I remember the day I showed up exactly twenty-seven minutes late to your house. I hadn’t realized how late it was until I nonchalantly glanced at my phone and saw your simple text: Are we still meeting for coffee? And then I am out the door, breaking out into a cold sweat as I careened out of my driveway, tires spinning under the force of the acceleration. My fingers fly over my miniscule phone keyboard. I’m coming, I’m coming. Send. Seconds slide by, morphing into minutes. I’m behind a chain of vehicles now, the result of an elderly driver puttering sluggishly down the road. This cannot be happening. My fingers fly over my miniscule phone keyboard. Almost there. Send. I nervously glance at the clock, the little glowing numbers ticking idly by without a care in the world. The elderly driver turns off onto a little residential road. Thank God, finally. Your house appears out of the distance. My anxiety immediately lessons. I made it. Everything is going to be fine.


Forgetting about parking in a decent manner, I hit the brakes and launch myself from the vehicle, cringing slightly as the early October chill bites at my face and slides through my thin cardigan. I glance at my phone as I jog to your front door and hop up the three worn front steps. The little numbers seem to mock me, as they now read 3:57. Ugh, I feel sick. Twenty-seven minutes past our arranged meeting. My anxiety is back now, fully fledged and gnawing at my stomach, pulsating through my arms, making my fingers shake slightly. I bounce back and forth on my feet in an attempt to ward off the cold and distract myself from my overwhelming panic.

Then I knock. Three times, like always. And I wait. Your dog is barking now. Yet, I still wait. I sink down onto the front steps and sit motionless, listening for your footsteps, anticipating the clink of the doorknob as it unlocks. The sun hangs low in the sky now, just above the roofline of your house, glaring into the windows, making them seem dirtier than they are. That’s just an illusion, I know. You always keep your place sparklingly pristine. Except for that crack in your front window—the one that I’ve always bugged you about. Get that fixed. You’ll let in a draft. Wait. I can see you. That ridiculous sprawling crack distorts you a bit as you draw closer to the front door, making your legs seem unusually long, your graceful steps seem gangly and disjointed. I spring to my feet in anticipation as the doorknob slowly rotates and you gingerly pull open the door.



I was in the third grade when I met you. At first I found you slightly dull, a teacher’s pet, unworthy of my friendship. Perhaps I even disliked you a bit. But everything changed the day you neglected to use up all your allotted amount of glue for the individual art projects we were all working on. A notoriously excessive glue user myself, my project required copious amounts of glue. My bottle was soon empty. However, your half-full glue bottle was just what I needed to finish my masterpiece. I swaggered over with the intention of stealing your glue supply when you weren’t looking. But you had other ideas. What are you doing? I stopped in my tracks. You were looking at me, smugly, head cocked to the side with an incredulous expression painted across your face. I didn’t know what to say. My cheeks went red with a mix of embarrassment and irritation. If you want to use my glue, just ask. Don’t try and steal it. You were clear and concise, and although you denied me the right to use your glue, you gave me the slightest hint of a sly smile. In that moment, you earned my respect. You were, of course, an overconfident and slightly bratty third-grade kid, but you weren’t afraid to speak up for yourself. Now there’s a girl I could be friends with, I thought. We ate lunch together on the playground that day.


They say opposites attract, but in our case, this statement could not have been more wrong. We were alike in every way—outspoken, frivolous, obsessed with kittens, and always had our sandwiches cut into triangles. We hated math and lived for art class. Our friendship remained strong throughout elementary school and carried on into the dangerous, cut-throat land of middle school. We went everywhere together. Every Friday we patrolled our hometown of Hansville like we owned the place, biking down dusty park trails singing the theme of “High School Musical” at the top of our lungs, your scruffy, yapping dog following along behind. The highlight of our week was visiting sleepy general store to stock up on gummy worms and Cokes.


