A Friend

   It’s 6:42am Monday morning and it’s  raining hard outside  I know that’s very bad  weather  for the first day of school but of course no one listens to me. Well unfortunately  that is how this story begins. BEEP!BEEP!BEEP! My alarm goes off I try to ignore it but I then decide to just hit the snooze button but then my mom walks in. My mom is about 5’6 (No wonder where I get my height from),brown skin(she jokes about wishing she were as light as me), with curious brown eyes, she’s beautiful. Standing  there she looks like the best woman in the world. Any photographer would kill to take pictures of her but those pictures would always be incomplete without my dad standing next to her. The grief and anger starts to rush towards me like every other time I think of him, I push my thoughts of him aside quickly just like I practiced over these past 5 years.” Leo Carter! This is the first time I didn’t have to wake you up, keep this up and we might have to get you checked out!” as she makes her way out of my room.  I’m trying to  wipe the eye boogers from underneath my eye lids, I eventually give up and just get up out of bed and start to make my way towards  the bathroom. I hop into the shower and turn the faucet on and not even a second later the hot/warm water is pouring over my body. After 15 minutes I get out dry off and brush my teeth and put on deodorant,  I then  emerge from the bathroom smelling fresh. I throw on my clothes and grab my back pack and then I make my way downstairs. I tell my mom I’m leaving and then walk out the door towards the bus stop.

  The rain has let down a bit but is still pouring there isn’t a lot of grass around since I live in the city but there are several trees lined up on the right hand and left hand sides of the street. I know your thinking I don’t have a lot to be happy about but it’s pretty cool I live 3 minutes away from the Ravens stadium and it’s very clean so it’s altogether a nice environment. I get to the 36 bus stop just in time to catch the 7:20 bus. I slide my S-pass and take my seat in the front, most kids sit in the back of the bus but I like to play it safe and keep my world problem free. I pop my head phones in and my favorite Sam Sparro song  starts to play. I look around the bus and notice a kid to my right looking out of the window, he looks angry but I don’t pay attention to his mood it’s the first day of school everybody’s  mad. I get off the bus 1 stop away from school and go into 7-11. I have this routine where everyday I have to get me a pack of trident layers gum, a pink lemon-aid brisk, and a bag of Doritos. I’m waiting in line when all of a sudden I see the same kid that looked angry on the bus standing in line behind me. I guess he unzipped his jacket because he is wearing the same uniform shirt that I’m wearing, a light blue oxford shirt with the Mervo cob-wheel on the left hand side above the pocket. I give him the was sup nod, he nods back  so I turn to the cashier and pay for my stuff. I make my way to school and within a couple of minutes I’m in my trade class and I look around and nod to a couple of familiar faces from last year. It feels great to be a sophomore, you may not get the respect you would get as a junior or senior but it’s a start. I take my seat and look at my watch and when I look up the kid from 7-11 is sitting  at the desk to the right of me. Up close I can get a better look of him, he’s about 5’5 to my 5’4 , he is the same complexion as my mom  and is fairly skinny ,just like me with dark brown eyes. Naturally I try to strike up a conversation.

 “Hey”.

“Hey” he says.

 “So you new here?” I ask.

 “Yeah my names Cole ….Cole Everdeen” he says like he’s trying to reassure himself.

 I then ask him what classes he has. He hands me his schedule. 

“It turns out we have all of the same classes” I say enthusiastically, he just shrugs it off and then class begins.

The day drags on and eventually I find myself  sitting with Cole at lunch we talk while we both di g into our packed lunches.

“So do you know a lot of people that go here?” Cole asks.

“You could say that but I don’t really have a lot of people I would consider friends” I reply

“Oh” he replies.

I make small talk and soon I find out that Cole lives right up the street from me and that he likes all the same things I do (anime ,movies ,video games, the internet).I ask him if he’d like to come over to play Modern Warfare 3 he s says “yes”.

