Ballew-Growing Pains

Growing Pains

Issue 15

When we were little, we used to run around in tall grasses, hawk-eyed for specs of yellow hidden in the morning dew. The satisfying squish of ladybug eggs under a coarse rock was the only treatment for the chronic restlessness of childhood. We didn’t mind the heat back then, unconcerned with sweat stains; we explored relentlessly, stopping only to pant like dogs under a particularly shady tree or feel the cool press of a ribbed water bottle against the backs of our necks. Over the years, as our activities grew bolder and more fully-formed, I would find myself chasing those fleeting moments of hyperactivity in the pounding summer sun.
A small group of us, congregating mostly around Holleybrooke Road, by virtue of our nearest school bus stop, were intent on passing our summer as delinquently as possible. Our forays into amateur criminality began small, as we were chased out of Mrs. Bennett’s gardens for stealing from her delicately tended strawberry bushes. Our budding reputation as kids ‘up to no good’ preceded us– Mrs. Bennett made quick work of passing along our antics to any neighbor or parent who would listen. Our group’s commonality was clear: our parents had abandoned us to wreak havoc upon our neighborhood. As the latchkey kids of dual-earning families, we had been largely left to our own devices. So with the impending feeling of a summer soon ending, we sought to ramp up our antics before our burgeoning, doomed athletics careers and remedial after-school math classes gave new purpose to our aimlessness.
Our group’s lineup was in constant mutation but largely consisted of founding members– twins Greg and Owen Smith, their friend Tyler, my neighbor Miguel, quiet but ever-present Austin, and me. We had all independently found our way to wandering around the neighborhood, and fused almost as unintentionally. One night after consuming an unreasonable amount of frozen fish sticks and powdered lemonade, I searched for ‘the guys’ and found them standing outside the woods at the south side of the subdivision’s edge. Through the clearing, I could make out an overgrown stone path careening deeper into the forest. Owen –the group’s prodigal leader– made the first motions, followed closely behind by his twin shadow, and then Tyler and Miguel, who feigned flippant disinterest despite Tyler’s raging cowardice. He would sooner piss himself out of fear rather than diverge from the Smith twins' intentions. Austin and I trailed in the back –at least consistently fainthearted– not wanting to be the newest targets of the Smiths’ merciless teasing tactics. They were the youngest of five, and calculated insults were as much their hand-me-downs as their matching oversized tartan flannels.
I grasped the bottom of Austin’s lime green tie-dyed Vacation Bible School shirt with the veracity of somebody who had not yet ruled out the possibility of ghouls. I tried to ignore the thick brush of forest steadily blocking out the late afternoon light. He continued without protest, leading us behind the other boys, in step.
After what could have been minutes or hours of venturing into the woods, we emerged in a small clearing. While no longer dense forest, the clearing was covered in brush and overgrown vegetation –wildflowers interspersed the reeds– creating a rainbow moat of petals around a rusty chain link fence. I looked down at the purple and yellow hues and flicked away a meandering tick that had been crawling up my leg. A crumbling wooden house stood firmly within the fenced area, at war with its surroundings, a losing battle of age and decay.
“C’mon, let’s go in,” Owen said with the decisive bravado that commonly carried his hare-brained schemes.
“Absolutely not,” I protested in my winy timbre before he completed his thought. He narrowed his eyes at me, and I let the edge of Austin’s shirt fall.
“If you’re going to be a pussy about it, why don’t you just go home?” he asked, as I quickly withered under his glare. I thought of the emptiness typical of my house in early evening, the whirring sounds of the refrigerator just barely audible under the muffled voice of a news anchor blaring in the direction of my sleeping mother, who had likely collapsed on the couch after another sixteen-hour shift as a trauma nurse. My father, a long-haul trucker, usually graced us with his presence biannually, preferring to present as a consistent monthly check to keep the lights on and the pantry full. Without a sibling or pet, and unable to so much as turn the channel without facing the wrath of unearthing my mother from her slumber in our 380 sq. ft cottage, I generally avoided home until just before bed.
