“Keith!” A small, 5 (and a half) Lance runs after his friend. “Keith! Let’s play swords!” He shoots a big grin at the other boy, getting into his fighting stance.
“No thanks.” Keith said over his shoulder. His hands were in his pockets as he picked up the pace.
“Hm...?” Lance stood up straight, then jogged after the boy again. “Well why not? We have the whoooooole day today! We can do something else! What if we played space man? Oh oh! We could play ninja instead! C’mon Keith, let’s play ninja!” The bright boy bounced around Keith, keeping up with his pace.
“Ninja is stupid!” Keith rolled his eyes and walked even faster, trying to put space between him and Lance. “I gotta go home.”
Lance stopped and frowned. “Oh okay. I’ll see you tomorrow Keith! We can be cowboy’s tomorrow!”
7th grade has proved difficult for Lance, not academic wise— no he excelled in that— but he had trouble making friends sometimes. But there was always Keith. Both boys now 12, Lance tried to keep up with his childhood friend.
Lance spotted Keith at the bus stop one after noon when he was walking around to jut be outside. Keith was with his other friends, laughing and chatting.
“Keith!” Lance called from the other side of the street.
“Oh no...” Keith groaned and his friends looked between the both of them. “C’mon guy’s lets go-“ Keith tried ushering them away but Lance was already crossing the empty street.
“Keith!” Lance said again. “Where’re you going? Can I come?” He didn’t ask the other boys. He only asked Keith.
“Kick rocks, kid.” Keith glared at Lance through his black bangs.
“What...?” Lance furrowed his brows. He didn’t understand what that meant. “I guess I could... kick rocks with you guys. Tell me how to play.”
The boys and Keith snickered at him, so nïeve.
“Tell you what, kid.” Keith raised his chin slightly. “We’ll play a little game of hide and seek. You know how to play that right?” A smirk formed.
“Yeah.” Lance smiled back.
“So you’ll be the seeker, and we’ll hide, okay?”
“Yeah sure. What am I counting to?”
“Alright!” Lance turned around and covered his eyes with his arm and started counting aloud. “1... 2... 3...”
Trying not to laugh too loud, Keith and his friends made a run for it to one of their houses where they knew Lance wouldn’t find him. “26... 27...”
Before they made it around the block, Keith urged the boys to watch Lance struggle to find them for a minute, before they reached the house. They all hid behind some hedges and waited. “51... 52... 53...”
“Who is this kid anyway?” One of Keith’s friends laughed.
“Someone who’s been following me around since we were like 5. He’s so annoying. He thinks I’m his friend.” Keith sighed and waited.
“70! 71... 72... Hey guy’s can I stop counting now?” Lance asked loudly, still covering his eyes. None of the boys answered, they couldn’t give away their position. “Okay! Ready or not here I come!”
Lance turned around and found the open street. The trees were too skinny to hide behind, and too short to climb. There were no hills and no buildings besides townhouses to hide behind either. “Hmm...” Lance looked around some more and started walking in the direction of the boys.
“Go go go go!” Keith whispered loudly and they all ran towards a house.
Hours passed. Lance never found a single boy. “Guys? This isn’t funny anymore! Come out! I wanna hide, it’s my turn to hide!”
Junior year of high school, Lance had managed to make a few new friends. Even got a girlfriend. He still saw Keith around sometimes but they didn’t have any classes together and Keith never stopped to say hello.
Luckily they still lived a few minutes near each other. Lance was walking through the neighborhood when he saw Keith sitting on the steps to his house smoking a cigarette. “Uh, hey Keith!”
Keith looked up and took a drag. He breathed out the polluted air and clicked his tongue. “Lance.”
There was a long silence. “Haven’t seen you in a while.” Lance smiled, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
“...Did you get my texts? My birthday was last weekend but you didn’t show up. You got the text right?”
“Oh...” Lance looked at his feet. Now that they were grown up, it’s harder to talk to Keith. It used to be fun and playmates and cool shirts. Now it was... “do you have a new number?”
“Nope.” Keith replied again. He put the cigarette to his lips and looked at Lance with dead eyes.
“So... I’m home alone today. Wanna hang out and play video games or some shit? I mean- I could have my girl over too if that’s cool it’s just we haven’t-“
“How long until you finally get lost?” Keith pulled the cigarette from his mouth and tossed it at Lance’s feet.
“God you’re so annoying! You’ve been following me around since we were little. Been up my ass at every turn. I thought we’d grow up and you’d leave me the fuck alone but here we are.” Keith shook his head slightly.
“What- what do you mean? We’re friends. Friends are supposed to-“
“Friends? You think we’re friends? You an’ me?” Keith laughed. “Who said we were ever friends?”
Lance’s throat swelled up. “I thought-“
“You must be real fucking special.” Keith stood up. “You need to stay the hell away from me Lance. Im tired of you following me around like a fucking duck. You said you got a girl- go bother her! Get lost!” He turned around and marched back up the stairs and slammed the front door shut behind him.
Lance stood there shocked. ‘Who said we were ever friends?’
‘You must be real fucking special.’
‘Who said we were ever friends?’
