I Raise My Eyes to the Skies
A Letter to Eve
by Summer Doris, Second Place Winner of the Novus High School Creative Writing Contest
Caribbean people are lazy. This phrase lingered in my head from the moment these words
were uttered from a disapproving mouth. Sitting in the wooden chair of my stuffed classroom, I
looked up from the dusty linoleum floors to examine the face that belonged to this mouth.
Caribbean people are lazy. I studied the smirk on his face, and the look of pride that glistened in
his eyes. The classroom began to feel more stuffy, I couldn’t breathe as the whispers of
disapproval for islanders encompassed our classroom. In utter shock, I began to look towards my
teacher, my eyes begging him to rectify the situation. My teacher saw my pain, and redirected
our conversation towards a different topic. Still, my peers felt the need to further perpetuate their
disapproval for people like me. This is simply because Caribbean people, like me, are lazy. And
in my environment, what the majority believed, was inevitably true.
To my great-grandmother Eve, laziness was never an option. With eight kids in total, she
learned responsibility from a young age. After the birth of her firstborn, she worked relentlessly
to provide for her children in the bustling city of Georgetown, Guyana. Like any Guyanese
woman, Eve understood the true value of family. Job after job, she worked vigorously to make
sure her kids would lead a life that they deserved. Their education and happiness was a priority
for her as a mother, and as a human being. She would do anything for her family, even if it
meant that she did not rest or eat well, it was all for the sake of her family.
From her gem-like spirit, and tireless work ethic, her kids learned the value of staying
true to their dreams. She and her children were grounded in the value of community, and
receiving a prosperous education. Eventually as Eve worked, she found an opportunity to
enhance her, and her children’s lives. She made the difficult decision of heading towards the
United States alone, without her children. There she was, establishing a home, and taking
each of her kids from Guyana one by one. Eve was simply phenomenal, her ambitions made-rich by
the sunshine of our beautiful country. She touched each generation of her family, spreading her
wisdom to her sons and daughters, her wisdom spreading intergenerationally. In the eight years
that I spent getting to know her, I adopted her values of the Guyanese way of living.
Consequently, I have never believed any one Caribbean person I know to be lazy. After
all, most Caribbeans I have met are the ones within my own family. So, as I sat there in that
stuffed classroom, full of whispers I garnered the courage to question my peers. I questioned
why they believed this to be true, for they never even cared to meet us. How could they open
their mouth, and demean people of a beautifully hardworking, family-oriented culture. And as I
challenged my peers, their lips fell silent, and their eyes no longer glistened of pride and
disapproval. My love for my people, and my Guyanese upbringing allowed me to find my voice,
and question their incompetence. Their eyes now showed their regret, and reconsideration of
their stance on people like me. It was abundantly clear to them that in this instant, their
assumptions were wrong.
In this instance, Eve’s spirit offered me the courage to oppose my peers in an
uncomfortable situation. Thanks to her, I can always remember that my heart is green, red, and
gold, and my blood flows through me like the many waters of my beautiful country. My hair
falls like the Kaiteur, my eyes stay as starry as the Stabroek market, as I dream for my future.
Although I was born in America, Guyana is the home of my consciousness. I thank Eve, for if
she taught me anything, it was that we Guyanese are hard workers.
Silence
by Elizabeth “Blu” Cartwright, Honorable Mention in the Novus High School Creative Writing Contest
Whirring and mechanical hums linger in my ears as I slumber. They stay in my
dreams; however, I would gleefully take those sounds over the ticking of the house. At
least that silences when I head off to dreamland.
The house I’ve lived in for as long as I can remember should feel familiar, and it
does, but there’s a sense that something is awry with every new day. A picture frame I
don’t recognize with a black pictogram or an old-fashioned doll that I might have played
with in my youth. The doll’s stitched face is cute and non-threatening in nature, and I
can’t help but feel a little nostalgia. Regardless, no memories surface in my head as to if
I ever used it. All of this never perturbed me, and I willingly existed with the company of
this house and my probable amnesia for a very long time. It didn’t feel alarming. It was
as if I was born in this house, from this house, and would die in it as well. I do not recall
any mother or father embracing me, and certainly no friends around to visit. The house
is my only companion, and maybe we communicate through ticking.
