There are certain people in your life that you feel the need to prove yourself to, to impress. It’s not a competition, just a desire to show that you can hold your own. For some these people are their parents, for other’s it’s their teachers; for me, it’s my best friend.
It’s 8 am. I’m freezing, but the cold is nothing compared my determination (or the pain in my arms). The water surrounds me like a blanket of ice, but as the boat pulls me up and out from it I have never felt so triumphant. A wakeboard beneath my feet, I slide across the water, leaving ripples of success behind me. From the boat, I catch a glimpse of a waving hand, but the lack of concentration tosses me once more into the lake. I swim, following the rope, and the water no longer makes me shiver. As I reach the boat, the waving hand now becomes my anchor as it pulls me up, and offers me a towel. As I look into his face, I see that familiar little smirk, and he tells me I’ve “managed to redeem myself from yesterday” (when the combination of a toddler’s tricycle, a hill, and a pile of loose bricks proved fatal to my knees). This little acknowledgement of my victory from someone who pushes me so hard yet rarely gives praise, makes me feel so much more triumphant than a wakeboard ever could.
When your best friend is a guy, crying over movies, or just about anything, is a definite no. When watching a scary movie, the only option is to pretend your not fazed by it and then have a flashlight on in your sleeping bag while you try to sleep at night. It was one of those nights that seems to be the ideal setting for a Dracula story: stormy, the sky pitch black with cuts of lightning, and a low rumbling of thunder not so far away. On the screen, the gore is indistinguishable from the skin of the screaming actors. On my face, the little twitches are the only indications of any disgust, but somehow he knows that I’m doing everything I can to not hide my eyes. A comforting arm goes around my shoulder, followed by the quintessential football-player pat on the back, and a whispered “Don’t worry, you’ve got three more years to prepare until someone attacks you at YOUR prom”.
