My Friend, Ellie

"Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that."-Ally Condie

I had this friend named Ellie when I was a kid. The day she moved into the house on the corner of my block, I was so excited to finally have a friend my age to play with. I remember grabbing my hot-pink tricycle and peddling as fast as I could over to her house. When I knocked on the door, a little girl with brown hair tied up in pigtails shyly opened the door, peeking just her head out.

“I’m Nina!” I exclaimed, “Do you want to go build fairy houses in the woods?”

At first, Ellie wrinkled her nose, then she turned and ran farther into the house. I have to admit, I felt a little discouraged when she ran away. I wasn’t always the best at making friends. My mom always said my personality was too bright for some people’s liking and that if they didn’t see the beauty in it, they were better off going their own separate way.

I began to turn around and start to head home, but a rattling noise behind me stopped the pedals from turning. My head swiveled around to see Ellie giggling with her purple tricycle and pedaling towards me. I had the widest grin on my face.

Ellie and I barely spent time apart after that. Sleepovers, movie dates, you name it, we had it. I didn’t really know what best friend was, at the time, but I knew I loved Ellie and she loved me. She was my adventure buddy, my right-hand defender against pirates, ghosts, and boys. We were fearless when we were together and sometimes, that meant trouble to our parents.

I’ll never forget the time we rescued a kitten that was stuck in a tree. We were heading home from our daily adventure out in the woods behind our neighborhood when we heard a crying sound, coming from above us.

“Nina! Look!” Ellie cried, tugging on my arm.

I looked up to see a tiny, orange kitten mewing up in one of our favorite trees to climb. Both of us knew it was past our time to get home, but we couldn’t just leave the helpless kitten.

“Give me a boost,” I said.

Ellie knelt down and hoisted me up onto the first branch. I began to scurry up the branches as fast as I could. The kitten looked terrified and I tried to talk to it and calm it down as I neared where it has climbed to. Once I reached the branch it was on, I scooted out to where it lay and scooped it up. I wasn’t sure of how to head back down with one hand, so I stuck the kitten in the hood of my jacket, praying it would stay put.

My parents grounded me for a month after my room began to smell like cat pee. But, that was just one of the many troublesome adventures Ellie and I got up to.

As the years passed, Ellie and I were coming up on our first year of middle school. By then, she had moved out of our neighborhood to the other side of town. We still got together as much as we could, but it was a lot harder to convince my parents to drive me across town frequently.

The day we found out we were going to separate middle schools was the day I started to notice a shift in our friendship. Ellie began to call me less and less, and her mother seemed to be encouraging her to hang out with the other kids on her block more. She was all I had at the time, all the other kids steered clear of me. I didn’t know if it was because I may have played a little rougher than them, or maybe because I didn’t follow the same trends they did.

Either way, I knew that I missed Ellie more than anything. But, something inside me understood that Ellie wasn’t going to be coming around anytime soon. I spent a lot of time holed up in my room, playing with my stuffed animals, but none of them made me laugh like Ellie did.

It took a long time for me to branch out and try to make friends after that. School wasn’t very fun for me, being alone. I just shuffled from class to class, looking forward to going home and spending time with my mom. All the other kids seemed to have plans together. I even tried calling Ellie once, but all I got was her answering machine and no reply.

It wasn’t until a girl named Meg transferred to our school that I thought friendship was possible again. Meg liked my weirdness; she said her family thrived on it. She still wanted to go and play in the woods and build fairy houses and didn’t care if her parents had to drive her across town for it. One time, she even biked all the way to my house from hers.

Meg was unique and she was the sign I needed to break out of the cave I had been stuck in. I went to my first concert with her, shared my first crush with her, ate copious amounts of ice cream with her. She was someone I couldn’t scare away with my weirdness and she understood how hard it could be at times to fit in.

My mom said friends like Meg didn’t come around that often. A lot of the time, friendships would chew and spit you out, like Ellie and I’s did. But one thing Ellie’s friendship did teach me was how to love someone. We may not be friends anymore, but I am still thankful for all the memories we shared and how she taught me that standing out can be better than blending in.

If I had never biked down to her house that day, I may have never had the confidence to let my personality shine, and I may not have met Meg. I still consider Meg to be one of my best friends to this day.