Seven Years Ago

“So.” I said, staring down at him as he clambered across stones in the river below me. 

“So…what.” He replied, not turning back to look at me perched atop the massive concrete tunnel that let the water from said river flow beneath the hill and nearby road.

“We start fifth grade soon.” I said, and his shoulders immediately slumped though he made no sound. “…are you excited?”

I knew the answer, not even just from his body language but also just from the fact that I knew him. For a moment he ignored me, continuing to dig around in the river with a large stick.

“Nope.” He then said, popping the p. 

“Why not? It’s our second to last year of elementary school, then we’re going to Junior High. It sounds so grown up.” I smiled, rolling onto my back and nearly off and onto the forest floor.

“I don’t like waking up early to go to school.” He said simply, kneeling down to pick up a rock. 

“Yeah…I’m not really excited to go back either.” I sighed.

“Then why’d you ask?” He asked, standing back up and walking over to me, lifting his arm and holding the rock up high so I could take it and look at it.

I plucked it from his grasp and looked it over. “Ooo this is a nice one.” I smiled before slipping it back into his palm. Then I rolled back over and let my head hang over the edge of the concrete so I could look down at him. “I don’t know, I was just curious. I figured if you were excited to go back then I could make myself excited to go back.”

“Well, at least now we can not want to go back together.” He said with a grin that I quickly returned. Then he returned to his place in the water, searching for rocks that I knew would find their place on his bookshelf with all the others.

But soon the sun began to slip below the horizon and we had to return home. 

As we walked through the forest back towards the road that separated our homes,  he let out a long sigh.

“What’s up?” I said as I turned to him, and he shrugged.

“I don’t wanna go home yet. I want to stay with you.” He muttered, almost as if he was ashamed to say it.

“Me neither. I like hanging out with you.” I replied, and he turned to me with wide eyes. 

“You do?” He said, surprised.

I bumped him with my shoulder and laughed. “Uh, yeah? We’ve been friends for like, two whole years now! Why wouldn’t I like hanging out with you?”

He turned away from me and shrugged, almost embarrassed. “Most people don’t like me. I figured you just didn’t want to be alone…or something.” He muttered, avoiding my gaze.

“Sebastian….” I frowned as I gazed at him.

“Don’t…don’t say anything.” He just sighed.

“Okay. But for your information, I do like hanging out with you.” I turned away from him, focusing back on the ground below me.

“Me too.” He said softly, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

When we reached the road, we hesitated. 

Our houses were in opposite directions, so this was where we said goodbye for the night.

He said nothing, hands balled into fists by his side as he avoided my gaze.

But I reached out and pulled him into a hug, ignoring the little gasp he let out as I did so.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” I whispered to him.

For a moment he was frozen, unmoving and not speaking. Then his arms wrapped around me and squeezed me so tightly I let out a squeak. 

“I’ll see you….later.”

And then he pulled away from me and ran off, only turning back around briefly to wave goodbye.

I raised my hand to wave as well, slowly lowering it as he vanished into the distance, only tripping over his own feet once.

As I walked back to my own house, I wondered what he meant when he said goodbye, saying see you later instead of tomorrow. 

I wondered the whole way home, and all through dinner, though it was mostly because I missed him and wanted the excuse to think about him.

By the time I crawled into bed that night I had forgotten all about it, but then a light tapping at my window quickly roused me from the sleep I had not yet reached.

I sat up quickly and turned in the direction of the sound, but saw nothing.

Throwing my blanket off, I cautiously walked over to my window and peered out, only to see Sebastian standing outside.

My eyes went wide with shock and I quickly threw open the window for him.

“Sebastian!” I gasped. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you.” He said simply as if it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be outside my window when it was nearly midnight. He was almost gasping for air, chest heaving as he stood there, brown hair messy.

“Hurry up and get inside before someone sees you!” I said, stepping back and waving him in.

He struggled to climb up, managing to throw one leg over my windowsill and climb halfway inside before he had to pause to catch his breath again.

