AIRYN Chapter 6: Memories of How We Used to Be

Airyn starts to miss Rayna.

Instantly, I regretted not running after Rayna. She was my best friend and I wasn’t just going to let her go. I think I’ve just lost her, I thought laying there on the bathroom floor. And the sad part was that I wasn’t even that mad at her. The thing that really got me upset was when Leesa told me Rayna doesn’t think of us as friends anymore. Half of me wanted to believe her but couldn’t and half of me actually believed her. Of course, we were best friends. We wanted to be friends again.

During the weekend I had a plan on how to get her to come back to me and apologize. All I had to do was find a “new best friend.” Desperately, I looked over my list of contacts on my email and I then knew who was going to be my “new best friend.” Leesa Galligan. She was probably in my top five closest friends. Today she would be #1. I searched for her name in IMing chat list. She wasn’t there so I just sent her an email.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Sleepover!

Come to my house today at 3pm for a sleepover! Lots of things to tell you!

Before clicking send, I glanced at my watch. It was one o’ clock. CLICK.

Leesa never called, emailed, or texted me about the sleepover the whole weekend so I guess I was just going to have to talk to her on Monday.

Driving to school on Monday, I realized I had forgotten something. Rayna. I usually picked her up before and after school, because she wasn’t sixteen yet. As I walked up her driveway, I could see her tiny brown eyes peer out the window. When she saw me looking at her, I could see her close the curtain and jump into her bed. Eventually, I got her out of bed and into the car. She tried to cheer me up by making one of Marilyn’s faces at me but that didn’t work considering I was Marilyn’s friend now.

Seeing Leesa’s tiny body and straight black hair had never made me so happy before. “Leesa,” I yelled, running after her. She was walking into the school building with a big backpack on her back. In her tiny, pale arms were three textbooks and a frail notebook. I nearly knocked her and her books down when I caught up with her, tripping over my unlaced tennis shoes.

“Hey, do you know who my best friend is?” I asked subtly. She looked at me like I was crazy.

“Everyone knows who your best friend is,” she snapped. “Rayna, Rayna, Rayna. You guys can never stay mad at each other even if she did ruin your birthday party. You sixteenth birthday party.” She was two inches from my face now. Her books were set on the ground along with her 1000-pound backpack.

I bit my lip. “You’re wrong,” I muttered. Glancing at her backpack, I could almost hear her head back away and hear her smile.

“Really? Who is then?”

“You.” I kept my head down.

She didn’t speak. Then after a few minutes of awkward silence she hugged me so hard I felt I might through up. Backing away from her, we both laughed so hard at this unbelievable moment. Leesa was probably more surprised than I was. She had known me for nine years, the same time I met Rayna, and I have never chosen a new best friend or replace her. It was usually the silent treatment the rest of the day and then at 10 at night, one of us would call the other say we were sorry.

That day, I figured Rayna would try to sit next to me or apologize but she didn’t. She sat by herself at lunch, sat in the back of her classes, and she sat on the bench alone when she waited for her bus to come. She was just miserable and was probably too miserable to do anything about it.

 Later, after school, I checked my email and Leesa had replied to me, finally, about the sleepover. She told me she was on a family trip that was planned at the last minute so she couldn’t check her email at all. Leesa also asked if we could have a sleepover this coming weekend and that we could even invite some of our other friends. I liked the idea of that, especially since it wasn’t with Rayna. Not that I didn’t want to be with her; I just wanted to make her jealous so she could come crawling back to me.

Shutting off my computer, I got up and walked over to my bookshelf. It didn’t have that many books since my parents store all of my books in a huge bookshelf in their room. It mostly had pictures and memory books of Rayna and I. There was one picture of our parents singing “Happy Birthday” to her and during the song we both stuck our faces in Rayna’s cake. It was fun and we hadn’t even planned it. I guess planting your heads in a cake is fun for eight-year-olds: messy, yummy, and we had to take a bubble bath afterward. We both put our swim suits on and jumped in Rayna’s bath tub. Her bath tub is fancy and is like a hot tub, sort of. It was technically all hers since her parents already had one in their bathroom and she didn’t have any siblings.

Quietly chuckling to myself, I looked at another picture. It was of Rayna at my eight-year-old birthday party, almost nine months before the first picture, opening up all of my presents. Well, I had let her open up my presents since I had decided I didn’t like surprises. Then Rayna would tell me if I would like it or not since she knew me better than anyone. Usually, she’d tell me I’d like it even if I didn’t because I told her to be nice about it especially when family was there. I was a little more sensitive to people’s feelings than she was but I still loved her like a sister. I told her to be nice of about my gifts because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Later on, we looked through all of my new toys and I actually liked them all.

The next picture I looked at was of our first sleepover, the summer before second grade. We were side-by-side, fast asleep in my bed. That day we had run around, played outside, took walks to the park a few times, and played card games. We were worn out. After playing tag outside, we went inside the house, had lemonade, and ended up sleeping on the hammock outside. My dad is really strong and he works out and exercises every day, so he picked us up and carried us into my room, one-by-one. He ended up laying us right next to each other. He thought we looked so cute sleeping like that so he got Mom to take a picture.

I was called down for dinner when I looked at the most recent picture I had of Rayna and I. We were both fifteen still and Rayna’s hair was long. Her hair was short now. There was a hint of displeasure in her smile like she knew this whole fight was going to happen. Thumping down the stairs, I whispered to myself, “I’m going to miss Rayna. And the great memories she brought me.”