a friendship in five chapters
***
chapter one:
girl meets boy. to be fair, girl sees boy from across campus and thinks he’s deliciously cute. girl spends a year wondering who boy is. boy spends that year doing god knows what – certainly not noticing girl. boy and girl meet. girl and boy go out one night, with mutual pals. girl and boy almost hook up. girl and boy spend next few months avoiding each other like the plague.
chapter two:
girl and boy’s lives tangle again. and again, both girl and boy walk away from brief entanglement thinking, “what is with that guy/girl!” boy decides to write for newspaper for which girl is slavishly dedicated editor. boy and girl finally begin to not violently dislike other. boy and girl start heading to diner for late night study/banter sessions. girl develops inappropriate crush on boy. boy notices, nicely tells girl he’s not interested in dating her. girl [being stuck in tragically-destructive low-self-esteem cycle] takes this to mean boy is violently unattracted to her because she is clearly, hideously ugly. boy meets girl’s friend. girl’s friend seems nice, and distinctly un-crazy. friend knows girl likes boy. friend and boy start dating anyway. disasterous results ensue, mostly due to latent, hidden craziness on part of friend. boy and girl get angry at each other, fight, squabble, and generally discard prior tenuous opinion of others’ coolness. summer begins, and boy and girl walk away from each other, thinking nevermind.
chapter three:
boy and girl return to school, having both shed the shackles of crazy friend madness – and start circling each other like uncertain forest animals, sniffing the air for disaster. girl has come out of tragically-destructive self-esteem phase. boy has come out of solely-dating-crazy-people stage. boy and girl finally discover what their friendship really is, spend all year [mostly] enjoying each other’s company, sharing beds platonically, and getting quietly possessive of others’ love interests. graduation ensues, talks of dating each other are had and discarded, boy and girl both move to Big City.
chapter four:
boy decided to high-tail it out of Big City. girl, as dearest gal-pal of boy, and confidante, supports leaving-decision fully, knowing it is truly what boy needs. boy stays with girl for last six days before leaving on that jet plane. boy and girl spend a lot of time smiling at other, enjoying others’ company. but suddenly, suddenly, girl realizes she will desperately miss boy. suddenly starts doubting all her high-minded platonic insistence. audience knows what happens next, clearly. there are looks exchanged, halting words, long nights, and rumpled sheets, and harried goodbyes. boy is gone. Big City is empty.
chapter five:
boy and girl spend months talking. boy and girl miss each other. girl and boy play scrabble online, listen to same radio stations at same time, and find comfort in friendship. girl tells all skeptical friends to shove off, boy is special to her. girl and boy don’t think this is easy, or fun, really. at different points, boy hurts girl, girl hurts boy*. freak outs are had. boy considers moving back. girl considers hopping on plane. boy and girl only really know one thing – four chapters of good and bad are too much to walk away from.
girl says to boy: this is nothing. we’ve seen worse.
boy says to girl: we’ve never had a problem we haven’t gotten through.
girl and boy laugh.
***
……. how will it end for our protagonists? stay tuned.
*girl is very, very sorry and would offer flowers if plant life could be squeezed through modem lines intact. as this is impossible, girl offers true-story-tribute as proof of affection. also, story will not wilt in a week. and does not require watering.