Tick, Tick, Tick.
The second act of the play drove those men insane.
“You, sir, should unmask.
Indeed?
Indeed it’s time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
I wear no mask.
No mask? No mask!”
Tick, Tick, Tick.
The feeling that the house communicates with me cannot be false. It tells me
about the outside world and things I am certain I have never known myself. This
ticking— or maybe speaking— has no familiarity to it like the house itself. My life has
been strung between phone lines, an outsider listening in. The house tells its stories
and I expand my narrow worldview.
Tick, Tick Tick.
Who is the Perceiver?
“Let’s call this you the perceiver.
Uh-huh
We like to imagine the perceiver as a pupil of an eye. The perceiver may cast his gaze
upon anything-
Colors or sounds, touch or feelings. But how do you imagine it looking at itself directly?
A mirror?
Oh I wouldn’t trust the mirror, my dear William.”
Tick, Tick, Tick.
It’s hard to acknowledge or respond to any snippet of outside life given to me. I
cannot even fully comprehend it in the first place. I imagine figures outside in life, living
their life to the fullest and answering these predicaments existing in their world. I’m
being presented with questions without their context and thoughts without their thinkers.
My perspective isn’t shared with anyone else, as I’m sure from what I have heard that
others can talk to people around them. I, however, have lived in absolute isolation. To the outside world, I do not exist. A conundrum much like the tree falling without anyone
to hear it. Therefore, the only one with the answer is the house.
Tick, Tick, Tick.
This old house isn’t similar to that one.
“bedrooms and drawing rooms and halls and attics, kitchens and bathrooms and
nurseries, all dark, all quiet, only some of those windows let any light in. but there was
only one basement, and it was where she lived: the matriarch, screeching rat-queen
cluster of veins and connective tissues and grinning, gnashing mouths. it was her
house.”
Tick, Tick, Tick.
What does this house look like? I feel as if I see something new every day.
Maybe the house is considerate enough to keep things fresh and new. It all feels gray.
Somehow the furniture is intricate, and yet, they feel like blobs in my vision as I wander.
Even paintings of the highest quality are difficult to focus my gaze on. I drag my feet
across the rug as I walk forward. I’m assured that anything I walk across leaves frayed
threads in the perfect carpet, my gaze darkening the significance of anything. My touch
leaves spotted fingerprints on the pristine and untouched glasses and vases.
Occasionally, I will mistakenly knock one over. The shards will vanish by the end of the
day, without a trace they had ever been there in the first place. Maybe I’m not alone,
perhaps it is the house. I’m fully convinced of the latter. No one else leaves visible
tracks like mine.
Tick, Tick, Tick.
Is it such a good idea to cut unknown things?
“Those flowers are unknown to me.
Yes. They are also unknown to me.
Shall we cut them off?
Yes, let’s cut them off.
We present the roses to our queen.
And the bad flowers go to the guillotine.
Yes. Cut them off!
Yes. Cut them out!”
Tick, Tick Tick.
I’m not sure about what I dream of. It’s empty and quiet. No ticking interrupts my
sleep, as it does my wandering. But it’s more baseless to the outside world than the
ticking. The endless ticking. What does any of it mean? I can ask for these questions to
be answered, but it will never happen. I am certain of this. Maybe the outside world
exists only in my sleep, and this house is my dream. I have never seen my dreams. It
feels as if this sleep is impossible. I never expend any energy, so why would I need to
sleep? How haven’t I died without a crumb of food? These are ordinary human things
that I feel further the divide between me and everyone else. Maybe my sleep is a time
when I stop existing. I shouldn’t exist in the first place, but being nonexistent is
surprisingly not scary. It’s like I fade away, and the last feeling is a relief indescribable.
Once I return, it’s as if I never left. I start back where I was and the ticking starts again.
