One day in the middle of the fall, I was at my grandma’s house with my friend who lives in her neighborhood. We had been friends since the day we met when he moved into my grandma’s neighborhood. When we were younger, we would drive around in his John Deere green Power Wheel Jeep that went a million miles per hour, play catch with a dirty brown baseball, and spend the night at each other's houses and stay up all night. As we grew older, our friendship became stronger and stronger even though we went to different schools. I would go over to my grandma’s every weekend during the school year so that we could hangout, and during the summer I’d go over there every chance I had.  

One day we had an idea to go walk around in the damp woods with BB guns and try to shoot birds out of trees. We stomped around in the woods with our smooth jet black BB guns, trying to shoot birds. We were unsuccessful because it was almost winter, and there were absolutely no birds outside; it was like an apocalypse. 

I yelled, “This sucks. There are absolutely no birds.” 

Then my friend mumbled, “I know. I’m getting so bored.”

“Let’s just go run around in the woods,” I replied.

“Okay,” my friend exclaimed. “Sounds like a plan!”

We galloped through the earthy smelling woods and through the knee-high frosty grass, jumped over creeks, and ran up hills, crunching rust brown leaves under our feet with an earthy smell in the air. 

Once this was all over, we sat down for a break on a big fallen oak tree. Since we are boys, we grew curious, wondering how bad it would hurt if we were shot by one of the BB guns. 

I confidently stated, “I'll test it. I'll just run over there a little bit, so it won't hurt as bad.” 

“Are you sure you want me to shoot you?” my friend asked.

I replied,  “For sure. It can’t hurt that bad.”

I ran about twenty yards away through the squishy, wet ground and nervously waited to get shot. My legs were like rubber bands as I waited. I stood up straight with my arms by my side and my back to him while my body stiffened. POP!

I screamed, “Oh shoot that actually hurt.”

My friend exclaimed, “Are you all right?” 

 My friend ran over to me laughing as I felt a sharp pain in the left midsection of my back. I twisted my body around to see the point of impact where the pain grew worse and worse. I had a huge welt on my back that looked almost like I had been shot by an actual gun. It was one of the worst pains I have ever felt. After that my friend refused to let me shoot him, and I didn't really care because it was hilarious once it was all over. 

We both died laughing about the whole incident later that night when he stayed the night at my grandma’s house with me. We woke up in the morning, and my friend had football practice; so he left kind of early in the morning. 

Little did I know that would be the last time we hung out. Freshman year I was very busy and so was my friend, so we didn't get to hang out again after that day. We would message each other every once in awhile, but not often usually only when it was one of our birthdays. Then freshman year ended, and the summer began. I had baseball almost every day, and it left little time to do much of anything. After baseball was over, I practically went straight into the golf season. With time flying by, it was now my sophomore year, and I hadn’t seen my best friend since the beginning of freshman year-freshman year. Every once in a while, I will see him somewhere, and we will talk for a little bit but nothing more than ten minutes, and it’s almost like we have never met. As the years go on, our bond is now getting farther and farther apart, but I’ll always remember that summer and the adventure in the woods and the time I was shot.