Now, I look back at these moments under the clarity of adulthood and laugh at my futile desperation to be included in spaces I didn’t fit within- a feverous persistence at shoving a square peg into a round hole and the same incredulous reaction when it didn’t slide in with ease. My desperation, while humiliating, held the power of somebody who had not yet felt the true weight of everything society would not let her accomplish.
“It is getting pretty late.” Tyler interrupted, and for once, I was grateful for his spinelessness. Tyler had long made an enemy of me through both his incessant whining and obsequious nature toward the twins. My opinion was overridden by said twins, who, while impartial to his brown-nosing, upon hearing that Tyler had not only Pokémon Stadium but Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater as well, welcomed him into the group with open arms. Finding a parent willing to purchase us games was rare; my parents were rarely willing to buy much more than a six-pack of beer for themselves and a Happy Meal for you, if you played your cards right.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were all a bunch of girls,” echoed Greg, unsurprisingly. His opinions hardly differed from Owens, both so used to operating in unison, the only apparent difference was a barely perceptible scar in the middle of Greg’s forehead, between his eyebrows. The mark had been the gift of Greg running obediently headfirst into a banister at the behest of one of his older brothers, who often used the twins as entertainment. It was somewhat comforting to know their dictatorial leanings were playing out in turn against them in their own home, where they had initially learned these skills.
I struggled to shield my reaction, feeling my blood boil at being reduced to a descriptor of weakness. I looked to the others for support and found nothing– my only real ally, Austin, was sensitive but didn’t have the guts to counter the twins. Austin was a lanky boy with a bowl haircut who moved into the neighborhood sometime in the summer of 2000. He had moved to Holleybrooke most recently and still found himself mildly bullied for the length of his socks and the vivid, deep blue of his jeans. It seemed like every week a new family would move into the rapidly multiplying single household developments that cropped up relentlessly up and down Holleybrooke Road’s branching streets. We would circle their cul-de-sacs hollering on our bikes, waiting for some poor unsuspecting soul to join us.
In the twins, Austin had found solace; he could withstand their commentary as long as they included him. The twins didn’t mind who joined as long as they pulled their weight– they didn’t often question anyone’s contribution except mine. As an only child who had moved into the much nicer, newer additions to our neighborhood, Austin’s basement was always available when we needed an air-conditioned reprieve from the sun. While I knew he would apologize later –likely with the peace offering of half of a Kit Kat bar– I couldn't help the disappointment for the lack of support.
Miguel offered even less assistance; he hungered for adventure in ways that existed outside of typical childhood rebellion, and I often caught him looking with great interest at the house beyond the fence. He lingered back patiently while we argued, running a broken branch against the length of the chain link fence, the repetitive clacking as he pulled it against the chain links was a rather faithful sonic recreation of a spin-the-wheel game. The sound echoed through the clearing.
I felt my role in the group was called into question. What reason did they have to include me if they all saw me as just a girl? I was allegedly a beacon of fearfulness who lacked tenacity. With renewed fervor brought on by resentment, the questionable existence of spirits left my mind as I propelled myself toward the fence with a running start. The gate had been locked with multiple padlocks, so I bypassed the entrance entirely. My feet were small enough to stick into the openings, and my arms were strong enough –from almost half a decade of scaling the overgrown oak behind my family home– to hoist myself over. I found myself over the fence intact, save for a few scratches on the inside of my forearm. I looked back towards the boys with my arms crossed, a dare etched into my expression– are you coming or what?
