Andy's Circle - 1. Best Friends

(Summer of 2011)

“Rex, come on, it’s time to go!” Rex’s mom Cynthia shouted from the living room, interrupting one of our games.

We were right in the middle of playing with our plastic dinosaur toys. I can’t even remember how many games we played that evening because time flew by so quickly – the way it always does when you’re having fun.

With a plastic Tyrannosaurus still in his hand, Rex darted off to the living room. I’ve been friends with him for as long as I’ve lived, so of course I knew what was about to come. That’s why I decided to stay in my room while he ran off to where his and my parents were hanging out, having coffee, talking about politics, or whatever it is that grownups do. Yeah, I knew what was coming – in 3, 2, 1…

“But mooooom, we just started playing!!!” Rex pleaded and almost started crying.

I couldn’t blame him, though. We were very close and we always had so much fun together. What was three hours for a couple of seven-year-olds? We could’ve spent the entire day together and it still wouldn’t be enough for us.

“Please, just five more minutes to finish our game!” he tried to convince his parents, but to no avail.

“Oh, come on, you’ve had plenty of time. Go and get your shoes on. You’ll see Andy again tomorrow,” Rex’s mom spoke in a gentle voice, trying to comfort him.

Cynthia might have seemed strict, but she was actually a great woman. I loved her almost as much as my own mom. She and her husband Thomas were very close to my own parents, having been friends for many years. Cynthia would often take care of me when I was younger because she worked from home.

That is actually how Rex and I met. If someone told me that we became friends in the hospital immediately after we were born, I would’ve believed them. We were inseparable and we got along so well. We liked playing the same games, reading the same comics and watching the same cartoons. However, when it came to our looks, we were complete opposites. I was shorter and had light brown hair and blue eyes – which I always thought to be boring – while Rex was a bit taller, had black hair and brown eyes. For some reason, people used to love pointing this out whenever they would see us together.

I was closer to Rex than to anyone else, even my own brother, Mark. He was two years older than me, while Rex’s little sister, Rose, was three years younger. The two of them never – or very rarely – hung out and played with us. They had their own friends, so we were mostly left alone to do whatever we wanted.

That’s not to say that we would go wild and turn the entire house upside down since we were unsupervised. On the contrary, we were surprisingly well-behaved for two young boys, at least when we were together. I think that’s just the influence we had on each other. I know I would often go restless and impatient when I was alone, waiting for Rex to come; then, we he’d finally show up, I’d calm down and just be content that we can have fun together. I think he was pretty much the same.

A minute later, I heard footsteps quickly approaching and Rex burst into my room again. I could see his eyes getting watery as he was giving me back my plastic Tyrannosaurus toy.

“Mom says we have to go,” he said, defeated.

“I know,” I replied, matching his sad face. “See ya tomorrow?”

“Yeah! I’ll ask mom if I can come after breakfast,” Rex said as he sat on the couch and put on his shoes. Just like me, he was already excited about the prospect of another play date. He ran back to the living room, this time with me following close behind. His parents were already up and ready to go.

“How will we ever separate the two of you?” his father said jokingly – at least that’s what it seemed to the seven-year-old me.

I absolutely had no reason to suspect anything was hiding behind those words. The summer break was just starting and that’s all that was on my mind. No school for two months, just a lot of free time for fun and games with my friends – mostly Rex.

Little did we know that that would be our last summer together.

Just a few weeks after that day, our worlds were shaken to the core when Rex’s parents revealed that his dad got a job in Canada and that they’d be moving by the end of August.

Rose was too young to understand what was going on, Cynthia was excited to be moving to a new country, while Thomas was thrilled to have gotten that amazing new job opportunity. Rex, however, was inconsolable – and so was I.

Looking back, I don’t even remember how we reacted and what we said. I just remember the feeling of shock, then sadness, and finally panic. What would I do without my best friend? How would I start the new school year alone? I was always bad at making friends… Besides, I didn’t want new friends, I wanted Rex to stay! We were always living five minutes away from each other, and now he’ll be on the other side of the continent? As a young kid, it was definitely hard to wrap my head around that.

Needless to say, we spent as much of that summer together as we could. If it was to be our last summer break in the same town, we would make the most of it – and that we did! Unfortunately, as the saying goes, all good things come to an end, and so it happened that time as well.

That Sunday, I got up at the crack of dawn. I was a morning person even as a kid, but I woke up extra early that day – it was the day when Rex and his family were leaving.

Even though our families had already “officially” said goodbyes over dinner the previous night, I had to go and see Rex one more time. I wasn’t sure when they would leave to go to the airport, so I got up at six in the morning, got dressed and sat in my bed, thinking about what to do next.

I decided to wait a bit more, as it was still so early and I didn’t want to go there and wake everyone up. When I finally decided I’d waited long enough, I snuck out and ran to Rex’s house as fast as I could. A big grin appeared on my face when I realized they were still there.

“Just a second!” Rex’s dad yelled as I rang the doorbell. In just a few moments, he opened the door with a surprised look on his face. “Andy, what are you doing here?”

“Hi, Mr. Lewis! I just came to say bye to Rex,” I responded quickly with a smile.

“Sure, sure, come on in!” he smiled back and let me in.

His smile may have been genuine, but mine was just a brave front that I put up, hoping it would stop me from crying.

As I entered Rex’s room, that’s when it hit me. There were no more colorful posters of our favorite cartoon characters on the walls, no messy piles of toys and comic books all over the room… Everything was already packed, and the room was nearly empty. It looked as if no one ever lived or played in it. All of our days spent together – gone, just like that.

“He’s really leaving,” I thought as I looked around, not even noticing Rex appearing behind me.

He took one look at me and knew what I was thinking.

“Hey,” he said faintly. It was obvious even to a blind person that he was not even the tiniest bit thrilled about moving.

“Hey,” I replied. “When are you leaving?”

“In an hour or so,” he said and let his head fall down.

I just stood there, not knowing what to do; I didn’t think that far. I just knew I wanted to come and see him, but then what? Breaking the awkward silence, I took off my backpack and unzipped it, taking something out of it.

“Here you go, I brought you this,” I extended my arm and he looked up to see a plastic dinosaur toy.

“Tyrannosaurus rex,” he said, a faint smile appearing on his lips. “My favorite.”

“Yeah, take it,” I replied, giving him the toy. About a year ago, I told him that the famous dynosaur was actually named after him, and he believed me. Since then, it was his favorite toy. Now, I hoped it would remind him of our friendship and all the fun times we had together.

As I was trying to sneak back into the house, I saw my dad was already up. I knew I was grounded, but at that point, I didn’t care at all.

Seeing tears in my eyes, he knew what was going on.

“Have they left?” he asked, putting his arm around my shoulders.

“Yeah, he left…”

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter and continue to follow the story!