Chapter 1
I've always loved flying kites. Seeing them whip in the wind, swooping about, almost as if they were birds. I use to run along the sandy beach with a kite trailing behind. Ever subtle movement of the kite was at my control as a raced the waves along the beach. All care left me, leaving only a pure freedom. Suddenly, nothing mattered except the kite and me.
That's how I met John. I was wrapped up in my own little world, running along with my kite. I ran into something, knocking me to the ground. As I looked up, I saw a sandy haired boy, about my age, with glowing green eyes. He had a cocky half-smile on his face as he helped me up.
"What's your name? Where do you live?" I asked, for I didn't know of any other nine-year-olds in the area.
"My name's John. I live a few houses that way," he said, pointing.
"Hi, I'm Kim. Do you have a kite?"
John sprinted towards his house, and emerged with a red blob floating above his head. I laughed, and we soon started racing each other down the beach.
While we were still young, we would play and compete with each other. We would race each other, dare each other to go into the ice-cold Puget Sound, and hunt for millions of creatures on the sand. John was great at digging up gooey ducks. These colossal clams squirt unsuspecting beach walkers. As soon as one squirted, John would dig into the sand, furiously, until he caught the giant clam. I was always impressed at this ability of his.
John and I were both very competitive. Everything and anything was a good excuse to match wits. But that was about all we had in common. True, we were both sheltered children, living in our naïve world, but even though we were essentially good kids, I was more of a goodie-goodie than he was. On the cliff of danger, he liked being right on the edge, teetering on practically the brink of disaster. Of course, I knew he wouldn't go any further, but he would walk the thin line. I personally liked staying away from trouble as much as possible.
Years passed by, and John and I slowly matured. We no longer played by the beach, but talked and ambled along. The world seemed bigger now than before. Swear words were become part of our age group's vocabulary, even if I still refused to use them. Troubles lived in the world but most on our still young minds was one word: sex.
John knew a lot about it - all second hand, of course. He was so knowledgeable in these areas. Both our lives were sheltered, but mine more so than his. True, I had "book smarts," but he had intelligence about the human world and the way it worked.
To any passerby, these talks would sound like gross conversations, which they were. John and I loved truth or dare. We almost always picked truth, which lead to a question about which person would you rather lick chocolate sauce off or who would you rather do it with. None of these were taken seriously. We were simply curious about the new world we were stepping into.
Over the years, our worlds slowly drifted apart. New schools, new friends, new lives. We practically forgot each other. We would say hello, when we met each other on the beach, but that was it.
The problem was, I didn't forget him. Over the many years that we had been together, I had slowly fallen in love with John. True, he was arrogant and childish, but these qualities were just part of him. I couldn't stop thinking about him, but I didn't want to do anything.
I didn't do anything until one day. Having nothing else to do, I called a close friend who I hadn't seen for a while because she was at another school. We chatted about the normal stuff, like how our lives had changed, problems at school, and basically what was happening. It was then that I got some astonishing news.
"John now drinks," my friend said, "John wants to impress some chick from the tennis team. She drinks, tp's houses. So now John drinks, like, every night he can sneak out of the house."
I gasped. I felt my heart being crushed. John was a good kid, this couldn't be happening. When did John suddenly throw his morals, friendships, and values out the window for some slut? Why was this happening? My head spun. I felt dead inside, like there wasn't a reason to care. Life had been sucked out of me with those words.
Guilt and blame settled on my shoulders. I could have actually called those million times I wanted to. I could have talked to him every time I saw him. I could have saved him from toppling off the brink of disaster. Millions of "if only's" ran through my mind. Anger, directed inward, quelled up inside me. I needed a release and a perfect one came walking down the beach.
I hurriedly told my friend good-bye, hung up the phone, and dashed out of the house, towards the figure. Furry made me run faster and faster towards him.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I screamed at John.
John looked up startled, totally bewildered.
"Why the hell are you drinking?" I yelled him, my eyes bugging out of my head, "What demon possessed you to do such a thing?"
"I just want to have fun," he mumbled.
"You're life up to this point is worth throwing away for to HAVE FUN?" I bellowed, astonished, "Some floozy comes along, tells you to drink some beers, it's fun? Morals, values, beliefs, and your life are worth impressing someone with a person you're not? That alcohol has really gotten to your head. Next you'll be on pot!"
"My life is my business!" John suddenly exclaimed, "If I fuck it up, that's my problem. And why do you suddenly care?" The last sentence was shot back at me with malice.
I started pleading with him, tears in my eyes, "John, you’re my friend. You were such a good kid. I want to help. I feel so bad." I broke down into sobs, crying over the wet sand, on my knees.
"Stay the hell out of my life, okay?" he said, disgusted, and walked away. I could hear his footsteps in the sand through my sobs.
I thought that was the last I would ever see of John. He wasn't but a memory after that. I still thought about him. Six years is a long part of a young person's life to forget that easily.
It was the day before high school graduation. My head filled with thoughts of my life and what I had done. As I walked by the endless waves, I ambled along the roads of my mind. John suddenly appeared in my mind, the first day I saw him. A tear fell from my eye. The good old days, when we use to fly kites.
I sighed as I reached my house. But something caught my eye. Something pinned beneath a rock. I walked over to examine it and it was a kite. I unpinned it and found a note attached to it.
"Kim,
I am giving you this kite to thank you for your friendship. You have looked out for me, when no one else did. I enjoyed how you were honest and upfront. Thanks for being a friend.
John"
Tears of happiness streamed down my face as I let the kite go. It whipped in the wind. I slowly began running, chasing the waves. I suddenly bumped into something. It was a young man, about my age, with sandy-colored hair and glowing green eyes. A cocky half-smile was on his face as he helped me up from the sand.