The twins smiled and made quick work of the fence themselves. My bravery earned me a clap on the back from Owen; I chagrin to admit the swell of pride it roused in me. As hubristic as they were, they couldn’t hold a candle to me in any feat of physical prowess. Miguel went over the fence with similar ease and helped lift Tyler over the final barbs at the top. Austin attempted to scale the fence a few times but had neither the strength to lift himself over the top nor the speed to run and vault it like I did. I saw the embarrassment in the red of his cheeks, but kept mute in silent retaliation for his lack of support.
“Keep watch!” Owen yelled back at him, and Austin slumped down onto the ground with his back facing the fence.
Much of my fear had been replaced by adrenaline, and I allowed myself to take in my surroundings. The outside of the house was a gray slatted wood that was in the process of being eaten away by termites. One side of the house had been sprayed by a large red ‘A’ breaking through a similarly scrawled circle surrounding it. Numerous beer cans spilled their way onto the lawn from the wide-open front door and its caved-in frame. I ventured inside to see that the barren concrete floor was littered with extinguished votives.
We circled the ground floor in awe until I noticed Miguel climbing the half-disintegrated staircase on the far side of what was once an expansive living room. He used the wall as leverage to creep along the side that was still intact and soon disappeared over the top of the stairs. We heard his voice– a distant beacon,
“You guys gotta come check this out, there’s some really cool old stuff up here.” Greg and Owen seemed indifferent to the prospect of old relics, and Tyler was glued to the side of the wall in terror of apparitions or perhaps teenagers– at that age, both prospects were equally frightening. I was moved by a budding anthropological sense to make the most of the opportunity and crept up the stairs by mimicking Miguel’s previous path. The promised treasure was even greater than I had imagined; the contents of someone’s life had been time-capsuled in this attic for – in comparison to my meager eleven years– what appeared as an eternity. I found a cardboard box filled with old National Geographics and checked the date stamped on each cover: 1971, 1972, and so on. Aside from the magazines, many boxes included the contents of personal belongings, from nightgowns to old family photographs. I got the sense that whoever had initially left these things had intended to come back for them. Any guilt I might have felt for prying into someone’s private things was washed away by sheer curiosity, and I found myself bent down rifling through the boxes. My eyes were caught by a plastic pen encased in a smiling hot pink dinosaur with lime green scales. It was covered in a fine layer of dirt, but I couldn’t help slipping it into my pocket- a keepsake of our adventure. I began flipping through the old magazines and became so engrossed in Thor Heyerdahl’s Own Story of The Voyage of Ra II and the voyage of Kon-Tiki, I barely noticed Miguel had quietly slipped back downstairs.
“Come on, Cassie, I have to get back for dinner!” Miguel shouted from below. Knowing how upset Mrs. Flores became when Miguel arrived too late, I crossed the room back towards the staircase quickly. Or rather, I began to– until suddenly I was opening my eyes, looking up at the ceiling. The next few moments I experienced in a fog of semi-perception; now, in retrospect, the event sits even less clearly in my memories.
Duplicate blonde faces peered down at me with expressions contorted halfway between horror and worry. I noticed another grimacing face in the corner of my eye –though my vision was blurry– as Tyler wailed, with tears and snot streaming down his face in cascading rivers. I could hardly hear him cry over the sound of ringing in my ears. Above me, I could just make out what looked like a jagged human-sized hole in the ceiling.
I tried to sit up but felt hands pressing down on my shoulders; sounds began to regain clarity, but were garbled and far away.
“You’re going to be okay, Cassie. Miguel ran to get help!
Please don’t move,
Please don't move,
Please don’t move.”
I shifted as much as possible and felt the dinosaur pen poking into my hip from my pocket as I craned my neck up to attempt to take in my surroundings. The next sight was jarring in ways I hadn’t been prepared for. Where I expected to see two straight legs stretched in front of me, I instead saw a glimpse of the white of bone poking out through an unnatural angle and a spattering of blood soaking into my favorite jeans. A wave of nausea propelled through me, wrapping itself in panic until darkness overtook me.

