Summertime.

For five years you had been gone and then you just showed up expecting everything to go back to normal. You showed up and smiled and acted like nothing ever even happened. You acted like you never left for Mexico and left me here all by myself. You didn't even bother to call and say goodbye. It wouldn’t have mattered if you meant it or not, the gesture would have been enough.

I guess what pissed me off the most was that you didn’t seem to care. You’d gone off and had your fun and you came back expecting to see me waiting for you. It was like you thought I’d be sitting on your front porch, staring off in the distance as I waited to see your father's truck pull into the drive way. It pissed me off that your head was that far up your ass.

What pissed me off even more was that you waited until then to show up. You waited until I was perfectly fine with living without you. Sure, I missed you from time to time but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I didn’t think about you every second of every day. I didn’t feel sad every time I opened a can of chicken noodle soup. You didn’t have the decency to come back when I needed you most. You chose to wait until I didn’t really need you showing up at all.

I’m sure you had no way of knowing when to show up and I probably shouldn’t be angry with you for that. However, that bitter part of me wants to tell you that if you didn’t want me angry with you then you shouldn’t have left in the first place.

When you showed up at the front door I was still pissed at you, but I opened the door anyways because I didn’t want my mother thinking that anything was wrong.

“What do you want?” I asked, folding my arms. I didn’t want to talk to you or see you because it had been way to long.

You furrowed your brow which aggravated me even more. Everything you did seemed to get on my nerves, but I suppose that was just me being childish. It just pissed me off that you had no idea what you had done wrong.

“What do you mean ‘what do I want’? I haven’t seen you in five years. I wanted to say hello,” you told me.

I sighed, my hands falling to my sides. It took everything I had to avoid eye contact. More than anything I wanted to just look at you and figure out exactly how much you had changed. I knew your hair was different and your skin was a bit darker, but I wanted to see if you had changed; If you were the same person or if Mexico had taken that away from me as well.

“Hello,” I responded, my voice flat.

“Frankie…”

I didn’t want you to say my name because I was afraid it wouldn’t be the same and, when you did, it wasn’t. That had changed along with everything else and it tore me up inside because it made me think that you were no longer my best friend. If you were nothing else before you left, I could say you were my best friend. Even when you were gone I could say it because when you left, that was where we were. But when you came back it was different and I hated it.

I don’t know if that’s a fear of change or just me being selfish. I don’t know.

“What do you want?” I asked again, looking at your eyes.

You shoved your hands in your pockets. “To see you, I guess.”

I ran a hand through my hair, looking back into my house. “I can’t talk about this right now,” I said. “I can’t talk to you right now. At least not here.”

You looked around and sighed. “Well, I kinda wanted to talk to you.”

I couldn’t believe you. You just expected everything to go your way because you’d been gone for so long and everyone missed you. It just bothered me. I knew I was being a bit of an asshole about the whole thing, but I didn’t care. You were just bugging the shit out of me and I didn’t know how else to handle it.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Just because you’ve been gone for five years and you’ve decided to come back doesn’t mean I’m gonna go out of my way to ‘say hello’,” I told you. “I don’t know what you were expecting.”

You looked at me, confusion taking over your face.

I didn’t know what else to do and I knew my mom was going to come to the door at any moment if I didn’t either leave or end this conversation soon. “Jesus Fucking Christ,” I said, walking down the steps. “Just come with me. I don’t want my mom coming to the door.”

I walked towards the river where we used to hang out when we were kids. Nearly everything surrounding our houses reminded me of some time I’d spent with you when everything was simple are far less annoying and complicated.

When I stopped walking I stood at the edge of the water, watching the fish swim upstream. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know where to start.

“I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” you told me.

I shoved my hands into my pockets and turned around so I was facing you. “Are you really that clueless?” I asked you. “You honestly can’t figure it out?”

You shook your head, throwing your hands into the air. “No. I can’t. I come home and you don’t even so much as smile or give me a hug or tell me that you missed me. I mean… I just don’t get it.”

My eyes widened as I scoffed out of disbelief. “Wow… okay, I guess I’m just gonna have to spell it out for you...”

You folded your arms, obviously intrigued.

“You left, okay? I get that you wanted to get out of this place and see the world, and that’s all good and well, but I’m mad that you never told me. I’m hurt because we were supposed to be best friends and you didn’t even have the decency to tell me that you were leaving the country. I’m mad that you—“

“I left you that note,” you pointed out.

I rolled my eyes. “That doesn’t make it any better, okay? You tell your best friend that you’re leaving the country in a fucking note? You could have called or woken me up to say goodbye, especially if you planned on being gone for five years without so much as a phone call or god damned text message. I’m pissed because I thought we were closer than that and I’m mad that you left it all up to me to tell your family where you had gone. I’m mad that I had to see their faces and I had to watch your little brother cry because he didn’t know where you were. Do you get that? Do you have even an inkling of an idea of what that was like?”

You sighed, shaking your head because you knew you were wrong.

“And you know what really tops it off?”

You looked up at me, unsure of if you even wanted to know. It honestly didn’t matter though because I was going to tell you anyways.

“The icing on the cake was when you showed up here today expecting everything to be okay. You showed up here and it seemed like you were expecting me to be waiting for you. You expected me to hug you and ask all about your trip. You're not the center of my fucking universe, okay? I can’t waste my time caring about someone that doesn’t even have the decency to tell me that they’re gonna leave me hanging for five years.

“So, that’s why I’m upset. That’s why I’m not going to smile and give you a hug and tell you how much I missed you. You can't just show up at my doorstep and tell me that you want to talk. If you wanted to talk so fucking bad you should have tried doing that before you went to Mexico. I know I may be acting a little childish and I know I'm being a bit of an asshole, but you have to understand that when you left like that it really messed me up and then, when my life is finally back in order and I'm finally done with worrying about how you've been doing you decide to show up and mess everything up all over again.”

"I never wanted to mess things up for you. That was never what I wanted."

"Well," I replied, my voice softer. "That's how it happened."

"I'm sorry that things happened that way, but shit happens. People get messed up. I don't understand how it's all my fault."

I wanted to rip my hair out because you just weren't getting it. "Can you pull you head out of your ass and take a look around you? There are other people out there, you know? And we all have feelings and needs and wants just like you do. I never said its all your fault, but you have to own the fact that you leaving really fucked things up. Not just for me, but for everyone that cared about you."

I drew in a deep breath as I watched your face fall. For a brief moment I felt a little bad for putting things so plainly, but then I just didn’t. I couldn’t be bothered enough to care. Not anymore, at least.

“I… I don’t know what to say to you...”

I shrugged, shoving my hands into my pockets as I started to walk back to my house. “You don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to say a single word.”