INNER CITY STORIE

Best friends since second grade. That’s how close we were. Although I never really knew if he truly wanted to be my friend or if we were friends by default since I was friends with the popular girl. That’s where it all started, though. Second grade. Our friendship grew. I thought he was cute. He knew. But friendship over everything, right? Right. 

The years passed by and I wanted to know him better. Everyone would tease me about liking him but I just blushed and laughed along. No one took it seriously back then. I mean, we hadn’t even blown out our double digit candles on our birthday cakes. Nothing was serious in our lives.

Middle School was the autumn of the school years. We all drifted apart like the leaves from the trees in my front yard. Although we still hung out together, we felt each other slowly falling into the new cliques that high school was soon to bring us.

The winter of our friendship. Everything froze. If it didn’t freeze, it died. A lot of us stopped being friends in high school. We fell into different cliques. Most went to the jocks, some scattered into others like birds finding their homes for the winter. I lost my place. They were my home. I didn’t know anything except for them. Until I was taken in by a new family. It wasn’t like my old home, but it was something. Take it or leave it.

The spring of our friendship fell in junior year. Some remained gone, frozen to death, never to grow back to the amazing flowers they once were. One in particular, blossomed once again. The boy. His eyes, captivating like the sky. I was drawn back in. The rebirth of our friendship brought new feelings along with it. Confused, unable to find the rest of our home, we had to fend for ourselves.

Confusion brought us on a journey. We laughed, had fun, talked for hours, avoided each other when our cheeks would turn the colors of the now blooming roses. So confused about what our feelings meant, by why it was all so different, we ran away. We fell into our individual safety nets.

Safety isn’t nearly as fulfilling as risk-taking. We needed to climb out of our safety nets. Tear them apart because they were just holding us back from all the possibilities that were out there. We needed adventure. We craved risks. We found our way back to each other.

Still confused, but working. Working to understand why it’s different. Working to understand what’s going to happen next. Wondering where our destinies will bring us -- closer together or farther apart. Nevertheless, we’re sticking by each other and taking risks, waiting for something new to blossom right in front of our eyes.