Octonauts Oneshots

Dear Best Friend

This isn't Octonauts, but I wanted to write it and I'm not in the mood to make a whole other book for this kind of thing, so I'm doing it here. 

A very confusing letter to my (ex?) best friend, that won't make sense to anyone but me. 

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It's been 7 years.

It's been 7 years since the day I walked into the classroom as a little 5 year old. 

It's been 7 years since I saw the pretty girl with the braids, and claimed her as my friend, oblivious that I would choose you as my bestie a week later. 

That brings us to the second week of prep. Your second week of school, with a uniform and notebooks. Also my second week at school, although I had gone to a different kinder. 

I don't remember how we met. It's a blur in my mind. But you, the blond-haired, blue eyed girl who was a few months younger than me, became my best friend. 

We were the best of friends for years. Completely inseparable. We had sleepovers and play-dates, and spend all day every day gossiping about that substitute teacher with the bright green hair, and the new kid who didn't speak. 

With complications - like any good friendship - we stayed friends, swearing it would be forever. 

Grade 4. Term 2 of our 5th year of school. The mean girl. 

The mean girl. She took you. She claimed to be a good friend, loyal and trustworthy. But she wasn't. And you didn't see that. You saw her as what she wanted you to think of her. She took you as her minion, dragged you into her schemes. 

I became her 'friend' too. I never really liked her, but you did, and I wanted to hang out with you. She seemed like my only option. 

Then the other girl joined the group. Absolutely gorgeous, with wavy ginger hair and hazel eyes. She was very sweet, honest and loyal. She thought the mean girl was alright too. 

This friendship didn't last very long. I'm still friends with the ginger girl, and avoid the mean girl at all costs. I'm not sure about you. 

That short-term friend group isn't the problem. The problem is the next character in our story. 

The next character isn't a problem. The next character is one of my closest friends. But she seems to be your closest. 

We're in the same friend group. Your friends are my friends, and mine are yours. But it doesn't seem like we're friends anymore. 

You got to know the girl, and bonded with her over boring things like Minecraft and YouTube. You didn't like those things before. 

This was not what I knew you as. I knew you as a kind girl, if sometimes a little feisty, with an intense Harry Potter obsession and an annoying little brother who almost surpassed mine in the scale. 

But you were turning into a not-so-nice person, ever since you met the girl. The girl didn't take you. You gave yourself to her. The girl is a good friend, one of my best ones. 

But you aren't. I want to be friends with you, I really do. But I don't want to be friends with someone who isn't a good person, and is brainwashed by unimportant things. 

Math class. I sit next to you. I try to be near you whenever we're together, hoping you might talk to me, and not move away to be next to the girl. But in math class, it's the only class we have together, just you and me. None of our other friends. 

We sit together, and you talk to me. Just what I want, right? 

No. 

You're one of those people. You only talk to me when there's no one else to talk to.

I want my old friend back. The one who was always happy, but wasn't exactly into hugs or comfort. The one who would tell me the latest gossip when I wasn't allowed social media. I don't want this new you. 

I have nothing against people changing, although I do admit that sometimes I do I wish everything could stay the same. But you changed in a bad way. You're no longer a nice person. And that's not someone I want to be friends with. 

That brings us here, to me sitting at my desk, writing this, holding back tears as I stare at the photos of us on my wall. 

The one of you and me high up in a tree, grinning like toddlers. 

The one of us at the cinema for a classmate's birthday, shoving popcorn mercilessly at the camera. 

The one of you and me hugging on the first day of Grade 2. 

The ones of me, the short one with curly brown hair, and the clashing outfits. And you, the one with blue glasses and light-up sneakers. 

No one person is the problem in this. There is no problem. I just want my old friend back. 

It's been 7 years since I lost my doll, and you bought me a new one. 

It's been 7 years since we pinky-promised to be best friends forever. 

It's been 7 years since two happy little girls played together for the first time, not knowing there would be a last. 

It's been 7 years.