Simply Friends

Never mind, I'm putting it back up. Gosh, this is confusing. Just be warned that I might take it down again, later, though...

When I first moved to this town, I was quiet, shy, small, and overly sensitive. I had just left my old school across the country, which I had loved, and left all of my friends and family along with it. I don't remember being sad about it at all, but I do know that I was scared of this new place. Everything was big and the classes were different and the grades went all the way up to fifth instead of third. I didn't talk to anyone, and when I did it was a short conversation. I guess when you're six that's what life is like.

And then I met Anna. I can remember seeing the back of her head from the library window as we were looking at the two schools that were an option. They were watching some video in the library, and the teacher, who I would soon learn to not care for, came down the hall behind us and said "that's my class!" Anna was sitting there in the back with a big bow in her hair, wearing a skirt and a pretty blouse, just one head among the other first graders. When I was put in her class a few weeks later, I only knew the name of one other kid, because he was the son of my dad's coworker. We became fast friends, after going over to their house for dinner and eating apple spice cake, but I'll always remember that time that Anna pushed back in her chair a few weeks after my arrival and said "It's so nice to have you in this class" in that cute little way, her freckled cheeks pulled up in a dimpled grin.

We were both smart, and both competitive. She had been in the Talented and Gifted program since the beginning of first grade, but I didn't even know what I was being tested for when I took the test, and I didn't make the cut. Our parents both worked at the same place, and we would run up and down the halls, pretending that we knew everybody and everything. For that first year, she was in dance classes, something I had wanted to do for years, and I was so jealous of her. Still, she let me try on her itty bitty ballet slippers and we would dance around in the backyard. We were partners in crime, those two little girls who set up a tea stand instead of a lemonade stand, who would walk around the neighborhood pretending we were from India, who flooded the bathroom when we built a PlayMobile aquarium, who flew paper clips with magnets for the science fair, and who stealthily sneaked marshmallows from the pantry with her dad sleeping on the couch only a few meters away. Being the quiet and probably more sensible one, I think her parents counted on me to stop her from doing stupid things, but half the time I just went along with her and did them anyway.

In fifth grade, it was a new school, with new kids and new teachers. For the first time ever, we were in separate classes, me with the annoying clueless kids, and she with the other TAG students in fifth grade, with the firm but smart teacher who kept her kids going. We were only together in math, and that's when I saw her hanging around the girls with their lashes coated with mascara, their feet squeezed into high heels, wearing undershirts because they couldn't wear bras yet. She had always been pretty boy crazy, but it was more along the lines of Elijah Wood and Tom Felton, or that boy in the grade ahead of us who she had known for years and years. To my horror, I watched as my little childhood buddy turned into a Taylor Swift nut who begged her mom to let her crimp her hair and loved Hannah Montana. I had slowly turned back into a quiet girl who had to study the periodic table for a spelling list because I wasn't allowed to be in the advanced spelling group that only Anna's class had. I spent that entire time wanting to be in sixth grade, and getting mad those other girls who had stolen my friend from me. For the first time, she had a birthday party with kids I didn't know, and we ate cupcakes, watched the Hannah Montana movie, and then they *gasp* said a bunch of swear words that they didn't know the meaning of. I pretended to be asleep.

Sixth grade brought new friends and a new school and knee high converse crazes and pierced ears. She found "love" in some random boy who had greasy hair and an earring, but soon dumped him after five days. I laughed with relief, but had my other friends at that point, the ones that I know today as my best friends. Seventh grade, however, was when she really became separated from me. We still went to each others' houses, but I always felt like the dumb one next to her, who was geeky and didn't know slang and stuttered over sentences (I talk fast sometimes so I can keep someone's attention). Before I knew it, she set a dating PR of 3 boys, not to mention a new life with a horse and girls at the barn who acted way beyond their age. And when eighth grade came, she completely left me behind.

"None of my friends are in this class," she complained to me just the other day, after we had been put into our new Projects class. "What am I going to do?"

"I think they're over there," I said, pointing to the group huddling in the corner, who always hung out by the lockers and didn't care if they got an answer right or not, as long as they were cool.

"Oh, thanks!" she said, and ran off.

Should I care anymore? Is she even my friend, or is she just using me to get what she wants? Deep down, I think that we are still together. Once, a long long time ago, she described me as being like her cousin or adoptive sister, which I think is true. Sisters might fight a lot and eventually drift apart, but they can still find fun in the small forms of joy they used to share. When I watch her run through the sprinkler or play the piano, or even just watch Harry Potter, I begin to see some of that makeup and dangerous boy craze ebb off and reveal the freckled, smiling little girl who lives inside. And maybe she'll come talk to me. At least, I hope so.