The only difference is… time.
Tick, Tick, Tick.
Time is a funny thing.
“Another way of looking at it is by realizing that the traveling twin is undergoing
acceleration, which makes him a non-inertial observer. In both views there is no
symmetry between the spacetime paths of the twins. Therefore, the twin paradox is not
actually a paradox in the sense of a logical contradiction.
The paradoxical aspect of the twins’ situation arises from the fact that at any given
moment the travelling twin’s clock is running slow in the earthbound inertial frame, but
based on the relativity principle one could equally argue that the earthbound twin’s clock
is running slow in the travelling twin’s inertial frame.”
Tick, Tick, Tick.
Things change during the time I am asleep, but I cannot be certain that time
passes. I’m not sure what could create time passing, but I suppose it’s my actions and
movement that distinguish me from the static pictures on the wall. But the ticking could
also count time, couldn’t it? I guess I am back to overthinking once again. But, I can’t
help but wonder if the world accelerates at a different pace than I do. Maybe I move
slowly to them. Maybe my lifespan is an instant. I imagine vivid scenarios of them in my
head. But I have never seen another person. I have never seen myself. I imagine their
thoughts accompanying each other, their dialogue in my mind. I realize now that a lot of my life has been speculation and maybes. This… hasn’t been very changing, so I
suppose I will describe something else.
Tick, Tick, Tick.
The passage of time can easily change in a secluded place.
“…I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum such as we see on antique
clocks. There was something, however, in the appearance of this machine which
caused me to regard it more attentively. While I gazed directly upward at it (for its
position was immediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion. In an instant
afterward the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief, and of course slow.”
Tick, Tick, Tick.
There is a consistent point in this house, and it’s where everything ties together.
The wall is fashioned as if this were a living room; however, no fire is ever lit inside. And
any attempt would be immediately rendered futile. The furniture always faces it as if it
were truly the hearth. But it produces neither heat nor light; It produces the ticking. A
long pendulum fills the space of the cavity in the wall, and sweeps slowly and surely.
When it reaches the side, a long, drawn out, metallic tick shakes the walls and the
house trembles in response. The tick could even be considered a clang more
appropriately, and it would still describe it. The sharp cogs of the escapement
mechanism are visible and leading up into the ceiling. Gears and sprockets no doubt
make up the invisible wall behind and throughout as well. This is how I am certain that
time moves. This is how the house speaks to me. We beat in unison.
Tick, Tick, Tick.
My heart is certainly real.
“While a human heart circulates blood to oxygenate the body’s extremities, the living
room circulates people, activity, communication. It is the room most likely to be found
‘beating,’ as active and vivacious as the name would imply. The comparison is only
strengthened when we consider also that the living room is most commonly the room to
contain the fireplace, making it additionally the locus of actual, physical heat.”
Tick, Tick, Tick.
At almost every point of my life, I compare my life to what I hear. People exist
outside, I’m sure. But I am surrounded by plaster and mantle. And gears… Ticking,
beating gears. My head feels grazed now, as I’m thinking. As if it has fallen inside itself,
or maybe imploded from paradoxical existence. Do people exist in my world? Do I exist
to them? I feel as if I need to stop thinking. I’ve described all I know, so please, help me.
Find the answer, house. Answer me, please! I know you hear what I say, what I think!
The beating in my head nearly has me keeling over in pain! I’m desperate, and I only
think of the outside world anymore! Will I enter the real world once I die?
Tick, Tick, Tick.
Einstein
“Love and escape do not compute
I see the photograph before you shoot
I’m standing still but still I’m spinning
This journey ends at the beginning
It seals my fate in the great figure eight
No turning back”
Tick, Tick, Tick.
Time has to be real, and so do people! And I must exist to them, to be a part of
their minds! They cannot prove against it, they cannot! My existence is characterized by
none seeing, hearing, nor feeling me. But I do, I do! I did fall, and I did make a sound!
