I grimly picked up the phone, dialing as slowly as I could, trying to buy time. The conversation that I was about to have wasn’t going to be very enjoyable for either of the people involved. As I pressed the digits on the receiver, I remembered the numerous times that I had dialed the same set of numbers, under happier circumstances. I told myself that I was being overly dramatic about the whole thing as I had been dragging the preparation for this phone call out for a while now. To a ten year old however, telling your very best friend that you would be moving halfway across the country, seemed to be a viable reason to be dramatic.


The ringing stopped, and a voice came through the ear piece.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Tessa, It’s me.”
“What’s up? You sound upset.” I drew in a breath, and scooted back, making myself more comfortable on the living room couch.
“Well…” I wasn’t quite sure how to say this, but I decided to simply spit it out, “I’m moving to Boston.”
Silence followed my abrupt announcement.
“Um…” Tessa stopped, apparently unsure of what to say. We had been best friends for our whole lives, I had just told her that I was moving away forever, and all she could say was “um...”?
“So yeah,” I tried to cover the silence that was becoming more and more awkward by the second. My attempt failed.
Tessa spoke again
“When do you leave?”
“I don’t know, a few weeks or so.” The couch was getting more and more uncomfortable, so I stood up and began to pace the room. Tessa took a deep and shaky breath on the other line,


“Do you want to go to Café Sole, then? For one last time?” I smiled. Tessa and I had been going to the small café near her house every day after school for as long as I could remember.


“Definitely.”





The green belt was a sidewalk that stretched all throughout the neighborhoods of the small town of Superior, Colorado, the place where I had spent the first ten years of my life. As Tessa and I made our way down the familiar path, I remembered each landmark along the way, knowing that this would be the last time that I would see each one. Fences stood to our right, cutting us off from various back yards. To the left20lay a field of green grass, with trees strategically planted every few feet. To say we lived in suburbia would be a giant understatement. In Superior, everything down to the very last tree looked the same.


As Tessa and I walked, we talked about little things; how unfair our homework was, how evil our fifth grade teacher could be, and how annoying our little brothers were acting. Both of us carefully danced around the topic of my family’s relocation to Massachusetts. Finally, we pushed through the doors and felt the blast of air conditioning that we associated with Café Sole.
Both of us had always felt extremely sophisticated sitting in the café, sipping our smoothies, with no parents in sight, and today was no exception. After we received our drinks, the girl at the counter had began to make them as soon as we walked through the door, we sauntered over to our usual table, feeling quite pleased with ourselves.


I smiled, finally forgetting everything, as I drank in the soft jazz music playing, the glazed wooden table at which we sat, and the art work from local Kindergarteners that hung on the wall. Tessa seemed to relax as well.
“So,” she said, finally bringing up the dreaded topic, “you’re leaving.”
I nodded, not wanting to leave the serenity I had been feeling a moment earlier, behind just yet. Tessa, however, continued.
“Well, that stinks. We were supposed to go to middle school together, remember? And take French, and sit together at lunch, and do our homework here, after school. Now who’s going to come here with me, huh?” She grew more and more heated as she continued, “tell your Dad that it’s stupid for him to take the new job, and it’s stupid for him to make you all move. Tell your Dad that you can stay with my family!” I smiled weakly at the last statement.
“Tessa, I have to go with my20family.”
“Well, Sam could come too. Johnny would like that.” Tessa’s little brother Johnny was my brother Sam’s best friend. I groaned.
“I don’t want to go, but I have to. My Dad said so. Believe me, I already tried everything. I even told him I would live with Grandma and Grandpa, but he still said no. I have to go.” Tessa sighed.
“Yeah,” She said, “I guess you’re right. I’m going to miss you, though. I guess I’ll have to find a new best friend now.” I laughed, because I knew she was joking, although I suppose that I did hope that she would make some new friends. Just so she would have somebody to hang out with after I left.
“Well,” I wondered how I could make this less hard, “we still have the memories.” Although this may have been the most cliché thing that I could have said, we both knew that it was true. I hoped t hat the memories wouldn’t fade.
We went on to talk more about the move, and how we would stay in touch, and she would visit me as much as she could. When we went our separate ways we hugged, and she was there the next day when my family and I packed up our life and drove away.


Tessa and I still talk to each other every once in a while, but we are no where near as close as we were when I left, five years ago. I have made new friends and so has she, but I look back on our friendship in particular, and realize how much it taught me. Now, five years later, I know what it’s like to leave someone that you love, and manage to still be okay. When we visit my old hometown, although Café Sole has been closed down, I always look at the place where it used to stand, and remember two best friends, sitting together with their smoothies, and a whole lot of memories.