***

My leg took over 6 months to heal. My mother took to sleeping on the couch while I was given her luxurious queen-sized master bed for my recovery time. Numerous surgeries had introduced a series of metal rods and screws to my constitution, each of which needed special attention in my healing process. Unable to move on my own, I found myself parked in front of the small box TV watching hours and hours of Rugrats and other shows geared for much younger children– as was typical of daytime programming. I distracted myself as often as possible in the early weeks of my recovery; it was the only real salve for the unbearable throbbing pain that would ebb and flow throughout all hours, often even waking me in the middle of the night. I found my sleep schedule shifted to adapt to witness more interesting television, and found solace in Malcolm in the Middle and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air; lulled by the canned laughter of their studio audience. Sometimes I would break up the days of television with attempts at reading, although initially I was put off by my short attention span and lack of useful vocabulary. By the end of my recovery, however, I had jumped multiple reading levels and felt myself pulled towards the daring and twisted fantasies of Tolkien and Le Guin. Every other week, I made Austin go on large-scale library runs, watching through the window as he rode up, balancing stacks of books in the small basket in front of his bike.
Austin was, in fact, the primary visitor who graced my home during my months of recovery. He would come by regularly to drop off more books and stay to watch television or let me play his brand new Gameboy Advance. We had become much closer through his consistent appearances; I appreciated not having to take on this ordeal in complete solitary confinement. He would come over to patiently watch me virtually struggle for twenty minutes to jump onto a platform or be murdered over and over again by the same mushroom man with only minimal commentary and an insistence that I call them Goombas and not “angry mushrooms.” He would devolve into laughter at the sight of my labored, single-legged bouncing to reach something a foot across the room. He was also my only direct line of contact back to our little world.
School had restarted while I was still bedridden, and I tried to maintain my assignments at home. The sixth grade brought on more difficult coursework, and despite all my newfound free time, without the in-person instruction, I was struggling to keep up. He told me diligently about how the Smiths had joined the football team and rarely went out of their way to talk to any of us neighborhood kids anymore. Tyler had attempted to sit with them at lunch and was almost completely ignored, so he had shifted into spending more time with Austin. Miguel came by often enough, as my neighbor, he had the greatest ease of access, though he never lingered too long. I was eternally grateful whenever he brought leftovers of his mom’s delicious cooking, and I had a momentary respite from microwaved Hungry-Man for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Socially, in middle school, six months felt like an eternity, and the unnerving shift of friendship dynamics rattled me; I had little input on my changing role in the complicated ecosystem. I felt a general uneasiness about the prospect of re-entering halfway through the year. Although I had gone to school with most of these kids since early childhood, they all felt foreign to me. My isolation had taken a toll on my development, and I felt unmoored by my newfound social anxiety.
A month before I was cleared to have my cast removed and walk on my own, I practiced standing in my mother’s bedroom, propped up by Austin on one side and my mom on the other. Too distracted to focus on the joy of being vertical after so long, I was perplexed at how high I now had to crane my neck to see Austin’s face. So much had changed in my absence.
The day they removed my cast was surprisingly uneventful, aside from seeing what had become of my leg since its imprisonment. My mother drove me to the same hospital, with Austin in tow in the backseat for moral support. Through lack of muscle use, my leg had withered away to half its previous size, and the ghostly pale and atrophied appendage felt like a foreign object. The hair underneath the cast had grown long and darker than before, and I suddenly felt embarrassed to have my friend witness this moment. We drove back in silence, as Austin was usually sensitive to my moods. While I initially expected a feeling of overwhelming joy at the removal of my cast, I felt distracted by the overbearing weight of anxiety upon re-entering society.

