Childhood Lovers

Childhood Lovers. 1

UNDER © 2010 Jacqueline Michelle

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Every girl remembers her first kiss.

Mine was at the age of five. It was right after making numerous mud pies with my best friend Chase on a warm, sunny, August afternoon. It was quick, simple, and purely experimental. After the kiss, we giggled, wiped the "cooties" from our mouths, and ran over to the swing set.

Chase and I did everything together. We went swimming in his pond, played hide and seek, tried to catch fireflies, watched Pokémon, built snow men, picked dandelions, played catch - the list goes on and on. We share a special connection, one nobody else seemed to understand.

Chase was the son of my mother's best friend, Rebecca. For the first seven years of our lives, we were inseparable. Then, Chase's father got a job offer in California, causing the whole family to move 3,000 miles away.

Because we were only kids, we weren't able to use the phone line or email like our mothers. So instead, we wrote letters to each other. When I say letters, I mean a piece of notebook paper with a few messy sentences on it, enclosed in an envelope that our mothers filled out with the mailing information. We kept the letters going for a few months. Gradually over time, the letters became less frequent. Eventually, they stopped. Although our mothers continued to stay in touch, Chase and I moved on with our lives. We grew up, made new friends and forgot about each other.

Until last week, when my mother brought up his name for the first time in a number of years.

"Hayden, do you remember Rebecca and her son, Chase?" His name felt so unfamiliar, and sounded so foreign. Yet, it struck some melancholy into my heart. It was as if my brain didn't remember, but my heart did.

"Vaguely," I muttered.

"Well, I was talking to Rebecca on the phone the other night and she invited us to spend the summer at their house."

"In . . . California?" Slowly, it was all coming back to me.

"Yes. They've got a beautiful house in Santa Monica, right on the shore," my mother said, with a cheerful tone. She wasn't very good at hiding her excitement.

"And Rebecca wants us to come?"

"Yes. She thinks it would be a great way to reconnect and get our families close again." A bright, pearly grin appeared on my mother's face. "Your father thinks it's a great idea too! He said he misses John's knee-slapping jokes."

I couldn't tell if I wanted to go or not. So mentally, I made a pro and con list.

Pro: Going to California and getting out of boring Connecticut for a while.

Con: Spending my summer going into senior year away from my friends.

Pro: Seeing my childhood best friend after spending ten years apart.

Con: Having it be completely awkward and starting fresh because we've changed and no longer know each other well.

Pro: Making my mother happy.

Con: Possibly making myself unhappy.

My mother must have interpreted my internal thinking as displeased silence, because she said, "If you don't want to, Honey, I'll understand. But, if you don't go, your father and I can't go because as parents we can't leave you home alone for three months. I know it's very last minute, and I shouldn't have sprung this on you. I was just so excited to finally see my best friend, but it's okay if you say no."

Oh crap, I thought. I hate when parents pull the guilt trip.

I squeezed my eyes shut, took a deep breath, and said, "Fine, I'll go."

The expression on my mother's face was priceless - a combination of joy, relief, thankfulness and excitement. It was a bittersweet feeling to see my mother so happy about a sacrifice I had made. Despite being far away from my friends in, an unknown area, with someone I hardly knew anymore, I strongly believed that Karma would help me out in the end.

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PS victorious, who this chapter is dedicated to, is the best editor ever. my writing would be crap without her!