A Remembered Event

I found this one while going through some old papers from high school. We had to write about a remembered event in as much detail as we could remember. It's about how I met my friend. Written in 2008.

 I had heard Kaylen's name before called out to go get measured by the uniform moms. I had talked to her once before on the first day of sophmore year to tell her I liked her shoes. She smiled and said thanks. But from the first day I noticed she and I shared the scarred arms, the hidden secret of cutting, to the day we took our first step in becoming friends, was weeks. Ever since I saw all her scars, conversation after conversation would run through my mind on how I would talk to her. The most common scenario was me walking up to her when she was alone, of course. I would point to her arm and then hold out both my wrists and say 'See. You're not the only one here.'

And then I guess I always thought it would go from there. But the actual time was more of a spur of the moment kind of thing.

 

 It was a Friday afternoon before another Friday night football game. Just like every other Friday, I still had no idea what was causing my dizzy spells and was ordered by the doctor to "sit out" of the band practices and I was told by the directors to just stay inside during the run-through we have every afternoon at 4:30 on Fridays.

 

 "Do you want me to stay inside again?"

 "Oh yeah, definitley, we don't want you in the anymore than you have to," Benford would say.

 

 As usual, right around 4:30 or so, there were always the stragglers, the kids who showed up just a little too late, and were still fumbling with their instruments (leaving their case sprawled out all over the floor just like every other band kid, of course), were all around me.

 

 "Let's go, pick up the pace! Get outside!" a drum major would yell.

 

 Most of the kids would scurry on outside but there was always a few who were still late. One being Kaylen. She was up against the lockers, messing with her bari saxaphone. I was walking by and had noticed she was wearing a black and white checkered wrist band, when all through summer band and before now, she had worn this black fuzzy one. I'm not really sure what came over me because all before I had been too nervous to ask her anything that to do with cutting. I stopped and put my hand on the chair that was up against the lockers, about four or five feet away from her.

 

 "Kaylen," I called out.

 

 She looked up at me.

 

 "Do you have that black fuzzy wrist band thingy?"

 

 She shook her head no and then cocked it to one side. She got up and stepped over a few cases to stand on the other side of that chair, right in front of me.

 

 "Why?"

 

 I looked at her and then a little to the right as I ran my hand down my arm, gently pushing all twelve of my little black rubber bracelets, then back up.

 

 "To um... for my cuts..."

 "Oh," she said said, looking down at my wrist then straight at me. "No, I got a new one."

 

 Right then and there, nothing had to be spoken. It was just understood. We were brought together by something so shameful and hidden. We, of course, later talked about it. When we had more time, we would spill the sticky details through email instead of having to say things out loud.

 

 This day is very well remembered because it is so improtant to me. It plays over and over again through my head all the time. Making that first step in our friendship by opening up like that was a huge step for me. It was one of the very first steps I made by coming out of hiding. I use that day to inspire me over and over when I feel myself slipping back into the dark. I talk to Kaylen. I talk and she understnads everything about my urges to cut. She understands all the details and why I can't "just decide to not do it" (as other people tell me all the time), she gets it, she really gets it and everyday that I feel like I'm falling and I'm all alone, she reminds me how I'm not alone and how I proved that.

 

Thank you for reading! I changed my friend's name for her privacy.

 

 

 

Author's Note

Ignore spacing. It's already been graded but that was on a high school sophmore grading level so I'd like to know how you think it was and if you have any suggestions.