Unraveled

Daddy. I clutch the back seat, staring out our minivan’s rear window. Thick dust clouds block my view as Mom speeds away. Dad, I correct myself. That’s what fifth-graders say. Even if he calls me Daddy's little girl.

Swiping the back of my hand across my eyes, I search for him. His white t-shirt and blue jeans are barely visible. His blonde hair, the same camel-blonde as mine, has faded into the plumes of dirt.

I won’t turn around until we’ve taken too many turns for me to ever find my way back. Not that it matters, because he won’t be there even if I could.

He’s leaving.

For good.

And it’s my fault.

“Come on, Becky. The pizza’s going to get cold.” Mom stands outside the car. Her halo of permed, black-hair blows in the dry breeze.

She knows pizza’s my favorite.

Another tear rolls off my chin, adding to the dark stains in the cloth upholstery. “I’m not hungry.” I knock my shoulder against the side of the van as I storm past her. My brother and sister are already inside. Kate is too young to understand. And Tim is angry, like me. But he’s older, and his anger is bigger and scarier. Which means his will get seen.

I bury my face in my mattress while clinging to my pink Care Bear, Cheer Bear. Her rainbow belly is faded and fraying. I’ve already taken everything from her that she can give. Shoving it off the bed, I cross my arms hard against my chest. I’m too old for it anyway.

But not for my music. I pick up the boxy walkman already loaded with my favorite cassette tape and slide the headphone’s thin, metal band over my head. The chorus of Michael W. Smith’s “I Will Be Here For You”, plays for several beats. A tear threatens to emerge. I thrust the musical torture device off the bed too.

***

“Time for recess.” Mrs. Jarrett puts the cap back on the dry erase marker. I bury my latest spelling test in my backpack wishing it was the trash can instead, and push out of my seat trying to get ahead of the rest of the class. Next year, we won’t have to line up anymore. We’ll be Junior Highers.

Beth is a couple of people behind me, but she’ll meet me by the jump ropes like we always do.

The asphalt is hot in the warm April sun as I sprint across it. Noise erupts as my class jumps right into playing. We only get fifteen minutes, and I will spend all of it moving. Holding out the plastic handle of the jump rope, I wait for Beth to hurry over and grab it.

But someone stops her.

Tricia catches Beth by the arm, pulling her toward the tetherball courts. Beth’s shy, puppy-brown gaze sweeps to me. I wiggle the pink handle in her direction. With a yank, she is off and running toward the metal pole dangling a ball on a string.

The jump rope’s handle cracks against the ground.

A shaded picnic table sags off to the side of the playground. I slide onto its bench and rough wood digs into the back of my legs. There, I drown my head in my arms until the whistle blows. Dragging a hand down my cheeks, I erase my tears.

Beth walks past me, lining up to go back inside the modular classroom. She says something. I raise my chin into the air and pretend not to notice, erasing her just like I did my tears…Even when we have to carpool home together after school. Where the back seat becomes my new best friend. And the side window my playmate.

***

Days pass. Weeks. Recess and lunch become practice for sixth grade. An age where I’ll be too old to play.

Mrs. Jarrett notices me sitting by myself, like I do everyday. “Why aren’t you and Beth playing together? You girls have been best friends since before preschool.”

I shrug.

She takes a seat and the tired bench creaks. “I talked to your mom. I’m sorry to hear your dad moved away.” My face spins away so hard my neck hurts. I stare at the chain link fence and bite down on the inside of my cheek so I don’t cry. If I hold still long enough, maybe she’ll leave. And eventually she does, but not before encouraging me to talk to Beth.

I don’t.

Instead, I relive the last year. I knew there was trouble coming the day I found my dad’s wedding ring in the cupboard and not on his finger. Calling our family friend and closest neighbor, I asked Marty to babysit. I had a plan. If mom and dad could go out on a date, get a little time away from us kids, everything would be okay.

My heart brimmed with hope. I couldn’t wait to share the news with my parents. It was all arranged. But their faces didn’t hold the same excitement as mine. My father turned and walked out of the room. My mother pulled me against her. It didn’t work. My plan failed. And so would their marriage.

“Please God,” I begged so many nights, kneeling by my bed. “I’ll be good. Eat all of my dinner instead of scraping the vegetables into a napkin. Get out of bed the first time mom tells me to instead of the tenth. Brush my teeth. Do my homework. Be nice to my sister. Share my candy. Anything You want.”

