After reaching home, I had a quick dinner before embarking on my evening walk, which I had now made a habit of doing every day for well over a month now. I had found it to be not only good exercise, but a really relaxing way to organize my thoughts and feelings... Not to mention the fact that the town was relatively small and always looked glorious in the evening sun.
I had been out walking for about an hour, listening to my music contentedly, when my phone began to buzz in my pocket. Pulling it out, I was more than just a little surprised to see the name of the caller. It was from Rami, a friend I had made while at university in Toronto. He and I had hung out several times in my previous school year in particular, often meeting up to play some late-evening video games or just sit and chat. However, as he lived in Dubai and went home for the summer, we had barely had contact with him over the past four months. From his call, however, I assumed that he must be back in Toronto now for the upcoming school year.
"Hey Rami," I grinned as I answered the phone. "Had a good summer?"
"BROOOOOOOOO!" I couldn't help but chuckle as his voice boomed through the other end. I had almost forgotten just how much of an enthusiastic guy he was. Always cheerful, always full of energy, even at 4 AM when we had been playing Xbox for hours, all those details came back to me in a flash as he spoke. "How's it going, man? It's been ages! Did you watch the World Cup? Wasn't it sick?!"
"Which question would you like me to answer first?" I replied, my voice shaking with laughter. He laughed too. "I've been good man, got myself an internship so I won't be at school this year."
"What?! Ah congrats man, I'm so glad to hear that! And you got it back home?"
"You bet!" I said. "How was your summer?"
"Oh, you know, same old," he said. "Hung out with the family and some friends back home, watched the World Cup, and now it's already time for school again!" We chatted for a little while longer as I continued to walk around town with no particular destination in mind. After about half an hour, he had to go. "Hey man, we'll talk again soon, okay? I have to get my school shit together for tomorrow."
"Definitely we'll talk soon!" I assented, before remembering something. "Hey, wait! School started a few days ago, did your plane come back late or something?"
He laughed again. "No man, I got in on Wednesday, the day before classes started. But I wanted to call you to wish you happy birthday in advance, as I'm super busy tomorrow and I wasn't sure if I could call then."
I said nothing for a minute. "I didn't know you remembered my birthday," I said quietly at last. The only time I had mentioned it to him had been around ten months ago, when we had had drinks to celebrate the end of midterms. But I thought he must have forgotten about it.
A roar of laughter erupted from the other end. "Really dude? You thought I would forget YOUR birthday? Never!" I smiled; it was a very nice turn of events to have friends remembering my birthday, first at the Y and now Rami.
"Well, thanks Rami, it really means a lot to me that you called," I said, and I meant it.
"No worries at all, brother, have a great day tomorrow, yeah?" And with that, we hung up and I looked up, taking in my surroundings at last. I had been walking for nearly two hours now, but I had not been keeping track of which roads I had turned on. Looking around, I smiled as I realized I had unknowingly started heading back home, and was only twenty minutes away. Reaching home, I wasn't surprised to see that everyone else had already gone to bed. It was only ten in the evening, but my parents had a habit of trying to get to bed early. Not particularly interested in staying awake by myself, I headed to bed too, laying on my bed for a little while, lost in my thoughts, before I finally drifted off.
