I can remember the day she moved here quite clearly. It was a hot August day, the kind of day where the sky is perfectly blue and clear without a single cloud. When you walk outside the hot air envelopes you without the slightest breeze. On that sweltering day, I was trudging across my yard as I mowed the lawn, blowing my long brown hair out of my mouth, and starting to feel sweat running down the side of my face as a silver minivan followed by a large and brightly painted moving truck pulled up to the house neighboring ours.
Our old neighbors, a sweet elderly couple, had moved out a month or two ago, and it appeared that the newcomers were arriving today. I stopped pushing my lawnmower and stared as the new neighbors emerged from their mini van. A disheveled and tired looking man and woman appeared, the woman’s blond hair swept back in a loose ponytail. Then, a girl slowly crawled out of the back of the car. She was wearing a baggy t-shirt and her hair was blond like her mother’s. She looked to be about my age, so maybe she was sixteen too. The prospect of a new friend and neighbor was exciting to me. She looked over at our yard as I was gazing at them. I smiled at her, hoping my sweat and grass covered appearance wouldn’t be too intimidating, and she smiled back.
That was almost three months ago, and if I’d have known what was to happen, I would not have tried as hard as I did to be her friend. I met her a few days after she moved in, and we got along marvelously during the remainder of the summer. Her name was Savannah, she was my age, and she came from Wisconsin. Her dad had gotten a job in Chicago and that’s why they moved here. I learned that she played clarinet in band, and I played clarinet too so we had this in common. I helped her unpack, and I showed her around the neighborhood.
Once when we were eating ice cream on my back porch, she told me about how she had gone to a school in an environment that wasn’t conducive for success. Lost in thought, and twirling her spoon in her melting vanilla ice cream, she said, “My friends didn’t care that much, and I felt left out because I wanted to do well and try hard in school. You know?” I did know. I always did my best to do well in school, and at that moment, I felt an overwhelming want to support her and to be her friend. By the time school started and we had grown closer, I felt that yes, I could surely call her my friend.
I was excited to go back to school, and eager to introduce Savannah to all of my other friends. But once school started, something began to change. After school, during the first week of classes, we met each other outside of the building to walk home together. Right as we began to walk down the sidewalk and away from the large brick building, two boys saw us and approached us. One was average height with wavy brown hair and a broad white toothed smile. The other was tall and athletic and his name was Connor. Last year, I had become friends with him. We had sat together in English class. He was an interesting kid, and I smiled, remembering the laughs we had shared in English over our entirely too energetic teacher. We had occasionally hung out over the summer and were able to talk for hours and hours. He had become the first real guy friend that I had had, and I liked it.
Now, I was happy to see him, and motioning to Savannah he said “Who is this?”. Savannah started giggling and obnoxiously said “I’m Savannah I just moved here!”. Suddenly, as if she forgot I was there, she proceeded to engage Connor and the other boy in a loud conversation about herself. I awkwardly stood there, staring at the gray pavement, and waiting for her to be done. I couldn’t even participate in the conversation because she hadn’t paused for a breath, and she was waving her little arms around dramatically. The boys eventually hurried off to go to cross country practice, and Connor only gave me a slight nod when he said goodbye. He hadn’t bothered to say anything to me. After the boys left, all Savannah did was gush about Connor. “Connor is so cute, I think I like him”.
“Yeah he’s cute” I replied with no enthusiasm. At the time, I didn’t even think I liked Connor as more than a friend, but I was annoyed that he found Savannah to be so captivating that he hardly even noticed me.
Savannah was remarkably popular right away. I wasn’t in the popular crowd, but I wasn’t in the awkward crowd either. I sort of just floated in the middle, not really caring about what other people thought of me and I was happy with that. But everyone, in every social group at school loved Savannah. And it appeared that all of the boys loved her too. She was cute I guess, sort of short, but pretty, and she radiated that air of what seemed to be confidence, but I realized she was just constantly seeking for attention.
When we were by ourselves it was usually a good time. After school everyday, I helped her with her homework because I knew how much she wanted to get As. I answered her questions, studied with her, and showed her useful techniques for memorizing information. I was glad to help her because it made me happy to see that my work was paying off. Her grades continuously improved. We got along well and worked well together. But I hated spending time with her when we were also with other people. She didn’t realize that she did it, but she just purposely drew the attention towards herself by being loud and using that fake and exaggerated voice.
Similar situations to the one during the first week of school happened, and Connor talked to her more and more. I happened to be walking down the hallway with him in between classes once, and Savannah saw us together. Immediately she ran towards us screaming about something completely insignificant. “OH MY GOD YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO ME!”, she screeched at Connor. Connor took the bait and turned to her saying, “What happened?”. He quickly left me to find out what she was talking about. I stared at their backs as they walked away, their heads moving enthusiastically as they talked, and I hated them both at the moment.
I couldn’t believe that no one else saw through her tricks. I felt trapped. I had helped her move in, spent time with her in the the summer, and I was also responsible for helping her keep her grades up. I thought we were close and that I deserved more respect from her. I felt like she took my kindness, and instead of returning it, took advantage of it and then snatched my other friends away from me.
