I remember in middle school I had a best friend that was always there for me, someone I really didn’t know at first. A kid with a heart and a great attitude. I remember how this all started, he didn’t have many friends. Christian was kind of fat, tall, and would wear weird clothes.
The first time we ever spoke was in 7th grade when we were taking the WASL. We were on a water break and I was in line to get water. Out of nowhere Christian and his friend Ramiro pushed me, so I socked him in the chest. They both socked me in the chest and I was mad, our math teacher separated us, wrote referrals, and we were suspended for one day. While being in the office Christian and I started laughing of how stupid we were, and the day we came back to school we started talking.

I remember those days clearly. It was an early Monday morning and I told him to sit by me to work on our math problems together for algebra 1 & 2. We were having a good time and then left for lunch. We ate together and I introduced him to my closest friends and everyone else I knew. As days went by, Christian started coming over to my house.

I got him interested in playing sports and he got lighter and more athletic. He even started to excel at playing basketball, football, and soccer. Summer arrived and every day we hung out. We went to our soccer games, swimming, and worked at some orchards in Burbank. We had adventures every weekend, we went to parties and we busted missions together. Like once we had to be home before one in the morning, and we had to walk like ten miles from Kennewick all the way to the east side of Pasco. We got into deep problems that we always ended up getting out of like I remember once we were at a house party that everyone inside was drunk and we were sober but all of a sudden the cops showed up and we talked to them saying we were trowing a small graduation party. The cops believed us, all we had to do was be quiet. He was my main friend that never let me down. It was so fun, and we fit in perfect. I would let him borrow my clothes, and he then bought clothes of the same brand as mine.

By the time we were done with freshmen year we even called each other’s moms, mom. He had all my trust and friendship, we treated each other as brothers.

He left me for a girl and this was the climax in our story. I waited for him in the cafeteria at lunch, my friends told me he ditched me for another of our friend’s girlfriend. We were all surprised and disappointed in him, it felt like he didn’t care. Months passed and none of us talked to him at all. We had classes with him, but there was awkward silence in every situation. The few friends he had were all new.
He hung out with the wrong crowd that made him think he was a big shot. It was a group of immature young adults called ‘swag crew’, that were all older than him that thought they were cool. He realized that they weren’t his true friends. For all the times they hung out they did it because he knew a lot of girls, not because they wanted to be his true friends and be there for him. When he let one of them live in his house for a couple of weeks he noticed that after he left he used him. Now he doesn’t even talk to him. The real friends were the ones he pushed away.

Life for him was very different after we stopped talking. I don’t think he ever went out on the weekends, his mom didn’t trust him unless he was with me. He didn’t have any contact with our group of friends, and everyone talked bad about him except me. One day in metal tech class I brought my car inside the shop and out of nowhere he was helping me clean my car, and he apologized and hugged me. I was surprised because he’s the kind of person that does not apologize. He believes that he never does anything wrong, he has no obligation to apologize.

We once again became best friends and had that brother friend trust. It was a better friendship I’ve ever had, since he knew what would happen if he lost my friendship. He told me I was always a true friend. Sadly we missed out in a lot of wasted time, but we were happy we became best friends again.