  The day goes on like any other normal  school day. Cole and I catch the 36 to my house.

We immediately get caught up in an online game of  Search and Destroy and neither of us realizes that my mother has walked in. She ask s me to introduce my friend “Oh this is Cole from school” I tell her she already knew I was inviting someone over, I texted her at lunch.

Cole shakes her hand and says what a pleasure it is to meet you, my mother blushes and says “Leo why can’t you be more polite?”

I shrug her  question aside turn my attention back to the game.

She leaves so me and Cole start to play the game again.

Its intermission so I try to strike up a conversation.

“So…did you tell your mother what time you’d be home or….?”I stop mid-sentence when I notice the hurt and grief in his eyes. He immediately gets up and says he has to go, I ask him why and he says that he has something to do.

  Cole avoids me in school, sitting as far away from me as possible in class, catching an earlier bus home, and either eating outside or skipping lunch altogether. This goes on for about a month and I will admit I did feel kind of guilty even though I didn’t know what I had done. One night while I’m thinking about whether or not I have homework I pick up my cell phone and begin to call Cole. I  stop my self and then come to the conclusion that this entire thing is stupid.I began to get angry at Cole but also at myself  and then I calm down and think to myself about what I could have said and I come up with nothing . I eventually get annoyed again  and decide to put an end to this thing one way or another.

  The next day at school I sit at the same table as Cole and  ask him what I did wrong. There is dead silence. Cole refuses to meet my eyes and I start to ask him again until he break s the silence.

“I don’t want to talk about it” he says.

“Look, man I’m sorry I didn’t mean to….”

“It’s not anything you did…I just don’t want to talk about it!” he says.

“But….why..:”

“You wouldn’t understand”.

“Trust me and I just might…”

Cole looks up at me from his sandwich for the first time since I sat down.

“My mom died 2 months ago and I’ve been trying to forget about her ever since okay!!!” I look at Cole as I get a falling sensation in my gut at the sound of the word “died “. We are silent for a long time, finally I look up and speak.

“…I’m sorry”

“Your sorry? You don’t know what it feels like to lose someone so close..” I cut him off.

“My dad died when I was 10, so stop whining like a goddamn kid and face the facts that your not the only person to lose someone!” A single tear runs down my cheek and I look up to see a couple rolling down Cole’s cheek to. A couple of kids stare over at me and Cole but I ignore them. Cole whips his tears away.

“I’m Sorry…I know its not easy but I’m here and I know what it feels like” he says.

I wipe my face on my sleeve and then I finally feel the heavy feeling that I’ve felt since the day my father died slowly lift from my chest. I look over at Cole and we start talking like nothing ever happened. Cole makes a funny joke and for the first time since my dad died 5 years ago  I find myself  smiling.

   2 years later and I’m watching Cole give his speech up on stage for graduation. He talks about how he went through several struggles trying to get over the fact that his mom died, and how several teachers, piers, and family members have helped him through it. But what caught my attention is what he said next.

“Even though I will always owe a special debt to all  those wonderful people in my life  there’s one person who stands above all the rest” he says.

“Leo Carter… in my time of need he was there….I’m not saying that he was the only person who helped me out but the thing is Leo was the only person to truly share my pain and understand how it felt to be me” the auditorium is silent.

“ To tell you all the truth despite everyone’s efforts I wouldn’t be here today without Leo” everyone in the auditiorium is listening intently.

“Leo  did the best thing anyone can do for anyone eles”he pauses dramatically.

“He didn’t buy me fancy things or told me what I needed to hear…..he did something far greater than that..”he pauses dramatically again and I’m just about to ask him out loud what exactly I did,  because I’m pretty sure I was the most confused person in that room.

“he was a friend to me and I believe that is the greatest gift you can ever give to someone eles” and on this note he finishes his speech and walks off the stage. The applause is so loud that I can barley hear myself think but I’m not listening because all I can hear are my tears of excitement rolling down the sides of my face.