***

We all erupted with a squeal as my friend’s older sister hit a large pothole in the road. We were jumbled in the backseat, on the way to some high school junior’s party while his parents were out of town. As freshmen, we wore this as a badge of honor– to be attractive and interesting enough to warrant an invitation to a party of this caliber was nothing short of monumental, and would chart the course for the rest of our high school experience. This sentiment was proposed by Claire and even more realistically passed down to us by her older sister.
  “You look so hot!” Claire’s sister exclaimed as she caked my eyes in thick liner. I felt the weight of the makeup like a sack of bricks- making it difficult to keep my eyes open. The unsaid unlike usual hung heavy in the air between us.
  I felt wary but tried to stay in character– I had borrowed her mini shorts that said ALL NIGHTER on the back in glittering pink rhinestones and the tightest pink camisole I owned over a borrowed push-up bra. I attempted to ignore the cavernous gaps between cloth and intention, as Claire said that the inclusion of us at these kinds of events would be contingent on our ability to show up and show out. So with that, Claire, Madison, Becca, and I donned our costumes and threw ourselves in the back of her older sister’s car. The passenger seat had been taken by her sister’s boyfriend, an older-looking man with a star neck tattoo who refused to close the window at the insistence that he needed to be constantly smoking cigarettes. The car smelled similar to the weeks when my dad was home, and I tried holding my nose to keep from gagging at the smell. My attempts to adapt to the social expectations were labored, far more difficult than my ill-forgotten tomboy era.
      My nerves about re-entering the arena of school after my accident in the summer before sixth grade had me in a crippling panic, but luckily, I was assigned to sit next to Claire in Homeroom Class. With my adoption, I was immediately tossed into a crash course in girl world and all its expected behaviors. Beyond that, I was equally thrust into her long-term friend group. What I lacked in common interest with them, I was eternally grateful to not be eating lunch alone. I had somehow avoided the predictable, isolated experience of being the odd one out and had instead slightly molded myself into being somebody who could be tolerated by this group of girls. I had built a profound respect for Claire and her ability to wield her magnetism to her benefit –although they watched too many reruns of Friends– and I had adapted in turn. Middle school had introduced block lunch periods, and I found myself separated from Austin and Tyler. I still saw them around the neighborhood and on some weekends but found that I needed to forge my path in the interim. Claire liked me because, in her own words, ‘I kept it real,’ which I interpreted as the fact that they primarily kept me around to revel in my discomfort with femininity, as some long-form endeavor in comic relief.
      Claire’s sister parked her car in a random field, and we all endured the march to the party house. The area was more affluent than anything I was used to; the richest people I knew growing up had petite bungalows that paled in comparison with the monstrosities before my eyes. Multi-level mansions stretched out in farcical patterns, presenting the baffling idea that somebody could own gyms and pools and not have to clip the scholastic coupons off every cereal box at the potential promise of discounted school supplies. I followed Claire and the other girls in search of familiar faces until we stopped by the kitchen bar’s various assortments of flavored vodkas –some kept in labeled water bottles, mysteriously acquired– and sodas. I was halfway through watching Claire tepidly create a lime green concoction of Mtn Dew and peach flavored SKYY when I spotted a familiar face through the sliding screen doors.
      I bounded up without hesitation and threw my arms around my most familiar friend.
      “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, shocked not only that Austin was at this party, but at any party at all. Austin spent most of his time gaming in his room and scrolling on 4chan. I knew very little about what his strange favorite website entailed, but having accidentally glanced at one too many gruesome cartoon images consisting of stick figures and slurs, I dared not inquire further. I simply knew that the kind of kids who spent so much time killing time didn’t often end up in parties like this, and felt grateful for a comforting presence.
  Austin motioned toward a few people in the corner with his head, “Twins brought me.”
  At the beginning of eighth grade, Owen had been found with a small amount of weed in the locker room, hidden in his deodorant stick. Due to the school’s zero-tolerance policy on drugs, he had been immediately kicked off the football team and expelled. Greg, seemingly unable to exist as an independent human, followed and also transferred to a charter school still in our district. I had heard all of this secondhand from Austin, as the accident had somewhat soured me to being in their company. My time was filled by hanging out with Claire and being in the yearbook club; as such, my neighborhood wanderings had all but ceased. I felt a pang of resentful envy toward Greg and Owen's flippant tossing off of their football endeavors. Before the accident, I might have joined track or continued playing softball. Unfortunately, my leg never fully recovered enough to compete in sports, and I even felt pain when walking long distances.
  “Yo, whoa is that Cassie dude?” Owen said, walking up to where Austin and I were speaking.
  “Yeah,” I answered curtly, already having had enough of the conversation.
  “Cass, you look like a total smoke show,” Greg said, walking up to join his brother in the conversation.
  “You look like a raccoon,” Austin tacked on, and coming from anybody else, I might have been offended, but I could sense Austin knew how uncomfortable I felt and was trying to lighten the mood.