“I can’t believe you.” I said, unable to hide the smile on my face.

This was so not allowed, but something about that made it feel wonderful.

Something just for us.

Slowly he reached into his pocket and pulled out the rock from earlier, holding it out to me.

“….brought…..for you….” He panted.

“Did you run here?” I asked, tilting my head as I noticed his red face.

He just nodded.

I took the rock from him and smiled, rolling it over in my hand. It really was beautiful. 

“Thanks.” I said. It was all I could say in that moment, and it was just short of me bursting out into a long rant about how much this meant to me and how he was my best friend and I loved him so much, which I obviously couldn’t say. 

Instead I swallowed it down and held a hand out to him so I could help him into my room.

He grinned at me and took my hand, swinging his other leg over the windowsill.

But just before he was about to hop down, his foot got caught and he slipped, narrowly avoiding crashing into me by using his other hand to grab onto the windowsill and instead swinging to the side, knocking my lamp off of the nearby table and sending it crashing to the floor, and then knocking himself down and falling with it.

We both winced at the resounding clatter, and there wasn’t anything we could do to hide as I immediately heard footsteps rushing over to my room.

We simply looked over at each other, sharing a fearful expression.

We got in a lot of trouble for that. Well, he did more than me.

Sebastian was grounded for a week, and my parents were very upset about the lamp. I was secretly glad it was gone, as I’d always hated it, but I still had no dessert for the next three days.

I didn’t care about the missing desserts, I just missed him. I missed my best friend more than anything.

So three nights into his grounding, I opened my window and slipped out, rushing down the street to his house in the dead of night.

It was scary, running down the street on my own at this hour, but it was exhilarating. I could see why he did it. We didn’t live that far away from one another, a couple of blocks at most, but still.

I crept around the side of his house until I reached his window and peered in.

Seeing nobody but his sleeping form on his bed, I knocked on the window once, twice, three times, and waited.

Then the window opened, and he peered out, eyes wide.

“El? What are you doing here? You’ll get in trouble!” He gasped, but I shook my head.

“Not if I don’t get caught! And I don’t plan on it.” I said with a wild grin. “I have something for you.”

He blinked at me, confusion evident on his face, but he stepped back to let me climb in.

It was hard to lift myself up, but I managed it, swinging my legs over the windowsill and gently letting my feet touch the floor.

We both let out a sigh of relief as I made it in without breaking anything.

“What is it?” He whispered, tilting his head.

“Give me your hand.” I replied.

He did, and I flipped it over, pulling something out of my pocket and wrapping it around his wrist before tying it.

“There.” I said quietly, releasing him.

He pulled his hand back and looked down at the bracelet I had tied around his wrist with wide eyes.

“Wh…” He began to say, and I held my own wrist out, showing off a matching bracelet.

“It’s proof. That I like hanging out with you. That we’re friends. So whenever you feel like…like maybe I don’t really like you or something dumb like that, you can just look at the bracelet and know that I do.”

He looked up at me, brown eyes shining with tears.

And then he pulled me into a hug.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He whisper yelled, nearly lifting me off of my feet.

“You’re welcome!” I beamed, struggling to speak through his tight embrace. His excitement was contagious.

He let me go and wiped his eyes, though he was unable to wipe the smile from his face.

“I should go, it’s really late.” I then said, and he nodded.

“Thank you. For coming here and…giving me this and…being my friend.” He said softly, voice shaking.

“Of course.” I said, moving back to the window. Quickly I threw my leg over the windowsill, then the other. But just before I jumped out, I turned back to look at him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

He nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And I dropped back out into the night.

-

‘Tomorrow’ 

Friday came a lot quicker than I wished it did.

I considered not going to school on Thursday, but decided to try anyway. It wasn’t as horrible as I had thought it would be, which was nice.