I was the adventurous, slightly mental one who took everything a bit too seriously; you were my logical, reasonable, and slightly sarcastic counterpart. Once, when I attempted to do a backflip off the high dive at the swimming pool, you dragged me over to the shallow end and promptly pinned me there until I reconsidered. And when I was too afraid to ride the upside down roller coaster at the county fair, you insisted on riding with me even though you developed a massive headache and a permanent fear of heights afterwards. You were even my rock during the awkward stages of my pre-teen years, the shoulder to cry on when boyfriends dumped me, or if I was having a bad day, or if school just became too overwhelming for my adolescent brain to comprehend. I was nothing without you; you were the peanut butter to my triangular jelly sandwich. You were my childhood.


I moved away the month after my fifteenth birthday. There were many tears, hugs, and jokes about moving so I didn’t have to “see your annoying face again.” I promised to stay in touch. I promised to call you every night to let you know how my new high school was working out and how life in my new town of Chimacum was shaping up. Those promises were kept for a while. But the phone calls eventually fizzled out to every other night, then once a week, then once a month. I stopped sending you my handwritten letters detailing every aspect of my personal life. Inside jokes and traditions were forgotten. We no longer shared gummy worms and cokes and stayed up late watching gross horror movies on weekends. Our phone calls became awkward, drawn-out affairs, with each of us hoping the other would hang up first. Responsibilities of high school soon replaced the remains of our close friendship. We would make plans to meet up, but our time together was just not the same. You had become more introverted and distant; you were no longer my perfect counterbalance but rather my complete opposite. Gradually, unknowingly, I began to replace you with new friends and acquaintances. My new life simply could not accommodate what we once had.


Soon after my junior year of high school started, I arranged to meet you for coffee on Wednesday afternoons. I did not want to give up on what we once had, even if we only saw each other once in a blue moon. We had a friendship built on gummy worms and dusty bike rides, something special to us and only us. It could not simply fizzle out and be gone. There was a spark left somewhere. Determined to find that spark, I met you, dutifully, every Wednesday. But our meetings were a disaster. I was always distracted by some upcoming event or homework assignment. You discussed your new raw food diet and stated plans to become a dietician—subjects I always found dull. I told you about theatre productions in which I had participated and what my current favorite band was. Neither of us listened to the other, instead glancing down at our phones and fussing with our coffee cups until we could not stand the awkward sciences any longer. Every time we brought up the “good old days,” we just became sullen and nostalgic. I started to resent you. I paid less attention to the times of our meetings, often showing up late and sometimes not showing up at all. After a few angry phone calls, I tried to give it one last shot. One last shot to rekindle our dying friendship, to recreate something that once shaped our lives. One last time for each of us to try and say I’m sorry before we disappear into our own lives, leaving our sugary, picturesque childhood behind.



I stare at the crack in the door expectantly as you slowly emerge from the depths of your house. My knuckles sting slightly, a result of my frantic knocking. You pry open the door and avoid looking me in the eye, instead focusing on your scuffed Welcome mat with your arms protectively crossed over your chest. I don’t really notice. I am too focused on the little dog that has pushed through the door and is now licking at my shoelaces. I scoop him up. He was always my favorite. Let’s go, I insist, the café closes in an hour. I hand you the squirming dog, quietly smiling and expecting you to pull on your usual hoodie and hop in my car, pushing away thoughts of awkward conversation to come, the questions regarding why I was late, why couldn’t I just be on time for once, why I was too invested in my new life to care about what we once had.


You’re angry now, I can tell from your narrowed, flashing eyes, your refusal to make eye contact, your tight-lipped smile. You delicately scratch your dog under his chin and tuck your hair behind your ear. Maybe next week, you reply, sighing and shrugging apologetically. Your words sent shoots of ice straight into my chest, and I feel dizzy. Whether I am feeling anger, resentment, or embarrassment, I don’t know. All I can do is watch, slack-jawed, as you herd your dog back inside and quietly back away, shutting your door with a click as I stand shivering in the icy cold. The sun glares in my eyes as it sinks lower and lower through the sky. The dwindling sun carries with it my dying cries for something that has been broken for ages. My last chance is gone. Only empty coffee cups and vapid memories of gummy worms and glue bottles remain.