But it wasn’t enough. Dad left because he thought he wasn’t good enough. He told me so. But I wasn’t good enough to keep him there.

Or to keep Beth playing with me.

A bird screeches, adding to the chaos of the playground. I glance up at the clouds and imagine God’s finger wagging down from heaven at me. Waiting. Looking over my shoulder every second of every day, ready to catch me in my mistakes. The picnic bench in the cluster of trees no longer works to hide me. And as tempting as it is to crawl underneath the table, I’m not a child anymore.

But I am sick of sitting.

The tetherball line is short so I hop in it. It’s not until I get to the front that I realize who the day’s reigning champion is. Beth. My hand balls into a fist. I can beat her easily. She doesn’t even like tetherball. At least not until Tricia did.

I step into the circle, and spread my feet, ready. Beth sees me and looks like she shrinks to her brother’s third-grader size. She glances toward the classroom like she wants recess to be over. Maybe she’s scared because she knows I’ll win.

She holds the ball out, keeping the string tethering it to the tall metal pole tight. Since she’s the winner, she’ll start. Throwing it low to begin, it arches high over the top of me and wraps around the pole twice. The third time around, I hit it with both fists, altering the momentum and making the rope wobble as it switches directions. Beth doesn’t even look like she’s trying as she stops it on the return with a single side-fist raised in the air, launching it back toward me. It mounts over my head and curves around the pole two more times. The remaining string is rapidly shortening. But I’m better at sports than she is. I should be the one to win. Using the ball’s momentum, Beth barely taps it as it comes by her again. The ball zips past me, I swing with all of my strength and miss. It’s almost completely tight around the pole. Red faced, I punch it as it tries to circle by. My fist collides with the rubbery surface jerking it in the opposite direction. Beth’s too short, she can’t reach it until it's uncoiled halfway.

It’s anyone's game now.

The whistle blows.

Beth stops and glances my way, biting her bottom lip before running to class. We can’t end the game here. It’s not done. The ball dangles against the pole, left to slowly unravel. She didn’t win. The rope is perfectly at its halfway mark. It’s a tie. Which is just as bad as losing because I’m the one who likes to play sports. She would rather pick flowers during the soccer game. Not chase a ball down or slide into someone to get it away like I do.

For lunch recess, I’m playing kickball.

***

Days later, Mrs. Jarrett tries a new tactic. “Beth. Becky. I want you two girls to think about what’s happening. You have been friends for a long time.” This recess is spent indoors, just the three of us. “Friendships like yours are hard to come by. But sometimes, especially when we’re already hurting, it’s easy to misunderstand something that’s happened. To believe the worst…about each other…about ourselves, because our pain makes it easy to think it’s true.”

My hands grip the seat of my chair, digging into the curved, plastic rim as strongly as I would a shield, and almost just as effectively. Her words bounce off my invisible barrier.

Until her next sentence.

“Girls, I want you to give each other a hug.”

My arms stiffen, going as rigid as the metal legs of my chair. I’ve managed to not even look at Beth while riding in the same car as her for weeks now. I’m not going to hug her.

Beth stands, and inches closer. I imagine myself glued to my seat.

“Becky.” Mrs. Jarrett waits.

Releasing the huff of all huffs, I launch to my feet. My arms wrap around Beth and spring back to fold against my chest. Tapping my foot, I count the seconds until our teacher releases us, then bolt out the door. The rest of the class is coming back inside.

I take my seat by Carly, a girl Beth and I used to play with together, and complain, “She made me hug her.” As soon as the words are out, a familiar pinching squeezes my stomach. The same one from when I snuck Mom’s pea soup down the drain but told her I ate it.

***

That Friday, Beth walks past me on her way to put her binder in her backpack. Something falls out. I spot the pink marker on the ground. It’s one of her favorites because it smells like strawberries.

“Beth.” I grab the pen. She turns slowly, looking as nervous as when she went on stage for the school spelling bee. “You dropped your marker.”

The same shy smile from when she won that contest, stretches her lips thin. I hand it to her and she thanks me. Turning back around, I rub at a funny feeling in my chest.

***

The end of May means the end of the school year. It also means Beth's birthday. The one we always celebrate together. But she has other friends now. Better friends.

