Summertime.

You called me later that day around noon. When I saw you name on the caller ID I was tempted to reach into my nightstand and grab that old tin can with the string attached to it. Old habits die hard, I suppose. It was strange though, seeing your name on my caller ID. You hadn’t called me since before you left. I’d forgotten what it was like to receive a call from my best friend. Sure, I’d made new friends and kept in touch with the old ones while you were away, but it wasn’t the same. It was always different seeing your name appear on my phone. Always.

“Hello?” I answered. I almost answered it the way I used to ;(”Hey, there.” )You always told me you could hear the smile in my voice whenever I answered the phone. What I never told you was that I only really smiled when I knew it was you on the other end of the telephone line. It made me sad when I realized when I didn’t smile the same way when you called me that day.

“Hey. It’s uh…”

“I know who you are,” I laughed. “I didn’t get pissed enough to delete your phone number, you know.”

I heard you chuckle in that nervous way of yours. It was another thing I realized hadn’t changed. “Yeah… I guess that’s a good thing right?”

“Yeah. I suppose it is. Believe me, though. I thought about it.” I meant that as a joke, but I guess you didn’t take it as lightly as I did. I forgot that things were still different and I hated it even more than I had before. We used to be able to joke around like that and we’d both just get it. Now, I figured that I’d hurt your feelings and I felt bad.

“I’m… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean anything by it; I was only kidding.”

You sighed and I imagined you shaking your head. “No… it’s fine.” You paused and I could tell you were thinking about saying something, you wanted to say something, but you weren’t sure if now was the right time… or if you should bother with saying anything at all.

“What do you wanna say?” I asked you.

“What?”

I found myself grinning because I just knew you were surprised I even bothered to remember your habits. I guess you forgot just how well I actually knew you.

“You want to say something,” I told you. “I may not have seen you in forever, but that doesn’t mean I forgot all about you.”

I felt you smile on the other line. “I guess not.”

You paused again.

“Well?” I asked you. “What is it?”

“I just… I want things to go back to normal, I guess. I feel like we’re forcing ourselves to be friends and that sucks because it was all so easy before. We didn’t have to think about things to say when we spoke over the phone, we just talked. If I came to your doorstep at three in the morning, you just came outside and we’d walk to the lake and hang out until breakfast was ready…”

You trailed off, not bothering to finish your sentence. It didn’t matter though because I knew exactly what you meant. Things were different and we both knew it and that fact kept staring us straight in the face. There really wasn’t anything we could do about it though. It had been made very clear that people change; nobody stays the same forever. That was just something we would have to deal with.

I still felt bad though because I felt as if this were all my fault; like I’d pushed you so far away and now we could barely muster up a few sentences over the phone. I’d spent so much time blaming you for everything when, in reality, I’d played some part in this as well.

“You there?”

I nodded my head before I remembered we were on the phone and you couldn’t see me. I felt like looking out my window and checking to see if I’d be able to see you on the other side the way I could when we were kids.

“Yeah,” I told you, deciding that checking my window wasn’t all that good of an idea. I didn’t feel like chancing the disappointment. Knowing you were there, on the phone, would be enough for now. “I’m here. I was only thinking.”

“About?”

“Us, I guess. I just know what you mean is all. I miss the way we used to be too. I liked having a best friend.”

“Why don’t we go out and do something today, yeah? Like we used to.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“I don’t know…” I could feel your smile as you spoke. You were excited about this; about hanging out with me for a day. I couldn’t help but to feel special because you, this amazing person I’d known for my entire life, had come back and all you wanted to do was spend a day with me. I felt stupid because you were only a boy, the same as I was, but that was simply the way I felt at the moment and I decided there was nothing left to do but to embrace it.

“Why don’t we go for a bike ride?” You suggested.

I laughed lightly because we hadn’t rode bikes together since I was about ten and you were thirteen. It felt like the perfect idea because, back then, there was absolutely nothing wrong with us. We were simply friends and we didn’t really care where the line between friends and something more actually sat.

“Yeah,” I told you. “That sounds like a good idea.”

“Why are you laughing?” You asked me.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I guess, I’m just happy.”

I knew you were smiling, and it made me even happier to know I had something to do with that. I suppose it was at that moment that I was done with being mad at you. All that really did was make me miserable and that really wasn’t something I wanted. What mattered was that you were back and you wanted to somehow be friends with me again in that same way we were before you decided to take off for Mexico. Was I sure that was able to happen? Not really.

But, like you, I was willing to try.