  “Bite like one too.” I countered, deadpan. Austin smiled while the twins looked perplexed.
  Just then, Claire and the other girls walked up as well, “Oh my god, Cassie, how rude you didn’t introduce us to your cute friends.” She batted her eyelashes a few times in recurrence. I rolled my eyes in response. Claire flirted for sport, and I had a feeling the Smith twins were about to become sounding boards for her practice session. Madison whispered in my ear, “The dark-haired one is so cute.” I followed her gaze to Tyler in the corner, who had finally had a growth spurt and ended up the kind of conventionally attractive that girls like Madison would find “cute.” I tried not to burst out laughing at the idea of sniveling little Tyler being cute, but he had changed, and I figured I ought not hold it against him. In what now seemed like a childhood reunion, I couldn’t help noticing Miguel’s absence.
  “You guys still see Miguel?” I asked, knowing full well they didn’t, but wanting to antagonize them. Miguel was still my neighbor, so I saw him and his family occasionally. I had already received the details on the disillusionment of his friendship with the Smiths. Commentary from a football friend of Greg and Owen’s had severed their nine-year friendship last July. Politics and racial divides were no longer rendered null; the era of freely uniting over a desire to run around was long gone. The blissful ignorance of childhood had passed, the divides of society bearing on all of our friendships in full.
  “Nah, he’s too cool for us now,” Owen responded with a smile.
  “Interesting,” I said, meaning anything but. I let the conversation shift to be between the guys I had grown up with and the girls I now spent most of my time with. Sure of the fact that Claire could handle herself and was having fun, I extricated myself from the conversation, pulling Austin with me. We played a few games of beer pong and people-watched the crowd.
  “I bet the only band on his iTunes library is the Red Hot Chili Peppers,” he said, pointing to a guy in a backwards cap taking a large rip from a fluorescent blue bong on full display in the living room.
  “I bet she’s going to grow up to be a real estate agent,” I said, pointing to a girl wearing a business casual top and pinstripe pants with a thick chunky necklace. We burst out into laughter. Austin’s expression turned serious,
  “Hey, I have to tell you something.”
  “Okay, shoot.” I had a light buzz going, and being inexperienced with drinking felt myself feeling buzzy and lightheaded.
  “My dad got a new job.”
  “Well, tell Mr. Warren congratulations from me,” I said overly-enthusiastically, causing Austin to smile. I had always gotten along with his parents. I appreciated how they were physically present in ways mine could not be.
  “He’s making a lot more money.”
  “More money? How could it be humanly possible to make more money than your parents? You have a basement! A driveway!” Your dad drives a Mercedes.
  “You have a driveway,” Austin said, giving me a side eye, tone defensive.
  “No, we have a dirt path my mom drove over so many times the grass all died.” I knew Austin felt insecure about being relatively wealthy, but I couldn’t help feeling annoyed that he thought we were living similarly.
  “Anyway, my parents have been feeling kind of cramped in our house, so they bought another one. They’re going to let me finish out the year, and then we’re moving to Riverwood.”
The buzzing feeling increased steadily, and I felt a sense of panic. I managed to spit out a response. “Riverwood! Whoa, that’s so far.”
  A full thirty minutes closer to the city, Riverwood was an affluent neighborhood primarily known for some of its B-list celebrity residents, and most people traveled in golf carts. Knowing how unlikely I was to catch a ride given my mother's hours, I knew I wouldn’t be making it to Riverwood anytime soon. We sat in silence for a while, letting that knowledge sink in.
  “Shit.” I finally said.
  “Shit,” he echoed.
  Since the accident, Austin had become my closest friend, and although lately we had been spending slightly less time together, he felt integral to my existence. The alcohol, in combination with my inexperience at consuming it, had made my head feel heavy, so I leaned on his shoulder, desperately wishing I could keep my best friend in that exact location. I felt my thoughts drift for a moment before I felt his hand rubbing circles on my back, and I stilled. The gesture seemed strangely intimate, and I tried to subtly scoot further away. Whenever Austin and I had touched in the past, whether it be a playful shove or hug, it had always felt deeply platonic. Tonight, something about his touch felt different; the pressure with which he curled his finger as he moved up to my shoulder felt possessive and lacked the gentle quality with which he usually maneuvered. I avoided looking at his eyes, somewhat scared of the expression I might find.
  I suddenly felt a swift and hard object hit the back of my head, saving me.
  “My bad, dudes. Aimed too wide.” I looked over at Tyler, collecting a football he had tossed at Greg.
My head felt fine, but I used the opportunity to disrupt the moment, “Ugh, yeah, I’m going to go get some ice.”
  I saw Austin look at me with concern, “I can grab some.”
  “Don't worry about it,” I waved him off. “I need to make sure Claire and the other girls don't leave me.” With my explanation secured, I all but ran inside the house, darting around to find Claire.
  An hour later, I found myself in a pile of sleeping bags with the girls, demolishing boxes of chicken nuggets picked up from McDonald's on our way home. I thought about telling them what had happened. Claire seemed like a mentor for boy advice. However, as much as she liked to flirt, I equally knew she had little tangible experience. I left the moment unsaid, hoping with some small kernel of hope that if I never spoke it aloud, it meant it never happened.

