It was spring of my seventh grade year, I was twelve. My classmates and I were being relocated into another classroom so we could take the TAKS test in a better environment--our advisory period was in the band hall which is not a good place to take a state standardized test. The class got relocated into the room behind ours, the journalism room. That's where we met, Raymond and I. I wrote him a note and I know he thought I was a weird little girl, but without that who knows if we would have ever become friends? We would write notes often, usually about nothing, but they were our way of learning about each other. We had the same lunch and after we finished eating we had the option of doing various things out on the blacktop. The choices were: basketball, soccer, four-square, volleyball, walking, or sitting at one of the tables. On this particular day Raymond and I decided to play soccer--he ended up falling on top of me as we both went for the ball. It just seemed that as the days, weeks, months, and years that passed, nothing could get in between our amazing friendship.
We formed the "Confusion Group" and we did some of the craziest things together. We walked to school, which required running across the highway, running through a corn field, and being on a pretty dangerous farm road. We partied and even then, Raymond was there at my defense. When rumors we spread about me, he was the first to say, "Fuck them Passíon, what do they know?" He kept me safe and I knew that I could always count on him with everything.
But things changed when this little lady came into his life. I didn't like her from the start because she pushed her way into our group, she tried so hard to befriend the group because she was Raymond's girl; but I don't like that. I don't want to be your friend because you go out with my best friend, I want us to be friends because you want to be friends on your own. I let it be known that I didn't like her and most of the group was appalled, especially my best friend Raymond. He felt like I was talking shit about his girl and Lesley (another legit member of Confusion) thought I was talking shit about her new best friend.
Most of the group stopped talking to me for that stupid reason and I hated it. I started hanging out with different friends but I knew that I was miserable that my entire group ditched me for the girlfriend of my best friend, well, former. He would call me occasionally and leave rude, angry voicemails and they would just tear at my heartstrings; all this time hiding the hope I've always had in him.
"I don't care," I'd mutter to myself, "he left me. I don't care." Yet I knew that I was constantly lying to myself, how could I not care that my best friend stood up and left. This was the best friend whose sister's car I had run into a fence, the best friend who kept me warm in our shed of a clubhouse that late winter night, the best friend that encouraged me to be daring when I was too scared to be anything but sheltered. This was the best friend that left me helpless and alone...
I cannot keep a grudge in my heart because I'm not evil, because there is no reason other than ugly self-absorption to hold a grudge hostage. I don't remember exactly when I was that I forgave him for leaving me, but I did. Deep in my heart he's still the best best friend I've had, minus a few discrepancies like the panties incident. (Which I now look back and laugh at.)
And I've been hopelessly crying this entire post, ha ha. But those words, "One day Penny" mean so much more from Raymond than if any other person in the world had said them. Even if he had called me Patience, Petition, Pubes, Puberty, Lust, Desire, Neftali, or any of the other nicknames he and Edgar came up with for me in eighth grade, it still would have hit me hard. Just the mere hope that one day we'll get as close as we were in all those years of our youth and idiocy, that's something that you can't take away, ever. I love this best friend of mine even though we've been through some of the worst shit, but that just makes us that much stronger right?<3
This was the day that we walked to school.
(:
