"Everyone has their problems," Clyde said to me, one day, clearly satisfied with himself. "When you've lost a toe you think you have the worst luck but the next thing you know your friend calls up saying he lost a whole foot…"
At the time when Clyde had given me his advice I was only two years short from being able to order from the adult menu. Since most kids my age then didn't like hanging around the 'fat' girl I was usually with my family or any neighbors who didn't mind my company for the day.
After moving from New York to Colorado the one person who welcomed me to the neighborhood was Clyde. He was born and raised in South Park and despite his tough loner exterior he was a very accommodating person who surely, when he was older, could've been a tour guide.
He had a way with words too. His advice on life was always charming to me because everything he said he seemed so sure about. He could fool me into think that milk came from monkeys. This, in fate, ended me up in the hospital with monkey scratches running down the back of my neck and my left shoulder. But that being a lost cause now, made me realize that even though most of his advice was a bunch of bullshit I looked up to him and cared about him because he was the closest thing to a friend I ever had. He accepted my weight and didn't mind that I was four years younger. To him, I was his younger sister who wasn't interested in dolls or frilly clothing. I was way above all the silly little girls who played hopscotch on their driveways, I was cool. But being cool in Clydes eyes doesn't even amount up to the millions of reasons why Clyde is such a big part of my life now.
Life now is usually spent on countless hours of Drivers Ed and days filled with different interviews for a job. Being on the swimming team makes my extra hours for reading or watching T.V. limited so I can keep my leaner body up with the strict exercise Coach Sally makes us do. So when the subject of Clyde comes up, even with all the distractions, talking about him is almost as much work as swimming twenty laps around Starks Pond.
The one thing Clyde was right about, yes, the same Clyde who got me four long scars down my neck and shoulder, is that everyone has problems. Knowing what I do now, I realize that not even Clyde saw our future to be the way it is now. Our days are practically based on our rivalry minus all the other activities and things going on in our lives. Just the simple fact that Clyde grew up is what made us enemies. It wasn't the taunting words or eerie silence that created such a great big void between me and Clyde. It was the fact that Clyde shut me out and just didn't want me anymore. He left me to fend for myself when I was all too young. I grew up without friends and even worse…enemies. But what was the most damaging to my childhood were the problems I had to face having Clyde as my enemy. He was a dangerous person and when you knew Clyde you wanted to know him the good way. You wanted him on your side.
Or else he was a problem.