Designer Dreams, Designer Shades

“Hey, Drew! Didn’t see you at practice today,” Darcy said cheerfully after letting herself into the Ingle household. Darcy was only in a sports bra and spandex shorts, her hair thrown up in a messy bun and a light film of sweat on her skin, so I knew she had just came from tennis practice. We went to different schools, but we met back in eighth grade at the tennis club we were both in and had been friends ever since.

Of course, we were a little competitive, and we had our sports quarrels every now and then, but we always came out to be friends in the end. I could last longer in a game than Darcy, but she had much better control when it came to hitting the ball. We had our strengths, our weaknesses, and just accepted them over time.

She was usually here to hang out with or do homework with my little sister and her best friend Harley, play tennis with me, or tease me about the songs I wrote.

If only she knew half those songs were about her.

I put my guitar back onto my bed and just pointed to my leg, which was in a neon green cast. Darcy gasped. “Aw, shit, Chris, what happened?”

“Tore my ACL at that last tennis game…you know, the one you didn’t come to because you went to Harley’s gymnastics competition.”

Darcy pouted, sitting down on the floor and hugging my casted leg. “Don’t guilt trip me, I feel bad already! You should’ve called me or something, Drew!”

I shrugged, leaning back onto my bed and searching for the sharpie I had in my hands only minutes before. “It’s whatever. Come sign it.”

Darcy took the sharpie I handed her and sat so my leg was between hers, biting her lip as she began to draw what I knew would soon be a masterpiece on my knee. Darcy was a quirky, artsy kid like me, but she was quirky and artsy in a way that wasn’t like me. I liked that, though – that we weren’t exactly two peas in a pod, but more like two sides of the same coin. “There. Mwah,” Darcy said when she finished, pretending to kiss my leg to make it better. Why couldn’t she just kiss me already? “You’re gonna be fine, Drew.”

“I don’t know, Darce…I don’t think going to be able to play tennis after this,” I mumbled, turning my leg over to examine what she’d done. Darcy drew me an Alex Pardee-esque smiling skull, with a little message beside it that read


I couldn’t help but smile at her signature before lying back down on my bed and grabbing my guitar.

“Don’t jinx yourself,” Darcy teased, but I could hear the slight hints of sadness in her voice.

“Well, maybe this is a good thing. I’ll be able to focus on music now,” I said as I stared up at the ceiling, lightly strumming a few chords. I glanced down at the edge of the bed, where my legs were dangling off. Darcy was still sitting there, studiously capping and uncapping the sharpie. “What’s on your mind, dollface?”

Darcy shrugged, putting the sharpie into my pocket. “I’m gonna miss you at tennis practice if you can’t ever play again,” she sighed, walking over to my tennis racket before picking it up and touching the split strings.

“We can hang out outside of tennis, you know.”

“Yeah, I’m just saying, practice will be no fun without you!”

I smiled when Darcy pouted, closing my eyes and strumming some more on my guitar. Darcy was into tennis more than I was, and she actually was into tennis. I was just playing tennis to make my dad happy. But she wasn’t a straight jock, either. She liked art and fashion, which was why she and Harley got along so well. Harley was the epitome of girliness, so she was always critiquing Darcy’s work. Darcy was also a very smart cookie. She was the reason I was passing my classes, since I spent most of my time lighting up.

Darcy knew I smoked. Darcy knew all of my bad habits. She didn’t encourage or disencourage, she let me be. We were at ease with each other and all our faults. I don’t know why. I knew all of Darcy’s issues, too. Darcy cut herself. Her parents were divorced and she was staying here with her dad, but she was afraid of him because he hit her a lot, so she usually spent the nights here with Harley. They were the same age and my parents thought nothing of it. They thought the girls were just great friends. They didn’t know anything about Darcy.

“Are you going to come over here or not?” I chuckled, putting my guitar down and patting the space on my bed beside me. “Spend time with the invalid.”

Darcy put my tennis racket down. “I’m sweaty, let me borrow some clothes from Harley first.”

I rolled my eyes and sat up. “I don’t care…don’t make me come get you.”

Darcy laughed, but joined me on the bed. “Now you’re gonna have to change your sheets. I was sweating like a pig. I hate lying down on a clean bed when I’m not clean, too. Well…scratch that, your room is never clean, Drew.”

“My room is clean! It’s just…messy. Believe me, there is a difference. I never let my room get dirty.”

Darcy laughed, and we spent the rest of that golden afternoon talking about nothing and everything. When I talked to Darcy, one thing would lead to another. I would say something that made her think of something else to say, and then what she said would make me think of something else to say, and it was just an endless cycle of continuously changing topics. All our conversations, even phone conversations, were conducted in the same manner.

The best thing was nothing was off limits for us. We would talk about our problems, the problems of the world, touchy issues…things I couldn’t talk about with anybody else.

Those conversations were the best.

Too bad that was the last time I ever saw Darcy.


It’s not as if I ever forgot her, though. I thought of her every now and then over the years. Mostly about how no girl could hold a candle to her, how none of the friends I had now could compare, and most of all, how much I missed her, but…

You left without a reason?

Don’t come back with an excuse.