That summer in between relationships Jessica and I discovered the fine art of cross-stitching.  We could sit in her room for hours making the cutest little designs.  We would sometimes sit in silence concentrating on the work at hand, but more often than not we would get sidetracked into a discussion over the latest issue of Seventeen or Jonathon Taylor Thomas-our celebrity crush.  Once we finished our designs we would either give them away to worthy recipients, or we would sell them at the garage sell that was a biannual tradition at my house.  It was during this summer that Trent’s parents decided to get a divorce and he was moving away to Texarkana.  We were heartbroken.  Jessica and I spent most of the last two weeks he was in town finishing the cross-stitch designs we made for him.  Mine was of a soccer ball with a message reminding him to always follow his dreams.  Since Jessica was with him at the time her design was more personal.  It spoke of their undying love and how she would miss him until they were once again together.  We gave him our presents and said our good-byes knowing that we would see him again and continued on about our way.
 
 

Jessica and me were definitely the adventurous pair.  The most trouble the two of us got into together occurred one mid-summer afternoon.   We were on the way to her house and we decided to take a detour and pick honeysuckle.  We wandered around in the woods near our neighborhood for hours discovering many trails and clubhouses.  Once we emerged and returned to her house we were greeted by a swarm of angry parents.  It turns out that a girl about our age had recently disappeared from the area and no one knew what happened to her.  Our mothers thought for sure that we had become the next victims of the “crazy rapist-ax murderer.”  Our parents decided that we needed to see less of each other and we were strongly encouraged to do so.  In some ways this led to the huge fight me and Jessica got into the following Christmas.

 It was over nothing, a pointless argument that allowed me to grow up and find myself by myself. I met a lot of interesting people, which I would never have met without the fight.  By this time Trent had moved back to League City and he was my boyfriend (or so I thought.)  I was mad because Jessica had once again stolen him from me.  Therefore I decided to write her ex-boyfriend Trice a letter.  She threw a fit over that and threatened me with bodily harm.  I was never serious about the letter; it was just a way to get back at her for stealing my boyfriend.  My mom said the reason the fight escalated so quickly was that we had been spending too much time together.  Whatever the reason the six months that we didn’t speak gave me some breathing room.  I was able to develop my relationship with Trent and some other friends from school as well.

I wasn’t getting along with the girls in my class.  They were constantly competing over who was prettiest, most popular, or most athletic.  I was not interested in arguing with them over this and therefore I was deemed the outcast.  Even though Tessa and Kim were a year behind me they were awesome.  I didn’t have to compete with them over guys and we hardly ever argued.  During the spring break my eighth grade year I had a slumber party.  My mom went all out for it.  We had “girls night.”  We stayed up all night doing each other’s nails, playing “truth or dare,” and just having a good time.  But something was missing.  I had to work at always doing something with Tessa and Kim.  We couldn’t just sit together in silence thinking about our own worlds like me and Jessica often did.  I wanted to have her back in my life, but I refused to be the first one to give in.  I was thrilled when I showed up at the neighborhood pool one day and saw her there. Jessica came up to me and it was like nothing had changed. We mended our feelings and became the best of friends again.  We never talked about the fight; we just moved on with our lives.  We were inseparable after that.  While our friendship had lost the pure innocence that it used to have, we were still very naïve in many ways.

Jessica’s mom had home schooled her during the past year and she wasn’t finished with her seventh grade work.  She spent most of her summer days doing schoolwork until her dad came home and she was allowed to hang out with me.  It was important for her to finish her work because she was starting public school in the fall.   Her mom had just gotten pregnant with another baby and wouldn’t have the time to home school her next year.  Jessica was thrilled about finally being allowed to go to a public school and see how “the other half” lived.

 Continue