After school, I waited for Savannah as usual. I saw her blond head bobbing through the crowds of students as she made her way towards me. The wind blew her hair back to look effortless and natural and she glided through the crowd with a faint smile upon her lips. When she reached me she opened her mouth. “Ready to go? And oh, by the way, don’t mess with Connor, I think he likes me”. That fake genuine smile returned to her lips, and she started walking in the direction towards our house. I remained silent and followed her, but I was angry. Did she really just expect me not to be friends with Connor? Maybe it was stupid of me to be mad. Maybe I liked Connor. The truth is, he was cute; he had the best wavy hair, and the most mysterious green eyes. He was smart, and he and I always had wonderful conversations.
The next day, Savannah asked me, “You’re still talking to Connor aren’t you?”.
“Uh yeah,” I replied.
“Don’t”, she threatened, “I don’t want you interfering with our relationship. Okay? Just wait a while until I’m sure that he likes me. I don’t want him to be confused”.
Confused? Who on earth did she think she was? This was absolutely ridiculous. Connor was my friend, and I should be allowed to talk to him. But I didn’t know what to say to her, so I said nothing as usual, and we walked away from each other without another word.
That afternoon, I walked home through the chilly October air without Savannah, my gloveless hands shoved in the pockets of my pea coat. I passed by some old baseball dugouts near our school. I thought back to a time when Connor and I had hung out over the summer and sat on the wooden bench inside the dugout. He had turned to me randomly, his hair shimmery and golden in the sunlight, and said, “Life is so interesting. What do you think the purpose of life is? There doesn’t seem to be one”.
I remember smiling at this odd but insightful conversation starter, and I sat thinking for a moment, and replied. “There is no purpose to life. That’s why we must create our own purpose. We strive to be happy and successful so that we can give our lives a purpose”.
He looked at me in awe and said, “Laura, you’re exactly right. That’s what I think too, and everytime I ask anyone about it no one seems to get it. You’re smart. Life is such a struggle because sometimes it is hard to find what makes us happy”. We had sat on the bench, the golden sunlight striking us and making our hair, our eyes, and our skin glow. It had been magical. I know that we had felt connected in that moment, and that feeling has since stuck with me.
I had been happy in that moment. I felt alive and fueled by the conversation and by Connor’s presence. Now, however, as I walked home and breathed out puffs of cold air, I was not nearly as happy. I tried so hard to be Savannah ’s friend, and in return she disrespected me as she pleased, and ignored me, especially when it came to Connor. Why did he too ignore me when Savannah was present?
Staring at those baseball dugouts, I realized that I was letting her take advantage of me. I gave her all of my attention and support, helped her with her homework, and waited for her everyday after school, and she didn’t give any of it to me in return. It was my fault for allowing this to happen, but I couldn’t do it anymore. It was my responsibility to help myself be happy, and I was being weak and cowardly for allowing someone else to take my happiness away from me. I should be friendly to Savannah but I shouldn’t extend more of an effort to her than she was to me. As for Connor, if he liked me more than Savannah, he would eventually get tired of her and make an effort to talk to me again, and if he didn’t, it was his loss not mine. I decided these things matter of factly, and kicked a stone across the road as if to prove it.
I stuck to my decision. I focused on school, and with playing clarinet. I still helped Savannah with homework occasionally, but not everyday, and not unless she asked me for it. I was happier without Savannah, but I missed Connor. Something about him intrigued me. He had made me think, and I liked to be challenged and questioned, and now that he wasn’t there, I felt lonely. But I knew I had made the best decision because I would just be more upset than I was now if I tried to be close to Connor and he ended up ignoring me for Savannah, not to mention if Savannah kept treating me with disrespect.
A few weeks went by, and neither Savannah nor Connor made much of an effort to talk to me, but I still smiled at them when I passed them together in the halls. I didn’t want to be the bad guy, I just wanted to be strong and give myself some space. But it took everything in me to pretend that I didn’t care. I am doing this for myself, this is what I need to do, I told myself over and over. But sometimes I wondered if it had been the right decision to stop talking to Savannah and to stop making an effort to talk to Connor.
Then, one Friday night my phone vibrated. It was Connor. I hesitated answering it, but something made me pick up. “Hello?” I cautiously inquired.
“Goodness,” he said. “I can’t do this anymore. Savannah can’t ever keep her mouth shut and she never talks about anything but herself.” I laughed and remained silent. He paused and then poured out a flurry of his feeling and thoughts as if they had been buried inside him for so long and he couldn’t contain them anymore.
“Laura, I thought showing interest in Savannah would make you jealous because I wanted you to like me but I wasn’t sure if you did so I talked to Savannah because I thought that would make you try to talk to me more, but you didn’t and I just can’t stand it anymore because I want you to want to talk to me because I like you. I don’t like Savannah she’s annoying, and like you have nicer hair than she does and she’s short and you’re tall and I like tall. But that doesn’t matter I guess what I mean is will you please hang out with me?”. A smile spread across my face. He was such an idiot for ignoring me just to make me jealous. Maybe I should have yelled at him, maybe I should have told him that he was stupid for thinking I would have been weak enough to beg him to talk to me when he showed interest in Savannah, or that he was an idiot for ignoring me, but all of those thoughts left my mind in the moment. All I could think was that I had made the right decision. Savannah would never beg me to be her close friend again, and she would never show me that I was of value to her, but Connor did, so he was worth my time, my care, and my support. So all I said was, “Yes, it’s about time you asked”.