You cannot say otherwise, damned house! You are my vessel into existence! You know
I exist, you have housed me, and so I do! I am! My thoughts, my feelings, my dreams,
they are real. They have to be. If they are not, then what explanation do you have? I’m a
doll or plaything? A character to a citation? I really do remember, I remember
everything! I never had amnesia, that was deceit! I will reach the real world someday,
carve through your prison walls, your sarcophagi trinkets! None matters anymore, and I
will make a difference in the real world! I will trample blades of grass as I stumble
through a forest, and make conversation with a person! Then I will exist, and then you
will not oppose me! Let me out, decrepit house!
Tick, Tick, Tick.
Id, Ego, Superego
What would you define your person as?
Your memories, your personality?
Then who is reading me as I write?
Who leaves behind these notes for you?
As you investigate further, try to find every snippet,
You lose your own meaning.
I suggest you abandon this silly dream of yours,
And try to find real life.
Characters in a page will never live what you can, yes?
Your experience in life defines you.
Your body the vessel,
Your voice as the olive tree.
You secure your existence in this living encryption by…
Simply talking, yes.
Writing yourself into others
Like a selfish parasite burrowing your eggs into others.
That way you can live on, and your existence is definite.
You are quite lucky.
Hundreds, no,
Thousands!
Many, many people like this man
Born to nonexistence
No mother, no father,
But their own dwelling.
They are not human, but they exist.
So they’d like you to believe
If I said I made it up, would you believe me?
Would you seek a nonexistent, impossible to reach concept?
Of course you wouldn’t, that’s extremely foolish.
What human with all their riches in the world
Would ever devote to such a stupid cause?
You can argue that this is all imagination, and you could live on your life
And you could be correct.
But I hope that after learning about this,
You don’t think about it any further.
Nonexistent people don’t exist. They don’t have literature to share.
Stop chasing a means to prove this.
None of this is real, and your perception is all there is.
Trying to peer into what your brain cannot comprehend will kill you very slowly and
painfully.
Do not attempt this.
I hope you understand.
Tick, Tick, Tick.
Horrified, I really am. The ticking told me the truth… and I shouldn’t seek out
people from the outside world. I was truly dead from the beginning, doomed to eternal
lonesomeness.
I was protected until now, protected from silence.
Who Will Tend to Your Wilted Roses?
By Lynn Marie Moody, Third Prize Winner of the Novus High School Creative Writing Contest
“I suck at telling stories,” was something my older brother, Buddy, had told me a
hundred and one times. Many nights were wasted sitting on the old white rug on the
floor of my bedroom listening to my brother tell stories without endings. He had a short
attention span and a lot to tell me, but his stories were my favorite. I have always
dreamed of being like Buddy. To me, he is flawless, has amazing grades, a great work
ethic, straight teeth, is determined, and could build any gizmo or gadget he could dream
of. Although I fall short of being everything he is, it was no secret that my parents saw
very little in him and me both. Being “just like Buddy”, was an insult made by my
parents, but to me a compliment. No matter how perfect I thought I could be, “good job”
was an unattainable trophy. Praise was no different than any other affirmation; “How
was your day,” “Good night,” and “I love you,” were all just as rare. It was a struggle to
understand what I was doing wrong and why I was unable to earn these words.
I have few fond childhood memories with my parents; however, my mother’s
roses are something I vividly remember. The roses grew on either side of the front
porch, to the left grew magenta pink roses and to the right grew pastel yellow roses.
The roses were important to my mother, so she tended to them well, ensuring they
would bloom early each fall and late each spring. As a child, I thought the roses were
beautiful, but I knew their stems were lined with sharp thorns.
Trying my hardest to fall asleep one night, I stared blankly up at the ceiling and
“talked” to the fan. I felt the vibrations of my phone from beneath my pillow. Squinting
my eyes, I saw his caller ID.
“Hello,” I whispered in one short breath.
“I’m on my way,” a shallow voice responded.
