By dinner, I had mostly forgotten the conversation.
Ethan apparently filed it away as a legally binding contract.
Twelve years passed.
Some childhood friendships disappear quietly.
People change schools.
Find new groups.
Develop different interests.
Stop calling.
Ours never did.
Not because we were attached at the hip.
We weren’t.
Ethan loved baseball.
I loved painting.
He could spend forty minutes explaining batting averages.
I could spend forty minutes explaining why a canvas that looked completely white was actually “an exploration of negative space.”
Neither of us respected the other’s hobbies.
“You paid money to see this?” Ethan whispered during one museum visit.
“Yes.”
“It’s a white square.”
“It’s conceptual.”
“It’s a white square.”
“You have no culture.”
“You watched three hours of people throwing paint at a wall.”
“That was performance art.”
“That was a mess.”
I shoved him.
He grinned.
That was us.
Then, when we were twelve, my parents’ marriage ended.
Dad didn't disappear.
He moved twenty-five minutes away.
I still saw him.
But the house changed.
The silence changed.
Mom changed.
And so did I.
For months, I felt angry at everybody without knowing exactly who deserved it.
Dad.
Mom.
Myself.
Kids at school who still complained about stupid things like not getting the newest phone.
I stopped talking as much.
Stopped drawing.
Stopped eating lunch most days.
I told people I wasn't hungry.
The truth was that food made my stomach hurt.
Ethan noticed.
Of course he noticed.
But he never cornered me and demanded an explanation.
He just started sitting beside me at lunch.
Sometimes he talked.
Sometimes he ate.
Sometimes he simply sat there.
One day he spent the entire lunch period giving me a detailed explanation of why the Yankees' bullpen was a disaster.
I didn't care about baseball.
I couldn't have named three players.
But listening to him talk about something so normal made my life feel normal for thirty minutes.
I never told him that.
Maybe I should have.
When I failed my driver's test at sixteen, Ethan showed up at my house carrying a paper bag.
Inside were two giant chocolate chip cookies.
“One is because you tried,” he said.
I smiled.
“And the other?”
“Because you almost hit the cone.”
“I did not almost hit it.”
“The instructor grabbed the dashboard.”
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves fear.”
I threw a cushion at him.
Another time, I decided I was quitting the school art program after another student made fun of one of my paintings.
The next morning, I walked into homeroom and discovered my ugliest first-grade dinosaur drawing taped to Ethan's locker.
It was supposed to be a T. rex.
It looked like an angry chicken wearing boots.
I marched up to him.
“Why is that on your locker?”
He looked at the drawing.
“Art.”
“Take it down.”
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“You said you're quitting.”
“So?”
“So I need proof you can get better.”
I stared at him.
“Are you saying my drawing is terrible?”
“Yes.”
“You're supposed to encourage me.”
“I am encouraging improvement.”
I tried not to laugh.
Failed.
He left the dinosaur on his locker for the rest of the semester.
That was Ethan.
He wasn't good at inspirational speeches.