I considered not going to school on Friday, instead ghosting Sebastian, faking my own death, and going to live somewhere off the grid under an assumed name. But I didn’t. Because that would be ridiculous, surely. (And not within my means.)

So on Friday morning I popped some painkillers, grabbed my backpack and hopped in my uncles car ready to accept my fate.

I was expecting things to be simple, just a regular day, though I was mentally preparing myself for the arduous task of seeing Sebastian at the end of it.

Then in the middle of second period I was summoned to the counselors office and told that there was a conflict with my fourth period history class and so I had to be switched to another one.

Same subject, same period, just different teacher and room.

Wonderful. 

An hour and a half later I found myself wandering the halls again, annoyed and now kind of lost.

Why was room 219 next to room 234 and not 220? This entire place was infuriating.

My legs were beginning to hurt and my head had been aching for the last two hours, so the longer I looked around the more upset I was growing until instead of maybe asking a teacher for help I just walked to the library and pretended I had study hall.

I grabbed a couple books from the nearest section, which happened to be the romance section, and placed them in front of me to make it appear like I was here to read. 

Then I rested my head on the table and closed my eyes for a minute.

-

I opened my eyes slowly, suddenly aware of someone calling my name.

“…et? Jet, are you awake?” The voice said, and I simply hummed.

“Yeah….I’m up.” I muttered sleepily. Where was I? I must’ve fallen asleep while visiting Sebastian and-

SEBASTIAN?

I shot up so quickly that for a moment I felt like my heart was going to explode.

Sebastian jumped back with wide eyes from where he had been next to me, gently trying to wake me up.

“Oh my god, what time is it?” I groaned, suddenly more awake than I had been in months.

“Uh, it’s 3:30?” He said quietly, clutching his backpack strap and glancing side to side nervously.

“Fuck.” I groaned, sinking down in my chair and letting my head fall into my hands.

I’d missed lunch. And also, all of my other classes, but I didn’t care about those.

“Is something wrong?” He frowned, tilting his head.

I parted my fingers and peered up at him, stifling a laugh.

I could remember him making that exact face as clear as day from when we were kids. Those eyes…

“I….didn’t sleep well last night.” I muttered. “I came here to….study and must’ve fallen asleep and missed lunch.” I shrugged.

He glanced at the books I had before me.

“Study what?” 

I looked down at them. Ah.

I wasn’t paying much attention to titles when I grabbed these random books off the shelf, it was really just the colors that grabbed my attention, so in front of me I had a stack of incredibly cheesy, high-school appropriate romance novels.

The one on top was a bright red with swirling cursive letters that read, ‘When Two Hearts Collide’, with hearts dotting the I’s.

“….I’m….I don’t know.” I sighed, dragging my hand down my face. I couldn’t even make up an excuse for this, so I decided to lie in the grave I had accidentally dug.

He just glanced side to side again. “Are you feeling alright? We can reschedule if you’re sick.” He said, looking down at me with concern in his gaze.

Ugh. Why do you have to be so nice?

“No, I’m alright. Forgot my…morning coffee or whatever.” I muttered. Another lie, I don’t drink coffee.

He just shrugged and pulled up a chair next to me. “Alright then. So, what are we working on today?”

“Aren’t you a math tutor? Don’t you only tutor math?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I’m a whatever you want tutor. Just don’t tell the school, they might get mad.” 

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Wow, so you’re a delinquent, eh?”

He met my gaze for a moment before laughing as well. “Maybe a little.”

The moment I met his eyes I felt as though my breath was stolen from my lungs.

His eyes glinted mischievously in the same way they did when we were kids, and for a brief moment I lost myself in it, lost myself in his smile and kindness and forgot everything.

Forgot to pull myself together because we aren’t friends!

I suddenly cleared my throat and looked around for my backpack, picking it up off the floor and reaching inside to pull out my math notes again.

“Just math today. I’ve got to get my grade up in that.” I forced myself to say, hoping my voice wasn’t trembling too much.

He nodded. “Alright, show me what you’re working on.”

-