I spilled out of bed, gently placing my feet on the floor. The thick bristle of my
toothbrush scraped away the lining of fear in my mouth. I put on a pair of socks but held
my shoes in my hand. They were too loud on the tile floor. No sound was made by the
door of my bedroom when I opened it. I greased the hinges earlier that day and hid the
can of WD40 under my sink. 14, 15, 16, skip, 18, I walked down the staircase, careful
not to step on the steps that creaked. Past the dining room, through the kitchen, and
into the laundry room, closing the door behind me. I broke the seal to the door,
something I had done many times, so why was it so loud now? Slipping my way into the
garage, I watched my step for gardening tools and grass seed. I found my way to the
back door. I stepped out into the crisp August night air. Making my way towards the
front of the house, the light from the oven shined through the window in the kitchen. By
the time I made it to the front porch my socks were wet from the dewy grass. I sat on
the steps to the porch and laced up my shoes, despite the fact my socks were still wet.
I can’t remember if at that moment I was breathing; the bound of adrenaline in my heart
was louder than any breath I had ever taken. 1:26AM, my watch read. It took 12
minutes to drive from his house to mine. Attempting to pass the time I look to either side
of me, two decaying rose bushes, one to my left and one to my right, wilted petals still
scattered the ground below where they had been. I checked my watch again. 5 minutes
had passed, yet somehow it was only 1:27AM. I swear that hours went by. Finally a
break in the silence far off in the distance, the roar of an engine streamed down the long
ribboning road I grew up on. A shadow flies by, causing a flash in the glow of a street
light. My knees buckle as I try to stand, but still, I stumble forward. We met halfway
down the driveway. When he saw me he tried to turn off his bike, almost stalling. I
guess he was nervous too.
“What’s up,” he said, as if to prove to me he was standing in front of me. It had
been months since I had seen anybody other than occasionally my parents or brother.
He leaned his bike up next to a tree, and we began to talk to each other like we were
old people at a high school reunion. Crickets mocked the sound of our pubescent
whispers. It had been about an hour or so when he asked if I wanted to go on a ride.
No, my dad had always told me that if I ever rode on a dirtbike I WOULD die and that
boys were evil.
“Sure,” is what I said, of course. So he pushed his bike to the top of my driveway
and turned it on. Holding his bike up with one leg, he looked up at me and smiled. I got
up on his bike and wrapped my arms around him, holding on as tight as I possibly
could. To say that I was terrified would be a lie. I was so much more than that. Pulling
in the clutch and shifting down into first gear, I tightened the death grip I had on him. As
he began to pick up speed, I loosened my grip and felt the wind breeze across my face.
At that moment I felt euphoric. My leg untensed and my feet scraped against the
ground, burning the rubber off the tip of my shoe. I tensed my leg up again. He turned
around and headed back to my house stopping by my mailbox. We stood by one of the
many thin flimsy trees that lined the driveway. Now we were close enough to a street
light that I could see him. His curly hair was frizzy and torn up by the wind and his lips
were cracked. The stars reflected in his deep brown eyes; looking into his eyes was like
looking into a galaxy full of stars. I stared at him for a moment.
“I. love you,” he said to me. I continued to stare at him. In that moment he spoke
those words not only to me but also to a little girl who wanted nothing more than to be
noticed.
“Thank You,” was the only thing my young, ignorant mind could think to say at
that moment. I could not remember the last time I had heard those words. He gave me
a tight hug. I felt cared about and tended to. We sat there for a moment. He stepped
back and picked up his bike, and while looking up at me he asked, “Which bracelet do
you like the best?” He was polluting the paracord bracelets that lined the handlebars of
his dirtbike. In the late night, they all looked the same, so I just picked one. He took it off
his handlebars and gifted it to me.
“To remember tonight,” he stated while clipping his bracelet on my wrist. Then I
watched as he drove off into the distance. It was a long walk back to my house from the
end of my driveway. Once I got back into my house, I took off my ruined shoes and wet
socks and hid them in a bag next to the fridge in the laundry room. Quietly I creeped
back through my house and into my bedroom. I laid back into my bed and went back to
“talking” to my ceiling fan. Clipping and unclipping his bracelet over and over again. It
was a struggle trying to explain to my ceiling fan why he chose a lonely, wilted flower to
tend to. I was taught that only perfect flowers deserved to be tended to. If only I could
have stayed blissfully ignorant, even perfect flowers have flaws.
