From Point A to Point B

Her face slammed against the desktop roughly. She could feel blood beginning to drip from her nose, but chose to ignore it and instead rhythmically pounded her fists beside her ears. It was only when they were too numb to feel the pain that she stopped.

Meet Lost Friend A, for this is how her mother found her. By that time, the blood had dried and crusted into rusty rivers on her face and on the desk, and her hands had bruised dark indigo. With a tender sigh, Mother wet a towel and mopped up the violence, but not the pain, and placed her daughter in the bed.

Before she left, she picked up that shattered pieces of the picture frame on the floor and placed the print on the dresser, wishing that somehow it could be that simple to pick up the pieces of one’s life and move on.

*

The picture remained on the dresser for days, Lost Friend A not daring to break that sanctity that it showed. When it finally was moved, it was pinned to the ceiling by four thumbtacks above the bed where it would never be forgotten.
Two of the thumbtacks were blue, the mutual favorite color of what used to be two friends in the photo. The third was green, for the fields that had brought them together, and the last was yellow for remembrance because it wouldn’t do to have red there.

In the picture were the two used-to-be friends, side by side, hands in matching peace signs. The picture itself wasn't old, but being taken by an older camera and developed in a darkroom gave it that vintage look. In the view of Lost Friend A, it was like looking at a hazy memory where the sun seemed to overwhelm everything in its brightness, but the girl who stood on the right said otherwise. She believed that the only thing more powerful than the sunlight in the picture were their smiles.

*

The girl on the right is now only known as Lost Friend B, but in times before, there was no lost. There had been Friend A and Friend B, two parts of one whole. People said they were soul mates, destined to find the other, but they referred to themselves as being mates because it wasn’t only their souls that were connected.

They had met in the fields behind the old unused barn. The sky had been blue and had seemed so close it looked almost kissable. The grass had blown in waves with the wind, and there was a girl who sat in the middle of it. She had been uninterrupted for years when she had sat there, but this day was to be different. This was the day where another girl stumbled across the sanctuary, and being new to town didn't know enough to leave well alone.

It was a perfect moment. There had been no speaking, the second girl simply moved to look over the shoulder of the first and had shed a slight smile at the sight of the tiny pressed flowers inside of the book before her. That smile had been a dazzling ray of sunlight that lit up the face of the first girl, and like that they were inseparable.

The first hour had included no names, simply the cries of joy at some new blossom or butterfly and the shared laughter between them. Once names were exchanged, it didn't seem to matter. It was only, "my other half" that discriminated them between each other.

*

The summer was a whirlwind of bright colors and breathless emotions. Friend A became the guide at first, showing Friend B the fine details in the small town. She watched in rapture at the awestruck expression on the face of Friend B at each country delight, for the city where she had lived before had nothing on this.

Mornings were spent searching out the best coffee shops and looking for who sold the greatest doughnuts. Days sped onward to the afternoons, where streamers trailed from the ends of their bike handles as they mapped out the town through experience. As the sun turned to go to bed, they would pedal over to their very own special field to watch the bright colors paint across the sky. Evenings were used up chasing after the twinkling starbursts of fireflies and spinning each other around until they wound up on the ground, laughing and breathless.

As time sped on, roles changed. Friend B became the teacher of life and all of its glory, passing each bit of joy in a spark of static electricity between them. They crept at eye level with lady bugs and tickled the tummies of babies until they were squealing with laughter. New words found tucked away in books at the old library were shared and wormed their way into everyday conversation, until they were discussing the petrichor of the Earth and the sempiternal jejune feeling the aestival sky brought.

Instead of lockets or friendship bracelets, they scoured tag sales and clearance racks to find life's buried treasures to give to each other. The greatest bit of gold that they ever found was in a cardboard box, marked "Baby shoes for sale. Never Used." Friend A had wiped away a tear from her eye and remarked how sad it was, an unused shoe for one so young. Friend B had simply laughed and informed her that the real story was not so sad, because what had really happened was a real life fairy tale. She spun the words of how the baby had been forgotten, only to be found by the couple from this house. They had bought it food and clothes, but before they had time to change the baby's shoes, they had found the hysterical mother and were placing the baby back in her arms, and they had all lived happily ever after.

Placing her trust in the happiness of the story, Friend A only shook her head and asked that, perhaps, they could buy the shoes so that they wouldn’t feel so useless and unwanted anymore. Several quarters and dimes changed hands, and soon Friend A and Friend B bore matching baby booties tied around their necks instead of a broken heart. Friend B commented how inappropriate it would be to carry only half a heart each, because they didn't have a broken heart when they left each other. No, they were a pair, hopeful when leaving because they knew that in time, all pairs find each other.

*

As the summer grew on, they became more and more inseparable, even going to far as to spend the night camped out together by a campfire in their field so that they wouldn't have to be apart for the night. They roasted marshmallows and stacked them into little snowmen that never melted and went searching for acorn caps to keep their heads warm. As the coals died down, they told stories of fairies in the sky and the dwarves underground because, Friend A said, normal campfire stories are not healthy for a goodnights sleep, and both of them only wanted good dreams. They pulled their sleeping bags together and intertwined their fingers before they fell asleep, ensuring that in the morning, their first sight would be of the other.

They returned home only sparingly on the days where it was too rainy to ride bikes. They stockpiled the kitchen pantry with flour and sugar and spent the afternoon baking cookies until they were covered in white powder. They smeared it across their faces like Indians and chased each other around the house hooting and giggling while their mothers called for them to be quiet so they could finish their talk over tea.

Once they were no longer spotted with white, they pulled out fabric from the basement and sewed matching sun dresses for the other so that it wouldn’t be only the baby shoes that matched. The fabric was patterned with fireflies and flowers and all sorts of symbols of their friendship, and although they came out sloppy and uneven, they wore them proudly as often as they could until their mothers complained of the smell. After that, they made another set so that while one was washing, they would never be without.

*

It was in one of these sets of dresses that Friend A and Friend B became Lost Friend A and Lost Friend B. It happened suddenly, in a screech of tires and bent metal, and ended with one bike tire spinning forlornly in the air.

The service included most of the town, with the preacher talking about how a long and beautiful life had been taken away, but that everyone should share the burden and life that life along with there own. It held none of the meaningfulness that had been their shared speeches while laying on the grass, and Lost Friend A found herself unable to believe it was her being mate in the coffin until she looked inside.

They had dressed her in the other sun dress, because the one from that day had been unsalvageable.  Her eyes were closed as if she was only asleep, but this time, they wouldn't wake up with the other's hand in their own. Inside the box, her hands were folded, resting peacefully underneath a tiny baby shoe that was tied around her neck.

Lost Friend A had bolted from the room then, and they had found her later in their old field, stomping on stale marshmallow snowmen until they oozed sticky marshmallow guts. She was brought back into the crowd, but missed the lowering of the casket because she was too busy staring at her twitching hands. They were too empty, she realized, because they would never again touch the skin of her friend.

She did not cry, however, because she knew that the now Lost Friend B would not like that. She would complain that the salt water would dilute the sunlit brilliance of her smile, and it would be a horrible travesty if anything dripped on the baby shoe that would not be able to ever become a pair with its mate.

*

That is Friend A as she once was, but now she has become Lost Friend A. For once, there is the pain of a broken heart now that they are separated, and she wakes up every morning to the realization that it is another day where she must live the life of Lost Friend B, who once was Friend B.

Lost Friend A stares at the seemingly vintage photograph that speaks of memories from a place that is long ago and yet not-so-long ago at the same time, and she remembers. She remembers everything.