A lost friend

Let’s start at the beginning, in the last few months of third grade I became friends with a boy named Scot. We bonded over the fact that we both liked history and filming. Scot and I started really writing and coming up with scripts in fourth grade. At recess we would plan a show we wanted to make, drawing and writing in my notebook and talking about things we knew we couldn’t do with the ten dollars we both had. 

Scot and I hung out a lot in and outside of school. I had bought a camera so on days that worked I went home with him and filmed in his room with my camera and a greenscreen our school had lent us. We would film for hours, rewrite scripts, angle the camera differently, and take a break to eat and chill. Also, we would make fake commercials for Star Wars, Home Alone, Disneyland, etc.

In my strange twelve-year-old mind, I think it is important to add that also in fourth grade Scot and another one of my friends, Lousia, and I started writing a little picture book about a lion cub named Dandy. When we all talked about it we would say things like; “Well we have a sorta plot but where should it take place?” and Scot answered;” I have an idea! Knock-of-America!” he exclaimed. And then all at once all of us were consumed in a fit of laughter.  

By the time I was in fifth grade I had his number and we facetimed often because in march of 2020 all the kids were sent home and told we would be back in six weeks. Well, that six weeks passed and it led to another six weeks and that six weeks turned into the rest of the school year. So while we were doing zoom calls with our class, Scot and I were talking on facetime. We talked almost every day for over two hours.

When they let us go back to school Scot’s parents wouldn’t let him go. But we hung out sometimes at his house and even had a picnic and a park, granted we were ten feet apart and it was really cold but still, it was fun. I also got to play with his puppy on a trampoline. 

As we got later into the spring Scot came back to school and that was fine but we weren’t in the same class and all he wanted to do was play gaga ball, so we didn't hang out much at school but we still talked a lot on the phone.

After lunch we would have conversations that went like this;

“Hey, how ya doin'?” one of us would ask.

“Same as always, questioning my life choices, thinking about how sad my life is.” the other answered. Even though we both know our lives aren't sad, just tricky, we still said it with a silent understanding between us that it made us both feel better because in reality we just needed someone to talk to. 

When school ended it was the end of elementary school and I was so excited to go to middle school, that’s pretty much all I talked about. During the summer we talked a lot because both of us are pretty lazy. Scot and I were going to different schools so we wouldn’t see each other every day and couldn’t talk as much but I planned to make it work. 

Sometime around August, I started to notice that when we talked we didn’t even look at each other because he was always playing video games. I was never sure if I should keep talking or hang up to see if he noticed. I talk about the new movies my papa(dad) showed me and the crazy parts in the book I’m reading and if I talk about it for a while he will just hang up. He says he is doing it jokingly but he did it so often that it really hurt my feelings, and sometimes I would call him after he had hung up because I was in the middle of my sentence and he wouldn’t pick up when he did that I had to use all my power not to cry because I have so little friends and he was the only one that would pick up, but he didn’t.

And when he finally picked up I would continue talking like nothing had happened. I should have seen that as a sign that Scot was not a good friend, 

but I didn’t.

It went like this for two months. I would talk about this brutal death that had happened in the movie I watched last night and he would hang up. I told him about the plot twist in the book I’m reading and how a character was betrayed and he would hang up. 

Some days I cried because of how awful Scot made me feel, making me feel like I did something wrong. 

When I finally told him, he would say he would stop doing that and he was just trying to be funny,.......but Scot kept doing it. It got to a point where I was the only one calling, my parents told me to stop and wait for him to call me. And after about two weeks and no call, I called him. Now I know what you're thinking: why the hell would you call him, he is a horrible friend?

Well, the answer to that is that I was lonely and kind of sad, and Scot was the only one who made me feel, well not sad anymore.

But then I realized he was the one making me feel that sadness and I needed to step away. And if he wanted to call me that’s fine but I most certainly was not going to call him if he is just taking pity on me for having so few friends.

It’s been four months since then and I have received zero phone calls and I doubt he notices a thing. I’m not sure how this sounds but I have had four dreams with Scot and in all of them I ask why he ignores me and he always denies that he did anything at all and the worst part is that that is something he would do. When I wake up from those dreams I always start to cry because I miss our friendship and the days we spent hours in his room laughing and having genuine fun. 

I still occasionally think about Scot but I have made new friends and I am no longer lonely and sad. I am sad that I lost a friend but believe me when I say 

I do not dwell on that anymore. I am in the present and plan to stay there and will not let the memories of Scot take me from it. 

                 The End.