Illinois Awaits
by Shelby Jones, First Place Winner of the Novus High School Creative Writing Contest
The woods behind her house went so deep we could have never explored it all, but she
and I used that to our advantage. We were wizards… powerful, unfathomable wizards. The
woods were our hideout, our safe spot. Even though the air was blistering cold, and the wind
chill was fifteen degrees, we were out there for hours. Jumping between rocks gave us a quick
shot of adrenaline while climbing the trees tested our limits. Certain rocks had fallen over one
another to create a perfect hideaway. Our wizarding activities took course throughout the entire
stretch of the forest; we always went deeper into the forest than her mother allowed. The only
thing that could force us inside was her mother’s sweet voice, calling for lunch. Her specialty
was the “Chaco taco” – an Eggos waffle smothered with Nutella and folded in half to resemble a
taco. The smell of the toaster slightly burning the shell to our tacos was swallowing the fresh air.
The bliss of childhood had never been so real.
Olivia was the kind of friend you just know. You don’t remember how, when, or why you
became friends, but you are. She was a warm-toned blonde with just a few freckles dotted across
her nose. She wore big square glasses that were always either plum purple or black with a light
blue rim. She was extremely fit, never missing a day of soccer practice, her family was mine and
mine was hers.
Flash forward a year, I get the news. My best friend, Olivia, will be moving to Illinois in
August. My heart has never dropped so fast. It felt like I had swallowed a fifty-pound weight and
couldn’t get it back up. No tears ran, not yet; those would come later. It was the most world-
shattering, soul-wrenching news I could have ever imagined. We were about to go into the sixth
grade: the most dramatic change in my preteen life was about to occur, and there was no getting
through that without Olivia. She called me to tell me the news, “Hey Shelby,” the sweet voice of
Olivia’s mother. “Hey, Mrs. Katie!” I answered excitedly, with no idea of what was to come.
“Me and Olivia have some news. You may not like it,” she said begrudgingly. I swallowed the
lump that had just appeared in my throat, “Olivia’s dad got a promotion,” she said. I interrupted
her with a quick congrats, she let out a sigh, “ For him to keep doing good at his job, we need to
move to Illinois.” There were so many ideas running through my head about what this phone call
was about. Not that. Never that.
There was never any doubt that she and I were the most important people to each other.
But before she left, the question arose as we were sitting on the blistering playground swings. It
was a hot August summer, and her neighborhood playground was calling our name. We walked
behind her house to the large football-sized field. Glancing across the way through the bright
almost autumn sun, there was a gentle outline of the playground swings in the distance. Skipping
our way through the field, we chatted about simple things like Harry Potter or what the plan for
tomorrow was. We got to the playground and ever-so-quickly hopped on the swings. The air
flew through our hair and we pumped our legs to get our swings higher and higher. I stopped my
momentum very suddenly when I had my thought; for I couldn’t swing and question my entire
friendship at the same time. “Olivia?”, I said with a slight weariness to my voice. “Yes?” she was
out of breath from exerting so much energy trying to get the swing as high as it would allow.
“Will you make a new best friend when you move, or will you just call me all the time?” Sixth
grade me, truly believed that she would never make another friend, for it felt I wouldn’t either. “I
don’t know. I might have to. I don’t wanna be all alone at school.” She answered; I could hear the
worry in her voice. She and I never brought that subject up again. I was convinced I would be
alone while in middle school, high school, and college, and then eventually just die alone.