***

  At the end of my final year of high school, Facebook began to take off, and I remember receiving floods of friend requests from people who had been in my life previously. After logging in on one random Tuesday, I audibly gasped while looking at the screen at the library desktop I frequented on the off day I did my homework. 1 New Friend Request. Austin Warren.
  I accepted immediately and started scrolling through the photos and posts on his profile. He looked older, and somehow -impossibly- taller. I wasn’t sure who his new friends were, but they had influenced his style. His signature bright blue denim had turned to black, His hair swooped to the side at an impossible angle, and he appeared to have gotten his lip pierced. I remember how he’d gone on and on about not understanding why people would ruin their faces by putting holes in them –likely echoing his parents' opinions– I hadn’t agreed, but I’d marked it off as a facet of his character. I suppose he felt differently now.
  I felt a pang of sadness, remembering. I had been so nervous about that strange moment between us, I had distanced myself unconsciously; it felt inevitable somehow, with his move, that things would have to move on. I assumed he had been drunk and unaware, or that if he had harbored some secret feelings for me, I would receive some sort of confession, despite having no interest in changing the conditions of our friendship. Yet, it was as if the party never happened. He never brought it up, or even hinted that anything out of the ordinary had happened, so at a certain point I started to second-guess my memory. Maybe he had put a casual hand on my back, and in my drunken stupor, I incorrectly interpreted his signals?
  After Austin moved to Riverwood, we’d kept up for a time, but both of us had busy schedules. My job at the movie theater ate up most of my time. We emailed a lot at first, talked on the phone, but the messages became farther and fewer in between. At some point last year, he just stopped responding. With college fast approaching, I never thought to reach back out, but finding his friend request felt serendipitous. I shot off a quick message.
  Me: hey stranger 6:54 PM.
  I worked on a final paper I had due for English in the interim, pausing every five minutes or so to quickly click over to the web browser and see if he responded. If I remembered anything still about Austin, I knew he played video games in his room after school, and I guessed his parents would have bought him a personal computer.
  I finally saw a notification around 8:30 PM. Austin Warren has poked you. Poked me, what could that possibly mean? I sent him back a reply.
  Me: …? 8:32 PM.
  Austin: Haha 8:36 PM.
  Me: How have you been? 8:37 PM.
  Austin: p good 8:45 PM.
  Me: p good??? We haven’t talked in forever. How is Riverwood? How is your dad’s new job? Are you doing finals right now? 8:47 PM.
  Austin: new school is cool 8:55 PM.
  My heart sank in my chest, his messages had lost their usual length and tone, although Facebook was harder to read than email. I began to pack up my things; the library was closing in five minutes, and I still had a long bike ride home. Right before I logged off the library account, I received a final message from Austin.
  Austin: Do you have a cell phone? 9:15 PM.
  I thought about the new flip phone burning a hole in my pocket. I had saved up all my money from the movie theater to purchase it and felt pride at what I had earned. Still, I seldom texted on it because it was quite out of date, and typing out messages was much harder than on newer models. I sent my number anyway.

