4. Friendship Depletion

School for me is an all-military school called Angelwood Academy. The gifted students on the Military Base and sometimes off military base come to this school. During some of the seasons, being accepted into Angelwood Academy is difficult and has a long waiting list. It is also an all grade school Pre-K through 12th grade. However, they have different buildings for each grade, the buildings are linked on to the main campus of the school, where the front office and Principal's office is as well.

My parents thankfully got me in when I was just six years old feeling as though I have some talent they wanted me to embrace. I have been here since then.

I walk through the school with my head held high as teens hurl vicious insults at me. I can never let them see their insults are getting to me because they will never let me live it down.

"Look, the darkness came in early." A girl snickers at her joke towards me.

I continue to hold my head up trying to ooze confidence like my father and walk to my locker. There are times when the teasing does not get to me, but then there are other times where it does and I do not want to be seen or heard. I just want to disappear into myself until I can get home.

"Burnt French toast walking through." A boy titters.

I finally get to my locker and see Alchemy standing against her own locker flirting with some boy. It is not the same boy I had seen her with at the park last night.

I smile happily to see a friendly face.

"Hey, Alchemy." I greet her.

She turns to me, looking quite annoyed, and the boy Alchemy is talking to sneers in disgust at me and walks away.

Alchemy turns back to see the boy had left her, she says with disgust, "Hey Sirrah."

She opens her locker and loads of papers fall out. She hurries to pick them up and push them back into her junky locker, she then fishes for the books she does need.

I do not like the way Alchemy had been greeting me, lately. She also did not call me last night, like I, thought she would to tell me about the boy she was with.

We met in the second grade; Alchemy always had on hand-me down clothes and shoes and would always be teased for it. I would then come to Alchemy’s rescue and tell the other kids off while battling my own issues. Over time, Alchemy and I confided in each other and found we had many things in common right down to the sneakers we loved. The only difference between us is that I planned on going to college while Alchemy wanted to take a different route.

In fact, there were many things she does not do anymore that we use to do. We used to study together, go to the mall together, we made our own hand game once, and we use to talk on the phone almost every day. However, none of that happens anymore and I am only left to wonder why it does not.

At one point, I did ask her what was wrong with our friendship, but Alchemy blew it off by saying that I was being paranoid. Alternatively, I was being jealous or something stupid like that.

We get our books in silence; I am itching to ask her about the boy at the park last night. However, I do not ask.

"Are you okay, Alchemy? You have been a little distant lately." I notice while she stuffs the books she needed into her own book bag and slams her locker closed so the rest of the books will not fall on to the floor again.

"Huh?" She turns to me and answers, "Oh, been busy lately. You know . . . college stuff." Alchemy states.

"Oh, you changed your mind about not going?" I say proudly and closes my locker, once I have the books I need.

I had been trying to get Alchemy thinking about college since we made it into middle school. My mom always told me that is when excellent college people start looking at your GPA. I am not entirely sure if that is true or not, but I tried to get Alchemy excited about it and it just was not happening.

So, I know she is not trying to go to college; Alchemy is just lying to me to get me off her back about it. She also had told me while in our first year in high school, she wanted to become a model and do nude poses for playboy and other soft porn magazines. It was that or marry someone extremely rich and be a homemaker with at least five kids.

"Geez, not everyone can afford to go to college, Sirrah. Not everyone has a rich father who is the highest rank in the military as you do. Damn!" She slams her locker in aggravation. She walks off leaving me confused and hurt.

My father is not rich; he just works his butt off to provide for us. Whom am I kidding? The family I am adopted into is quite wealthy; I do believe they come from old money. But, I am still hurt, that Alchemy would act this way. I just chalk it up to it being Alchemy's time of the month.

While walking through the crowd of teenagers to get to class on time, all I could think about was Alchemy's change in behavior and what I could do to make it better for our friendship. On the other hand, maybe she did not want to be my friend anymore. I hang my head but pick it up once I get to the library. The more I think about it the more the tears begin to burn the rims of my eyes and I begin to grit my teeth fighting the tears back.

The library or anywhere with books is my place of solitude and sanity. I have always loved to read, ever since I was teased for the first time in first grade. I would pick a book and dive into the book, being every character, being everyone but myself at that moment. It gave me an escape from my cruel world into a world, where I was not teased or the butt of everyone's jokes. I was accepted in the world of books. I hang out in the library until the bell rings for my first-period class. She goes to the very back of the library and sits there with a book and silence.

“So, this is a bird, Sirrah,” a girl a little older than Sirrah points to the picture of a blue bird in the book. Sirrah nods and turns the page. “This is a doggy. He goes woof woof.”

Sirrah smiles and claps her hands, “woof woof.”

“Right. You are learning quickly, Sirrah. You will be in college in no time at the rate you are going,” the girl says and turns back to the book.

Sirrah isn’t sure who the girl is, but she does know that she comes and read to her everyday. She paints with Sirrah, draws with Sirrah, and helps Sirrah learn as many new words as she can. She even tucks Sirrah in at night and reads her a bedtime story.

“Sirrah, I want you to know something.” She sit Sirrah on her lap and puts the book down.

“What’s that?” Sirrah begins to play with the girl’s long brown hair.

“I want you to know that books can take you anywhere you want to go,” the girl waves her arms about.

“Really?”

“Yes. They can take you to London, Paris, and even Mars,” the girl whispers to Sirrah.

“Mars?”

“Mars. But, you have to read in order to get there.” She gently taps Sirrah’s nose. “I heard that education is something that no one can take from you and as long as you have that, you are set.”

“Oooo,” Sirrah yawns.

The girl cradles Sirrah in her arms even though Sirrah isn’t that much bigger than the girl, she makes her comfortable enough to nap. “Yeah, you can go where ever you want, whenever you want, and no one can tell you no,” She yawns as well.