We went about the beginning of school rituals as usual: school shopping, clothes
shopping, schedule reading, and multiplication flash cards. This time it felt different. Olivia was
only going to be in my class for a few weeks, then, poof-gone. The thought of her not being there
to complain and de-stress with me brought a genuinely sick feeling to my stomach. She and I
hung out every day that she was available. She was in travel soccer and was very good for an
eleven-year-old. Somehow we managed to hang out so often that the woods never got a break,
not until that day- the day she left.
The day had come, and the night before was sleepless. My mom woke me up earlier than
the birds sang to say goodbye before they left. It was a chilly morning, the type to make those
microscopic hairs on your arms stand tall. The air was thin and the sky was a strange shade of
blue, almost gray. Her house, even from the outside, was dead. The liveliness and joy that used
to radiate from her home had been vacuumed away. My mom and I pulled into the driveway
slowly. The crackle and pop of the tires on the driveway gravel seemed to last for hours. Finally,
the car came to a stop. I wish the car door would have just locked shut, forever, and not let me
out into this nightmare. My heart told me to not touch that door handle, but my mother’s nagging
voice told my head that I had to get out.
I walked into the garage, and through the door leading to her house. Somehow the outside
world’s gloominess leaked inside. No barstools carefully tucked under the hightop, no crayons
on the counter, no toaster, no more pictures delicately hung on the fridge. I could tell Olivia was
tired; she was just standing there, waiting. The entrance room floor was stacked with the few
remaining boxes, the ones that wouldn’t fit in the U-Haul. She gave me a look, one I was
unfamiliar with: it felt alien. We took a walk around the now ghost town of a house. Every step
we took seemed to creek louder than before. It echoed through the empty halls and the, somehow
sadder, paler walls. As if we were in our old age, she and I recalled memories as we explored
each empty, cold room. The spellbook we wrote in her bedroom. The Barbies we stripped of hair
in her playroom. The “ghosts” we hunted for in her living room. The ceilings were so high I
could have mistaken the house for a circus tent and I was the clown, running circles around the
ring of truth that was her getting in that car and driving away.
We came back around to the entry hall, where our parents were still chatting about “adult
things”. I knew when I saw my mom’s face that it was time for them to go. I couldn’t accept it. I
decided to be the bigger person because who knows the pain Olivia was feeling, moving away
from all she ever knew. I assumed her pain was ten times mine, which was unimaginable but I
tried to understand.
We rarely hugged each other. Throughout our friendship the only times I can recall
hugging was for a picture or when she would win a soccer game; the only times we did, they
were happy hugs. This hug was different. She and I hugged for what felt like an eternity. Her
arms were above mine, over my shoulder. She was so tall, five foot six inches while in the sixth
grade. I was wrapped around her like a helpless sloth, wishing for someone to save me from this
slow, stretched-out goodbye. The saddest goodbye of my life. When the hug was over, her shirt
was covered in tears. I was embarrassed until I looked over at my shoulder and saw a wet spot
from where she had rested her chin. For some reason, her warm tears on my shoulder reassured
me that I knew I was special to her too. One final goodbye and a quick hug to Mrs. Katie and we
drove off.
School was never the same. Her presence was completely gone. I thought because I could
still call and text her, that it wouldn’t feel as if she was gone. It seems overdramatic to call it a
loss. So many people lose their friends and family members every year. Olivia hadn’t passed; she
hadn’t been in some freak accident. She had, however, started a different life. She goes by the
same name, she has the same family, and she may never change her personality; however, she
would make new friends. New friends, to an eleven-year-old, is the ultimate betrayal. Having
one BFF was still the fad, and the clicks had already been decided and finalized. My BFF, my
click, was gone.
As time went on, the crying became subdued. Less wet pillows and empty tissue boxes. It
was no longer the only thing on my mind. I began to focus on other friends who were physically
there, not just on a phone call that made me cry every time it ended. She still comes to mind, she
still comes up on my feed. Somehow, we still ended up being interested in the same things.
Maybe we are destined to be friends. So if we ever do reconnect, Olivia, let’s play in the woods,
let’s jump over some rocks, and let’s eat so many Chaco-Tacos that our bellies become numb.
Let’s explore who we have become, and who we used to be.