How To Save You

                “Do you want to be my best friend forever?” Adri interrupted my plans, looking up at me from under her long black lashes.

                “Uh… what does that mean?” I shoved my glasses back up my nose.

                “It means you have to play Barbie with me,” she explained, “and we never leave each other. And you share your cookies with me.”

                She gave me a lop-sided, gap-toothed smile and how was I meant to resist that? I was a sucker for girls in pigtails and pink dungarees. So I agreed readily and she smiled even wider and I blushed. I couldn’t help myself, I didn’t know how to act around cute girls and someone who wanted to be my actual friend. I didn’t have any friends before.

                She spat into her hand and offered it to me.

                “Yuck, Adri!” I squirmed away from her, pressing my back against the trunk of the tree.

                “Eli, we have to. Otherwise we aren’t officially Best Friends Forever,” she said seriously, her eyes widened.

                “Are you sure?” I mumbled, shuddering at the thought of her saliva on my hand. Best friends or not, she still had cooties.

                “Triple sure,” she assured me.

                Nervously I spat in my own hand and then shakily extended it toward her. Adri grinned deviously and slapped our hands together. They made a very uncomfortable squelching noise. I tried to take my hand back but Adri, a small evil smile on her face, was determined to tease me. But it was a good kind of teasing, as she clenched our hands together.

                Finally she released my hand and wiped her own on her pink trouser leg. I wanted to wash my hands, but she apparently didn’t think too much about cleanliness.

                “So is it done?” I asked her.

                “Yeah. Best Friends Forever,” she said and I smiled at her.

***

                The worst day of my life was when I had to say goodbye to Adri Walker. My parents had decided to get a divorce and my mom had gotten custody over me. She wanted to go back to England, where she was born and I had to go with her. I begged and pleaded her to let me stay with dad, because of Adri. I had finally gotten a friend and I was starting to grow as well. Life was looking up, and I had to leave.

                Over the year, our bond had fortified into something close to unbreakable. Adri came over to my house nearly every day. We hung out at lunch, shared cookies and she taught me how to play pranks on people. It was a great year. But what I also learnt was that Adri had a big temper. And I was not looking forward to breaking the news to her that I was going to, what seemed to me, the other side of the world.

                We went to the willow tree and Adri could tell something was up. She knew about my parents but she still had no clue that I would be moving.

                “What’s wrong?” she questioned me, breaking my cookie in half and sharing it with me.

                “I’m going to England,” I said.

                She frowned at me, “where the people drink tea? And speak funny?”

                I nodded somberly and she shrugged. Apparently she thought it was going to be a holiday or something. I ran my fingers through my wavy blonde hair, biting my lip. I did not want to tell her, and I did not want to go.

                “I’m moving there, Adri,” I explained.

                “Like… forever?” she turned to face me, her eyes wide and her lower lip jutted out in a pout.

                I nodded again, fiddling with my glasses so she could not see I was going to cry.

                “But we’re meant to be Best Friends Forever,” she murmured, “you cannot go!”

                My shoulders started to shake; I couldn’t help myself. My parents fought and hated each other. My brother was angry all the time. My grandmother wouldn’t stop crying after she heard the news. I had to leave my only friend I had ever had. I was going to have to say goodbye to my dad. Tears were rolling down my face, thick and fast.

                Suddenly I felt a warm, small hand cupping my head and Adri was hugging me. I didn’t care about cooties, because she was warm and smelt of honey. I clenched my teeth, trying to stop myself from embarrassing myself from sobbing loudly, but Adri did not seem to care. She just ran her fingers through my hair, her chin on my shoulder.

                “I don’t want to go,” I whispered.

                “It’ll be okay,” she replied.

                “What if no one likes me?”

                “I have really good taste and I like you, so they will too,” she breathed and I laughed.

                We let each other go, and I saw her bright blue eyes were brimming with tears. She gave me a half-hearted smile and fixed my glasses, straightening them.

                We said goodbye a month later.

                I never saw or heard from her till seven years later when I moved back to the USA. I never expected her to be the way she was when I found her.

 ***

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