The Crossing (Part 1)

Two childhood friends cross paths and wonder what happened to their once blossoming friendship.

Friendship is a funny thing that can be likened to a garden plant. The more you water it the more it blossoms into a beautiful example of what life truly is. But if you neglect it, it soon withers and dies becoming a bitter reminder of what it once was or worse still a reminder of what it could have been.

And so it was on this bitterly hot afternoon on the sidewalk of the University campus a little after midday. The sun rays beat down on the streets as the pavement buckled under the sweltering beams of light. Amber had just wrapped up her Math class and was on her way back to the dorms for a well-deserved lunch break. She walked briskly through the campus streets darting from shadow to shadow so as to escape the blistering heat even if for a second.

As she paced down the sidewalk her mind turned to what Anita had said the day before. “You never ever call me!” she yelled. The veins in her head seemed to pulsate as her face contoured in righteous fury. “How come it’s only when we meet that you suddenly seem to care how I am doing?” she demanded. Anita was never one to mince words. She always said it like it was and this time her ire had been raised by Amber’s quaint question of ‘how are you?’ as the two friends crossed paths on the sidewalk.

Amber and Anita had grown up just a few blocks away from each other. Their mothers were friends and so inevitably they had spent much of their childhood together. Amber remembers not liking Anita very much the first time they met. Her mother had taken her over to see her friend and dragged poor Amber along as there was no one to look after her at home. 

As they arrived they were greeted at the door by a dirty looking child with knots in her unwashed brown hair. The whites of her eyes seemed bloodshot as though she had not slept in days. “Mommy is not around,” she whispered as though she was wary of letting them in. “Okay, we will come back later… tell your mommy I asked of her.” 

“Yes ma,” said the little girl before hurriedly closing the door and scurrying back into the house.

Over the years Amber watched that scruffy, shy and reserved girl blossom into a beautiful, confident and outgoing woman. And as Anita grew so did the friendship between her and Amber sprout into a bond that was unbreakable. The two girls were inseparable, so much so that they did everything together, from going on their first dates in tandem to choosing to attend the same University after secondary school. 

Their friendship would last forever, or so they thought.