In 2010 after my family had lost our childhood home of 16 years at broken lane, we moved to a run down house right next to Oakridge High which had 9 tennis courts. One day I had used the neighbor's internet to hit Raji up because we couldn't afford phones. I wrote hundreds of articles to buy an iPod touch so I used that to Wi-Fi call and text. Anyways I hit him up asking if he was able to go to the tennis courts and play, to which he responded "sorry, no I'm busy." Durham where we lived was right next to the high school and even though it was summer, I stayed in bed until it got too hot to sleep any longer. The only method of reducing the temperature was to have the windows open all day and night. The is relevant because on the day I asked Raji to go play tennis I was lying in bed when he walked past Durhamt. I texted him asking what was up and he didn't tell me he was going to hang out with the other kids from the tennis team and I didn't find out until I again saw through my open window, him go by in the ford explorer Trey had.
I took this pretty hard because he was supposed to be my best friend and tennis meant the world to me so it was an insult by action. I didn't talk to Raji for several weeks after this because if I had had money and a car of my own he would have hung out with me, so it hurt that being poor was causing me not have friends or any good times in my youth. After a couple weeks we were all scheduled to try out for the varsity tennis team which consisted of everyone trying out for the team plays everyone over the course of a one to two-week time period. It was during this that I believe I approached Raji after we had to play each other and tried to apologize and make things right and he said it hurt him, but he was also sorry for hanging out with the richer kids over me. Years later we are still very close friends. I don't however believe he knew that my actions of ignoring him for week was because I was too poor to engage in any recreation other than tennis, it was my one and only escape.