After school, we park in the driveway of Beth’s house and my mom gets out of the van. She and Beth’s mom are best friends. Just like Beth and I were.

I stare out the window ignoring how hot it is as Beth lingers near the sliding door. “Becky,” she says. “I’m not having a birthday party this year.”

I make the mistake of looking at her. She ducks her gaze away. I hope she doesn’t cry like she did everyday in preschool. Teary and Tearful. That’s what the teachers nicknamed us…And how we became best friends. She’d start with the water works and I’d try to cheer her up but fail, and instead, start crying too.

I fight off the memory and resist the urge to ask her the dozens of birthday questions stirring inside me.

Beth fidgets with her backpack straps before continuing. “There’s a Michael W. Smith concert.”

My head swings in her direction before I remember I’m not supposed to care. I turn away, but not fully back to my window.

Beth hiccups. “My mom and I got four tickets.”

Four? She knows Michael W. Smith is one of my favorites. I used to listen to him on my walkman all the time. We both memorized every one of his songs.

“It’s in Sacramento. We want you and your mom to go with us.”

My heart leaps and I try to rein it back in, but it's galloping as fast as Michael W. Smith’s song, “Go West Youngman”.

Dropping my hands into my lap, I shrug. “I can ask my mom.”

“Really?” her voice squeaks.

A small smile pulls at my lips, but I just shrug again.

***

Without thinking, the next day I run to the jump ropes for recess. No one else is there. It's not as fun by myself. I glance around and notice Beth nearby. She sees me. I twist the pink plastic handle in my hand then hold it out toward her. She starts my way but someone calls her name. Tricia. She’s pointing at the swings. Beth pauses. I start to hold my breath, then release it. Beth gets to decide what she wants to do. She shakes her head at Tricia and grabs the handle from me. We play tetherball too. I win. But Beth’s smiling as if she had. A few days later, I notice Tricia slumped at the picnic table.

“Tricia,” I call. “We need a third for jump rope if you wanna play.”

And she does.

***

Two weeks later, Beth and I sit side-by-side in our bucket seats at the concert. Our moms are already snickering next to us. They never stop. Not at the movie theatre. Not even during Thanksgiving dinner.

Things aren’t as stale between Beth and I, but they're not back to that soft, gooey friendship either.

Michael W. Smith takes the stage, sitting at the grand piano and leading with his song, “Place In This World”. The lyrics remind me of how lost I am, nudging at me like a sad puppy wanting to be pet. I give it a little scratch, then shove it away. But the next song whines at me, pawing for more attention. “I Will Be Here For You”. The last image I have of my dad spins circles in the back of my mind. I started listening to my walkman again after Beth told me about the concert. The same week my dad stopped calling. It still hurts to think about him leaving me.

The way I thought Beth had left me.

I glance at her. Long, straight, dark hair. Kind eyes. Things I haven’t noticed in a long time. The confusion begins to unravel like that tightly-wound ball around the pole.

Beth leans in. “I have something for you.” For me? It’s her birthday. She pulls out a pink bag with silver polka dots on it. “It’s actually for both of us. My mom took me to the mall and said I could pick out one thing for my birthday.”

I tug out the tissue and jewelry box. Opening the velvet lid, I find two necklaces inside. Each has a charm. Two halves of a heart with the letters B&B-B.F.F. engraved on them.

That funny feeling returns in my chest. Beth isn’t giving this to Tricia. She’s giving it to me.

Mrs. Jarrett said something about our pain making it easier to misunderstand. Maybe I misunderstood more than how Beth felt toward me. The lyrics to I Will Be Here For You swirl once more through my mind. This time, I don’t imagine my dad. I see God. And He's not wagging His finger at me. He’s got tears in His eyes and He's smiling. Like He’s proud of me.

Beth and I hook the necklaces around our necks, stand to show our moms, then settle back into our seats.

It’s the next song that really nips at me. As the melody circles the convention center, I know what’s coming. Tears prime, burning just below the surface. “Friends”. It’s as if Michael wrote this song just for me and Beth. Singing along, our gazes connect, and smiles burst onto our faces. We melt. Giddy laughter, as giggly as our snickering moms’, bubbles out. We throw our arms around each other. No teacher telling us to. No harsh words spoken after. Just friendship.

Becky and Beth, Best Friends Forever.