Two Friends: Part One

She sat beside me on the park bench we'd sat on for so many years.  Since we were eleven, to be precise.

Let me give you a brief idea about how we met.

So she was building this tree house in her backyard. (Her family has an apple tree. How cool is that?)  And-- you guessed it-- she asked me to help her. Me, a bespectacled, nerdy, lanky nine year old who looked like he hadn't played a day in his life-- helping her, the most beautiful girl on the planet. (I don't think she cared about the not-played-a- day-in-my-life part back then, though. She wasn't half as smart then as she is now. Or maybe she cared, but she acted like she didn't.)  Our ‘tree house' was basically a roof made out of sticks atop a floor made out of sticks with no walls in between. Very comfortable. (I'm kidding.) And it wasn't exactly on the tree. It was on the grass, so technically it should've been called a grass house-- but that doesn't sound as inviting.

So anyway, we named it Veronica's and Andre's Little Treehouse. Veronica. What a  beautiful name. No one understands me like she does, and I love her, and that only makes it worse to be with her.
Y'know, accelerated heartbeat, sweaty palms, sweaty forehead, incoherent mumbled speech, that sorta thing. Butterflies. All that.

She doesn't know yet.

I don't even know if she likes me. She talks about that other guy, Cory, a lot. I, personally, would not stand within a five-yard radius of that douche (sorry, couldn't help it). You should see the way he talks to her.  Unfortunately, on this twisted geoid that is the Earth, all girls fall for jerks and the nice guys are left behind.

Sometimes I wonder if my parents named me Andre because they specifically didn't want any girl to be the... person... of my affections (I don't like saying object, it sounds impersonal).
I can tell Veronica likes saying my name for some weird reason, though. Most girls don't know how to.  They say “And-ray" when it's actually “Aand-re" with the “re" like it is in “in re".

I know, very simple.

Anyway, after building that tree house, we did spend quite a lot of time inside it, even though it used to get all itchy after some time. Then we used to go get some cream and rub it all over ourselves. And then we used to go sit in the tree house. Again. Because some things you just can't let go of.

The tree house became too small for us to sit in as we grew older, so we graduated to the park bench, and we've been coming to sit here and talk as often as our schedules permit.

We used to hang out every day, but soon both of us had other things to look after.  She had her boyfriends, and I had my girlfriends.  A few of my exes broke up with me because they thought I spent too much time with her.  To their credit, I did, mostly.

We're both nineteen now.  I'm only a few months older than her, so I'm going to stop being a teenager earlier than she is.

Wow, that's depressing.

“Hey, what are you thinking about?"

“Wha-? Oh, nothing much, really."

“C'mon, Andre."

“Just about our birthdays. About how I'm gonna be twenty before you are.  It's a little unnerving."

She laughed that tinkly laugh of hers.
“And what about all the other birthdays you had before this? You didn't look this, um.... bad before any of them." She cocked her head to one side.

“Thanks, Veronica," I groaned.

She softened a little. “No, but all jokes aside, I'm serious. I have never, in my ten years of knowing you, seen you as dejected as this.  What's wrong?"

“I came home way after curfew last night, and do you know what my father did? He's grounded me for three weeks now, and I have to be home by nine now."

“This is a new development. What'd you do?"

“Nothing, I was just wandering around town with.... with, um, Mike and Cory and all those guys."

“You ran off with Cory, of all people? No wonder your dad was mad at you!"

“Just to make things clear, run off with sounds a little weird, and the last time I checked, Cory McHall was your boyfriend."

“I honestly don't even like him, Andre. I was just with him because I didn't want him to try anything on me. That stupid spoiled brat. I'm surprised he even graduated from high school in the first place."

“You know, if some of his gang happens to be hiding in those bushes right now, they're gonna rat you out real bad."

“Oh, don't worry about that, he already knows."

“What?"

“I broke up with him two days ago."

“Really? Why?"

“ He's too narrow minded to understand that you and I are just friends. What part of just friends did he not understand?" Veronica was positively fuming now.

*

(To be continued...)