Part Ten

I decided not to think about it too much at school.

Or I tried to.

I was miserable and jumpy all day.

Still, nobody noticed.

I never realized how lonely I was without my best friend.

 See, I’ve grown up here, and I was born here. That means I have some lasting friends, and I’ve met a lot of people. My best friend, Richard Ediger, is visiting New York right now. He won’t be back until Thursday, and he knows nothing of what happened.

But at lunch, Tristin caught up with me again.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, walking up to the same place we sat before. I glared at him. “I mean more than yesterday.” He sat next to me. “You look like you’ve been crying.”

I hung my head lower over my sandwich and continued chewing. I also wiped my eyes with my left sleeve.

“C’mon,” Tristin encouraged. “You can tell me. It seems like I’m the only one who’ll actually listen, if you know what I mean.”

I thought about his offer while I swallowed. I put down my sandwich slowly. Then I sighed and pulled out my new phone.

“My….” My voice was hoarse. “My mom got me this phone last night. She programmed a bunch of numbers in it,” I explained, scrolling through the contact list, “but she left out my dad. I asked her about it and she went all rigid and cold, and told me I couldn’t call him. He’s been away for a long time, and… and I’m just worried… it’s too long….” My voice got smaller at the end.

“You’re worried they might be fighting?” Tristin correctly surmised.

I nodded and there was silence between us. I found I wasn’t hungry any more. The silence lasted a long while.

“Let’s brawl,” Tristin suggested suddenly.

“Um… What?”

“You said you know combat, and I find that fighting makes me feel better.” He stood up quickly and held out his hand. “C’mon, just try it. We’ll be careful.”

I stared at him incredulously, and he smiled back. He wouldn’t let up on the idea, so I sighed and accepted him for the second time in two days. We moved away from the school wall so that we had a lot of free space of grass around us. Then he stood in a ready stance and I automatically did the same.

“We’ll just go at it,” Tristin said, “but avoid the danger areas. Got it?”

“Yep.”

“K. Three… two… one!”

Tristin came at me, just as I expected he would. I twisted myself around to dodge and easily placed a counter-attack; my elbows connected with his back, both knocking the wind out of him and sending him to the ground. I smiled.

“Okay…” Tristin muttered as I helped him up again. “You’re better than I expected. I guess I won’t go all that easy on you anymore.”

“Easy?” I laughed. “I doubt you have anything better than that.”

We stood at the ready again, but the warning bell rang. I dropped my guard.

“Oops, we’d better stop,” I said, walking back to our things.

“Never turn your back on your enemy!” Tristin warned as he jumped on my back. I was surprised, but I reacted. Instead of falling flat on my face, I landed on my knees and grabbed his shoulders. Then I bent forward and pulled him off me. He lay on his back on my left and I smiled at him while on all fours.

“Okay, you’re good,” Tristin admitted. We laughed as we packed our things and headed to class. Turns out he was in my health class on B-days. I have never found it so hard to keep quiet.