I always thought that my life began when I met him. Is it true to say that my life ended when he left? I do think that it did. If he were to return, could my life be resuscitated? I don't know if a pain like that could be healed.
I remember the day he left. He came into my home to say goodbye. I was barely a teenager then, just fourteen. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me a kiss on the cheek, almost a kiss of betrayal on my soul. He said he would come to see me as soon as time would allow, but I knew it would be some time before I would see his darling face again. It was never his fault, he was too young to be left alone. It would have been selfish of him to keep his family there just to be with me, and we were so young. So I said goodbye and let him go. I thought that if I gave him the impression that I was happy for him, it would be better for us both. I couldn't follow him to the door, but when I heard the car door slam, I felt my heart stop beating and hit the floor. My body followed suit and I slid down the wall and cried a hard sob. I can recall no pain that ever hurt so great as they day my best friend, my Darien, left me. I sat there in the hall and wept for hours at the great loss in my heart. When my mother came home from work that night and saw me, she just took my hands and guided me to my room. She stayed and let me cry with her. This was the worst day of my life.
I had met Darien in the seventh grade, I was twelve and young for the grade. We shared an English class and were assigned each other in a biography project. He often said that he admired my ability to make his life story into an epic novel of tragedy and happiness, though he had just turned thirteen at the time. "A gift with words" was what he called it, but I just loved the language.
Darien had had a troubled childhood. His father left his family just after Darien's birth and his mother, in her depression turned to drugs. She died of an overdose on his eighth birthday and they later found out it was because she found out that his father had died just months earlier. A couple who was close family friends took in Mamoru. He grew to love them as the family he never had. The trouble was, his newly adopted father had taken a job offer cross the country and would require the family to move. It took him a month to find the right way to tell me, he had said. I found myself retaliating, a broken spirit lost in the wind.
Darien was my only friend for some time. He would tell me things he wouldn't tell his guy friends; I was the one he could trust the most with his dreams and aspirations. He told me once that he wanted to become a doctor and take care of children. He always wanted to have a huge family, something he was denied in his own. I was lonely and I trusted him with my friendship. I was just a small girl who was placed awkwardly into a new middle school full of rich people. My parents had split up long before then but I coped by pushing all those who befriended me away. Before long no one noticed me anymore. No one listened to my aspirations, until my Darien came along. He was the first person I didn't push away. He always told me how beautiful my dreams were.
After he left I didn't let anyone get close to me like he had been. It wasn't until my 16th birthday that I let my self feel sad at my loneliness. The calls from Darien had quickly become few and far between. He was excelling at school and had found himself a girlfriend. It was good for him, to move on. It wasn't that I was upset with him, it was more that at that point I noticed that I had stopped moving. I was at a standstill, and he was living. It was at this point that I knew that we would never say another word to each other.
Ok- I have started revising my story. Roots is done. Keep giving me your critiques.