Original Stories Fan Fiction / Realism Fan Fiction ❯ My First Friend ❯ One-Shot

My First Friend

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© 2008 Ohne Sie

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Author's note: This story is not entirely fictional, although names of people and time frames have been changed. The events contained are all true, however. So enjoy, I hope.

 

 

 

They say that you never forget your first love. It's funny that nobody mentions that you never forget your first friend, your first crush, or the first person who really taught you anything about life. In my case, those honors belonged to one person. He was my next door neighbor's grandson, and his name was Damien.

 

The first thing you should know about me is that I don't get to know people easily. I'm very shy, and as a rule, that turns people off right away. The same was true of me when I was younger. But the first time I remember meeting Damien, we hit it off right away. My mom babysat him when we were both three years old. My little brother was still a baby. And when my mom needed to go somewhere or do something and his mom was available, she'd babysit me. So Damien and I spent a lot of time together.

 

When he was at my house, we'd go into my room and play with my Barbie dolls or my Care Bears. You know, girly things like that. He didn't mind too much, which made him my favorite playmate, because it's kind of impossible to play with your little brother when he's putting the heads of your dolls in his mouth. And when I went over to Damien's house, we played with his trucks and airplanes, so we were even. I wasn't nearly as interested in those things as he was.

 

Eventually Damien and his mom moved to West Virginia. I'm not exactly sure where, but I know that I didn't see him nearly as much. And by that time I was in kindergarten and I had a new best friend, Alexandra. Still, Damien came to visit pretty regularly, and especially when the snow fell. I remember getting excited during the first snow fall of the year, because that meant Damien was coming to visit.

 

My mom would dress my brother David and me in our snowsuits and within a few minutes, there would be a knock on the back door. I would run and open it, and Damien would be standing there, holding a sled, and wearing his own snow suit. Then we all raced down to our shed to get sleds out for David and me. And we'd sled down the hill that separated our property from Damien's grandfather's property. It was during these sledding adventures that I developed a crush on him.

 

I'm not sure how it happened. All I know is that I was at one of my grandmother's Christmas parties, when I was about six years old, and one of my much-older cousins asked me if I had a boyfriend yet. Without thinking, I said Damien's name. My mom thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

 

It seems like it snowed a lot back then. I loved snow. I loved sledding. The only thing that made sledding less fun was the creek that ran below the hill. We had to aim our sleds just right in order to get them to stop before hitting a tree or the creek. The creek was always cold, and as soon as we hit it, we had to go inside.

 

Of course, going inside wasn't so bad. If we went into our house, my mom made us hot chocolate and we all played games like Monopoly Junior and Clue. And if we went inside to Damien's grandfather's house, we ate dry Corn Pops and watched movies. The one I clearly remember watching was Hook, and afterward, we all pretended to be pirates for a few hours until David and I had to go home.

 

Damien would visit in the summer, too. He came over to play softball, and that was fun, except that with three people, it's more difficult to play. And every time an airplane went by, he took out his miniature telescope and looked at it. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me that he was seeing what kind of plane it was. Sometimes my next door neighbor or some of the other neighborhood kids would come over to play with us, and we had a lot of fun.

 

Gradually Damien's visits became fewer and fewer. There were two years during which I didn't see him at all. And when I was about nine, he came back.

 

It was summer, and David and I were already outside. Damien said that he was bored and wanted to explore. For some reason, David and I had never explored the area around our house. We were afraid, for some reason, about what might be beyond the creek. We'd go to the creek, but never any further. Damien wanted us to go further.

 

As we crossed the creek, I remember being terrified. I thought someone would come out with a gun and shoot us, or we'd get pricked by a sticker bush, or a dog would break loose and bite us. But Damien reassured me that we'd be fine, and I believed him.

 

After a few minutes, we came across a pipe in the ground. I guess it was some sort of drainage pipe, long and seemingly unused after many years of neglect. It was large enough for all of us to crawl through easily. So we did, although I was reluctant.

 

It was dirty, covered with black stuff, but we didn't mind. We just wanted to reach the end and see where it led. It took about twenty minutes, but we finally got through, and found ourselves in the woods by an old shed. I looked behind us and couldn't see my house anywhere. I thought about asking to turn back, but we didn't.

 

We moved forward. We passed an old house. I wasn't sure if anyone lived there, because I didn't see any cars and it looked kind of worn out. After that we were surrounded by trees, and nothing else. I heard strange noises and was nervous, and despite Damien's reassurances, I had to leave. Reluctantly, he and David went back home with me. I still don't know what we would have found if we had continued walking.

 

It wasn't long after that before Damien did something that really scared me. I heard he was visiting again, so David and I raced over to his grandfather's house to see him. When we got to the backyard, we saw Damien standing on the ledge of his grandfather's deck, ready to jump. I asked him what he was doing, and he said that he did it all the time. The deck was about ten feet up, and there was no mattress or anything below to break his fall. If he fell, he'd hit the ground. I was terrified that he would die.

 

And then he did it. He jumped.

 

And he survived. I ran over to see if he was okay. He brushed off his pants and grinned. Then my brother had the bright idea to do the same thing. Damien and I yelled at him, telling him not to, but as an impressionable eight-year-old, David did what he wanted to do. When I realized that reasoning with him wouldn't work, I ran to my house to get my mom.

 

Apparently in that span of time, David did jump, with Damien's coaching. And he survived, as well, although he did bruise his knee a little, and he was crying. My mom came and picked him up, carrying him back to the house. Then she told me to come home, too. So I said goodbye to Damien, and went home.

 

I didn't see him much after that. He came over a couple times in the winter, but other than that, I never saw him. And the last time I saw him, he didn't even visit us. He was on his grandfather's deck. I looked up and saw him there. I don't think he saw me.

 

And two years later, we moved. I haven't seen him since. I wonder how he's doing sometimes, especially when I look toward the sky and see an airplane passing by. Or during the first snowfall of the winter. Or when my brother does something extremely reckless and stupid. I think of him, but I doubt he ever thinks of me. Maybe he does. After all, you never forget your first friend.