Keep me in your ocean

Chapter 3

For me, it was never easy to get friends. I loved socializing, connecting, joking, everything that came with friends, but making them? As in throwing in the pieces of who I was and hoping and hoping that I can get something back?

Moving from country to country when I was young made me flexible to adapt into someone likeable and approachable. This all made me have a good knack at making acquaintances, but when it came to opening up and making said acquaintance into a real and deep friendship, I couldn't do it. People would tell me their deep secrets and questions, whisper their confessions.

My brother Diego once told me: you're strange but friendly, so people tell you things. As if he wasn't moulded right after me. Same light brown hair and sharp jawline. Same cheeks and same smile. Maybe we were twins in another lifetime. He was also friendly, but not that strange.

I was lucky that 'strange but friendly' was just what Domingo, my best friend, was looking for. I was lucky, it was that duo of characteristics that called her attention that fateful day at volleyball practice. The same year we had made our move to our Californian house permanent, and I was plucked into whatever school had an opening for such a last minute student. The same year, I had signed up to any available extracurriculars to avoid being home at all.

The coach was in a terrible mood, telling us to run laps as a punishment for absolutely anything we did. He yelled and yelled, and nothing we ever did could appease him. I hated him and so did the rest of the team.

At the end of the practice, he made us sit in the bleachers. We were sweating buckets, the sun had been directly on top of us the whole time, since he chose to do the practice on the outside net. My knees felt like rusted screws from all the time I spent in a squatting position, and my forearms were absolutely numb from all the forearm passes he made us redo.

While he yelled, all I could focus on was his absolutely stinky breath and without thinking, I mumbled "I think his breath stinks because of the shit he talks."

I didn't think anyone would hear me, but the girl beside me stifled a laugh. I smiled at her, happy to make someone chuckle on this terrible afternoon. "Why is he so fucking pissed?"

"Do you think he might've found out his wife was cheating on him or something?" The girl had said.

"Maybe she was having a passionate love affair with a woman and he's mad he can't get in on it." I responded quietly.

"You don't satisfy my needs Todd! I had to search for other ways to get the pleasure I deserve." The girl mimicked.

We both giggled at the image of the coach finding his wife in bed with a woman and having that conversation, and it was funny with exhaustion. A very stupid hallucination that had been caused by the scorching rays of the sun. We were the sort of delirious that you'd laugh at a wonky-looking squirrel. Of course, the coach noticed we weren't taking his lecture seriously and screeched some more.

Afterward, the girl introduced herself as Domingo, and we soon bonded over our mutual hatred for Coach Todd. She had been there by my side since then. She was also strange but friendly.

So telling her, my closest friend, was a special sort of torture.

Domingo was quiet, which was scary. Domingo was never quiet, and had the personality of a Pomeranian on cocaine. Now she was a Pomeranian being contemplative, which doesn't happen.

"That's where Katerina was going to go, right?" She asked over the phone.

"Yeah. Boston."

She sighed, filled with remorse but acceptance. Katerina's line of duty was now mine. "Have you talked to her at all about this? You going to the university she was going to go and everything?"