***

  Austin’s first message came early the next day and sounded closer to his old self. He updated me on his parents, new school, and new friends. He had delved headfirst into music interests and started playing the guitar. He seldom played video games anymore. Whatever cloying nostalgia I had for the past aside, I began enjoying communicating with my old friend. Even after we had caught up, I found myself texting him randomly throughout the day.
  Me: Do you remember when we convinced Tyler to prank call Mrs. Beckett and pretend to be Homeland Security? 2:42 PM.
  Austin: OMG I thought she was going to wrap her house in tinfoil 2:50 PM.
  Talking to him brought a sense of ease to my days, and other than Claire, I felt like I held no similarly close relationships. The prospect of having Austin in my life again gave me renewed energy; the errant pain in my leg felt lighter even. I found myself occasionally reaching for the dinosaur pen I hadn’t used in years that I kept at my bedside, bending around its plastic arms and legs into fun shapes while I waited for Austin to text back.
  The talking went on for a month or so until I found myself in bed on a random Friday night, unable to sleep due to the stress of applying for financial aid for college next year. I had spent the entire evening rifling through old papers because my mother couldn’t get off work to help me fill out the form. I texted Austin, hoping for some stress relief.

  Me: Whatcha up to? 9:34 PM.
  Austin: At a party! 9:50 PM.
  Me: Oh, cool! Never mind then, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. 9:55 PM.
  I dove headfirst into a novel I had been reading, winding down for bed. A couple of hours later, just before I fell deep into sleep, I received another text from Austin. I opened the text and realized that it was an image. Since my phone was older, the image was slightly grainy, and I squinted in the dark to see what it was before the realization suddenly hit me.
      Austin had sent me a picture of a penis. I laughed out loud, thinking at first it was some kind of internet gag and he would send a follow-up explanation. I waited for 10 minutes, then 20, and 30, but another text never came.
  I found myself looking at it again, tilting my phone at an angle to examine the image from other angles- a brief foray into scientific examination. It dawned on me that what I was looking at was likely an image of Austin’s dick. I found myself repulsed, not necessarily by the penis itself, which I regarded rather neutrally, as the manner in which it was presented gave an almost anatomical view. The angle of the shot had been taken closely enough that even with the blurry quality of my sub-rate phone, I could just make out the veins. My panic rose then, as I tried to explain it away, had it been an accident, meant for somebody else he was texting with? Something about the idea of Austin sending a picture of his penis to a girlfriend didn’t sit quite right with me, but it made more sense than the alternative. Three hours had passed during my rumination, and I decided to send a follow-up text.

  Me: Wrong number? 1:04 AM.
  Austin: My dick is 10 inches 2:06 AM.

  What was I supposed to do with this information? I was angry, the novel shock of being sent the image had worn off, replaced with a profound sadness in consideration of the state of our relationship. I found myself cyclically ruminating on the context of our relationship. Is this how my entrusted friend had viewed me all those years, reduced to an object of sexual desire, had our relationship meant nothing to him? Even if he had unrequited feelings, if he had brought it up during any conversation, would that not be a normal course of action? I started wondering if the sending of it unprompted had become some sort of sexual kink for him, and why then he had chosen me as the receiver?
  The next morning, I waited for an explanation or apology that never came. Radiating silence plagued me throughout the day, and my mind wandered anxiously. Finally, when I was almost at my breaking point, I received a follow-up text.
  Austin: Sup 4:06 PM.
  Me: Sup !? 4:06 PM.
  Austin: lol wut 4:10 PM.
  Me: Is this like a thing for you? Is this something you do now? 4:12 PM.
  Austin: sumtimes I had 2 do smthn our convo wasnt going anywhere 4:20 PM.
  Me: What do you mean by not going anywhere? It’s a conversation, it's just talking.
  Why can’t we just talk? 4:25 PM.
  Austin: Tyler is my bff. I liked you. 4:30 PM.
  Me: You never said anything. 4:31 PM.
  Austin: You play too hard to get boo 4:45 PM.
  I threw my phone across the room against my wall so hard that it shattered the back panel. I stare at the broken phone while light streams in through the window, reflecting off my tears.

ISABELLA BALLEW won 1st Place of the Fiction Writing Contest. She is an emerging writer who currently lives in New York City. She is a designer by trade, and a writer and mixed-media artist after 5 o'clock. She currently cohabitates with one human (good) and two felines (evil).