re just strangers passing in hallways.