Suddenly there is laughing to my left and I turn my head. At first, I can’t quite make out who it is that’s walking towards me, a ray of sunlight slicing through a break in the leaves and blurring my vision. I see a gaggle of legs in sneakers and jeans and skirts. Then I can make out a girl with a long blond ponytail, her eyes squeezed closed in a laugh that undulates from her chest with a raspiness that is more distinguishable to me than my own voice. It’s Brianna and her group of friends. My chest tightens when I see them, and I think about picking up my stuff and leaving, but they’re too close now. My knees are straining underneath me, locked with anticipated movement, but I restrain myself. Suddenly, they’re passing by me in a herd of melodious voices and laughter and frivolity, discolored by a haze of sunlight.
I try not to, but in spite of my efforts, my eyes skim the crowd and suddenly, they find Brianna’s. For a moment, our eyes meet. Mine, brown. Hers, deep hazel-green—murky pond water, we used to laugh. This contact makes her just as uncomfortable as it makes me, and her eyes skitter from the grass back to me, color embellishing her freckled face. She offers a slight twinge of the corners of her lips, a semi-smile. She waggles her fingertips in a little hello.
“Hey,” she says quietly, and her friends smile in my direction, waving, a chorus of “hey, Nat.” Their hands flutter like tree leaves, sunlight dancing through the interstices of their fingers.
“Hey,” I say back.
The next thing I know, the moment has vanished and they are halfway across the lawn. I press my back firmly against the tree. Brianna used to be my best friend, from elementary school when we would smear paint on each other’s faces all the way through the first year of high school. But over the summer between freshman and sophomore year, Brianna was somehow swept into another group of girls. Her skirts became shorter and her weekends filled up for days before I’d think to ask her to hang out. Her phone became filled with pictures of her and the other girls, the ones who are loud about the fact that they drink and who drive around with boys all the time.
This transition made sense to me for a number of reasons. First off, Brianna was beautiful. She possessed a sort of timeless essence about her that preserved itself in a set of enigmatic features, from the angular semblance of her jawline and cheekbones to the seriousness of her eyes. It was either become absorbed into the pack or be the brunt of merciless envy of the other girls, the kind that makes you feel sick inside when you look at your own reflection. If I was Brianna, I would’ve weighed my options and chosen the better alternative, too.
Secondly, it was evident that we had begun to grow apart by the start of high school. This is through no fault of hers, but through mine. While in elementary school we had entertained each other through raucous laughter and mischief, Brianna’s love of these things had only increased with time, whereas I lost interest. I could’ve tried to be a little more lively, but it never even occurred to me. I had noticed it, this folding into myself, and just figured that it was the process of growing up and that my friendship with Brianna would simply sculpt itself to fit this new dynamic.
This was too high of an expectation. I get that now. But it didn’t stop the hurting of her fading out. If she would just get it over with and be mean to me, things would be so much easier. It’s these interactions I can’t take, the friendly encounters, the lingering invitation of our friendship. It’s through these painful gestures of politeness I understand that if I would just be a little more fun, a little more spirited, there would be a place waiting for me in Brianna’s life. Through this, she is exempt from blame of the loss of our friendship, and it is my responsibility to sweep up the ashes and dispose of them quietly.
At one point, I believe there was a window in which the development of my adolescent brain possessed a malleable quality that would’ve allowed for this transformation to take place. A time in which laughter becomes louder, dancing becomes second-hand, and the language, dirtier. But I missed this window, somehow oblivious to the transition that was apparent to all the other girls. It’s just something that can’t be forced. And so, I sweep.
I Forgot How To Write 