Hello Eddie

I can't believe I'd forgotten about Eddie. Of course forgotten is probably the wrong word here entirely because I hadn't really forgotten about him, not in the sense of forgetting that he existed entirely. I'd really just forgotten that this was where I met him, that this was the moment I met the man who would be my best friend. Possibly my only friend. Until he wasn't.

Sitting on the grass I suddenly find it hard to breathe. Eyes wide, whatever confidence I might have been able to cling to suddenly slips away as I stare at the lanky figure of the guy sitting only a foot away idly picking at the grass and trying his best not to meet anyone else's eye.

Eddie didn't know a lot of things in life, in my experience. He didn't know how to dress himself and he didn't know how to act around people. He barely even knew how to make conversation with someone that he was familiar and friendly with, which was what we would be to each other by the end of our first month of school, let alone the complete stranger that I was to him right now.

In a lot of ways it was a little miracle that we'd even become friends at all. I mean neither of us exactly excelled in opening up or starting up a conversation, let alone a friendship, yet we managed to find each other and to become friends with each other. We managed to find a kindred spirit, of sorts.

I wonder what it was?

Maybe it was appearance, like finding like and meeting each other's eyes across a room. But that's probably a little too close to romance to describe our relationship and it definitely doesn't work with the setting, what with us being outdoors and all.

But there was a similarity, an almost undeniable one, with the bodies we were in or at least his body as it was now and my body as it used to be. We were both taller than we ought to be. We were both too lanky for our own good. Both of us had a pale pallor to our skin that made it look like we'd never been outside a day in our life, a tone which made sense for Eddie since he grew up in the middle of a block of concrete buildings but that didn't make a lick of sense for me growing up among cornfields as I did.

Of course now I wasn’t angular or tall or any of those things. I was soft and small and delicate and feminine, but it didn’t change the way I used to be and it didn’t change other parts, the parts of us that we chose for ourselves.

Because we both dressed, even now, as if we were expecting to put on muscle mass and weight all of a sudden, clothes that were a bit too big and a bit too baggy, that hid the lines of our bodies as best they could.

Staring at him now I could see all the sharp edges of him. The cheekbones and the sunken cheeks. The way his shoulders made his shirt hang off him like a mannequin. The way his hair hung in his eyes hiding his gaze as best he could behind his dark locks but still I could catch a glimpse of his furtive gaze beneath it.

Eddie was a familiar face in a familiar world that I was supposed to pretend was unfamiliar. He was a spot of comfort, and the only thing holding me back from addressing him the way I always would have was the rather simple fact that he didn't know me at all. Not yet.

But I knew him. I missed him. I missed him and I didn't know how badly I did until right here and now when he was back in my life again.

Eddie didn't know me. To him I was not only a stranger I was a girl, and one of those alone would be bad enough but both were anathema to him. If I was going to get back to the way we were, making friends with my best friend once more, I'd have to tread carefully. Eddie would have to be treated like he was a scared animal, unfamiliar with humanity. I'd have to move slowly so as not to spook him.

So I lift myself up on my palms and shuffle and inch closer. I try to do it slowly and not to draw his attention, but I see from the way that he stiffens that he registered it.

I turn away, doing my best to withdraw a little so he doesn't feel threatened. I'm pretty sure he's not going to rabbit right here and now and run away, but I know that pushing too far too fast will ruin my chances for the future so I go easy on it. I choose the safe option.

My hands swing my bag around to the front and I rummage in it, doing my best to avoid keeping eye contact with him as I pretend to sort through my things and watch him out of the corner of my eye.

And he is watching me. He's staring more intently than I'd thought he could. Eddie is watching me, right up until the point where someone new drags both of our attention away.

Because of course they do. Because Eddie isn't the only one that I forgot today.

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