Toying with Words

A dog walked to the street.

A girl walked to the refrigerator.

A small girl walked to the white refrigerator.

The small girl sauntered toward a white refrigerator.

The brunette girl sauntered toward a tall refrigerator.

The brunette girl joyfully sauntered toward a tall refrigerator.

The strikingly brunette girl joyfully sauntered toward an enormously tall refrigerator.

The strikingly brunette girls joyfully sauntered toward the enormously tall refrigerators.

The strikingly white horses joyfully sauntered toward the enormously aqua lake.

The strikingly white unicorns joyfully soared toward the distant aqua sky.

The strikingly white unicorns joyfully soared toward the distant setting sky. They spun in circles and flew in loops. The unicorns dashed though the clouds, over mountains and streams and seas. They never needed rest, and just played in the sky day in and day out, never stopping.

Sweet Babe

Sweet babe,

For you I brave the sea.

The spraying

Hurtling

Death bringing sea.

The sea that draws fear from

Every bone in my body.

But for you, I brave.

I have journeyed farther

Than I ever would’ve dreamed

For you, sweet babe.

When the wind roars,

Or the sea sprays,

Or the dripping ground glistens,

I look at you and remember.

I remember I have to do this,

For you.

Our journey isn’t for me.

Our journey is for you,

My sweet, sweet babe.

My Best Friend

I met my best friend when I was in preschool. We’re hardly apart now. We’re basically the same person. Only our appearance is different; she is short with dark hair and eyes, and I am tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. Our thoughts, though, our actions- they’re all the same. What we like, what we do, who we like- only a few minor things set us apart. What we wear, people we can’t stand- she’s an extension of me and I of her.

            I can’t imagine my life without her. So many of my stories start with, “So me and my best friend were hanging out...” We spend so much time together during the summer that she almost lives with me.

            Our best and our worst times, they include each other.

Almost

It almost could have gone the other way. My life could have been changed forever. Life without my best friend. It could have been so different.

            He got her name from a friend, who had gotten it from a different person, who had gotten it from a different person. He got all around the school, getting information from anyone who would talk. No one knew who he actually was, he just said he was an 18 year old guy from Ireland, but how was anyone to know if that was true?

            She was texting him for only a couple weeks before their conversation was found. They had texted day in and day out, but no one had known. She told him things about her that she hadn’t told but a few people, but he knew about them.

Who was he? We never knew. Maybe, possibly, unlikely had he truly been just an “18 year old from Ireland”. He was more likely a creepy, pedophilic man living in their very own city.  He was a creepy, pedophilic man who knew about my best friend- what she looked like, where she went to school, what she did in her free time. He shouldn’t have known these things.

If

What if she hadn’t been caught? If no one had known she was talking to him?  If one day, she had mentioned that she was at a specific place, thinking he couldn’t track her down, but he did. If he found her. If he took her.

If one day I got that call, saying that my best friend had disappeared. That she was gone. That no one knew where she was, that they hadn’t seen her since she went off with friends, that they couldn’t reach her. They would ask, did I know where she went? And I would’ve had to say no, I don’t know where the person I am closest to in the world is.

If he got ahold of her- but who would have known who it was? Her friends, maybe, but how do you say, yes I gave some random guy her number and I’ve also been talking to him and I gave his number to her and her and her too? The person who came forward and said this, they would have unintentionally helped a kidnapper commit a crime. Or they wouldn’t say anything, and no one would know they could be blamed, but eventually the case would go cold and her unfound.

What if?

The Day After

It was a Wednesday when I found out. It was late, and I was coming home from a rehearsal for a show. I got in my mom’s car, and waited for her to turn on the car and drive for home. Instead, she just sat there. Something was wrong. Something had happened.

            When I heard the story, I felt as if the breath was knocked out of me. What do you mean my best friend was talking to someone? What do you mean he was a stranger? What do you mean no one knew who he was, or how old, or where he was?

            I didn’t sleep that night. I stayed up the whole time, a million thoughts and what ifs circling my thoughts. Why what if how when who? I threw up, unable to keep down food with the thought that I almost lost her. I wrote and wrote, then ripped the pages up, hating the terrified words on the paper. I phased through so many emotions, from stone cold fear to anger to relief. Morning came faster than it had ever before. I felt sick, my head was pounding, and I couldn’t focus.

I still had to go to school. The day stretched through endless hours, each tick-tock second becoming longer and longer and longer. No one was supposed to know. I had to hide something was wrong. I tried to smile, but I felt nothing underneath. I tried to laugh, but each laugh choked me. What if something was going wrong with her? What if he made his move now, now that someone knew that he was talking to girls presumably much younger than himself? Would she be okay? What was going on? She didn’t have her phone anymore. I couldn’t reach her. I couldn’t contact her. What if something was wrong? I needed to talk to her.

I needed to make sure she was okay.

Missing

If she went missing, it would have broken me. If she hadn’t come home from school one day, and she hadn’t come home and she hadn’t come home. If it grew later into that night, and they hadn’t seen her and they hadn’t seen her. Panicked calls to neighbors, her friends she should have been with. Driving up and down and around streets, trying to see where she had gone off-course. More calls to the school, to more people, had anyone seen her?

It was mid- October, and I was in a show at the time. I would have come down from it, happy and bubbling with stories of what happened in the show. My mom would be sitting in the car, waiting to pick me up. Her face when I stepped into the car would have tipped me off that something was wrong. She would tell me that my best friend in the world had gone missing. I would have been in denial. No, no, she can’t be gone. She can’t. Then I would’ve broke down, right there in the parking lot, because what would I do without her?

I wouldn’t have come back to school. Eventually, maybe, but how can you wake up and try to focus on school when your best friend is missing and you can’t do anything about it? You can’t. I would have gone to her house, the second I was told she was missing. Whereisshewhereisshewhereisshe? I would have gone to her room, remembering the many many many times I had been there. Too many to count. People would start coming, more and more. Maybe she was just upset. Maybe she got lost. Maybe she’ll come home.

Days could’ve passed, and we wouldn't have seen her. Police would be in and out of the house, searching for clues on the missing girl. No one would be able to sleep, haunted with dreams of where she was. Who she was with. Why she was gone. How were we supposed to function without her?