A Lost Friend

1361 Words3 Pages

A Lost Friend

In a shimmer of green and silver, the dragonfly hovers a moment beside Pam’s head, almost indiscernible from the darkness but for the orange light from the campfire reflecting on its iridescent wings. The dragonfly disappears from view behind the campfire, and I hear a faint popping noise.

A moment later, the Pam I know is no longer. In place of the smiling, laughing, charismatic girl with perfect posture, I see a stranger. She has folded into herself, nuzzling her nose between her knees and covering her face with her hands, elbows tucked in at her sides. Her sparkling eyes are closed, and her back heaves with each breath. I can almost hear the air rushing in and out of her nose as she tries to calm herself.

It is my seventeenth birthday, and a bunch of my guy and girl friends have come over to celebrate and camp out in the field near my house. But even though people are milling about and the Backstreet Boys’ first album is blaring from the old portable boombox as a reminder of our seventh grade year, my attention is focused on Pam. “Why is she acting this way?” I wonder. “I know she’s compassionate, but this is a little extreme.” Circling the fire, I sit beside her and put my arm around her shoulder. What happened to the Pam I once knew?

Pam grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the door of the eighth grade building at our private school in Maine. We skipped outside and down the steps to the small yard in front of the thin, three-story structure. Snow was falling gently, the first flakes of the season. Pam looked at me and grinned, eyes wide and shining. Without a word, she spread her arms, closed her eyes, turned her face to the sky, and began to spin. Her feet moved in tiny, circular steps, and he...

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...ologetic smile, and walks over to the driveway, where she leans against the side of a car and waits for her mom. She waits there, alone, her back to us, and when her mother drives in, I walk to the car to say goodbye again.

The glass is cold against my hand as I press it to the window. Pam sits inside the car, staring straight ahead. She hesitates, lifts her hand, and without turning to look at me, she carefully places it on her side of the window. If it weren’t for the glass, we would be touching, her hand directly on mine.

I haven’t spoken to Pam since that night. I haven’t even tried. I have thought about calling her, but I don’t know what I would say. I still don’t know what happened to her two years ago, what changed her so dramatically, and I think maybe I’m afraid to find out. The glass that separated us that night is the silence that separates us now.

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