Falling In Love With My Best Friend (Watty Award 2011)

Chapter 10

© Copyright Nicole Nelson, 2011

Grace's POV-

The day after the homecoming dance, me and Paul’s relationship became official. However, the stronger things grew with me and him, the weaker they seemed to become with me and Brandon; me and Kristy; me and everyone. Days went by at a time with no word from Kristy. When I asked her what was wrong she just rambled about how busy she had been, even though she had been busy non-stop for years and that never posed a problem before.                                                                 

“I think the team has a good chance of going to state this year.” Daddy said at the dinner table the second night my mom was away spending the weekend at a downtown hospital. She was visiting an old family friend who sadly wasn’t expected to make it to the next week. My dad and I stayed behind, unable to miss school and work, and I unsuccessfully took over her cooking duties. Because the day before we were forced to eat hamburgers that were somehow burned on the outside yet raw on the inside, he decided to have pizza delivered and we sat around the pizza box in the center of the kitchen table, helping ourselves.

“I think so too.” I agreed.

“The seniors are having a good season…” He beamed.

“Undefeated.” I added.

We both took bites from our pizza and chewed in silent unison.

“It’s hard to believe this is Brandon’s last year on my team.”

I nodded. There wasn’t much I could say.

“He’s a good player. He’ll really like playing for OSU.” He continued.

“I’m sure he will.” I agreed again, wishing the topic of our conversation would change. Now I was going to have him stuck in my head again and feeling like a horrible friend for not speaking to him. Great.

 “Why haven’t you been spending time with him lately? That's not normal for the two of you.”

“I don’t know.” I said after I was swallowed the food I was chewing.

This wasn’t exactly true but I didn’t feel like going into the details with him. I presumed he would have taken that as a good enough answer and dropped the conversation but I was wrong.

“Are you and him fighting or something?” He persisted, referring to Brandon as if he were the only friend I had. He was probably the only friend I had that mattered in dad’s eyes.

He liked Brandon; he had been around my family since we were kids and was almost like the son my dad never had. It made sense for him to notice his absence around our home. But daddy didn’t talk about feelings often and seeing his attempt to have a heart to heart about our friendship made me squirm in my seat. I took another bite to buy myself time to think of a response that would deflect the counseling session he was trying to initiate.

Brandon wasn’t mad at me, he was simply distant and withdrawn which somehow felt much worse. We no longer sat together at lunch since I started sitting with Paul and our rides to and from school were usually in silence. Although he acted as though nothing were wrong when I tried to talk about things, I felt a thick tension. I knew when something was wrong between us.

He stopped texting me unless there was an important reason. No more ‘hey whats up?’s or idle chit chat, all communication between us seemed forced. No more movie nights in my living room. Even his midnight visits started to taper off, one of the most hurtful side effects of not being close anymore. Those sleepovers were our unspoken tradition. The first Thursday night he failed to come over to listen to my pep talk before his Friday night game, I cried in my pillow until I fell asleep.