Bittersweet Goodbye’s
By Rebecca Pollard
My friend and I were sitting on the playground in a caravan park. It was the middle of summer: the sun was out, the sky was an amazing shade of blue and the sun was blazing down. We were sitting on the slide trying to stay out of the heat, watching all the kids jumping on the trampolines.
“Cameron’s a weird last name” said my friend. “What’s your last name?”
I looked over to the small blonde kid jumping on the trampoline and giggled.
“Pollard,” I replied “Yeh, I guess it is.... it’s kinda like having two first names”
“One day” my friend began “I’m gonna have a Bakery. I’ll call it Rolls’ Rolls.”
I laughed at the irony and replied “And I will buy some of your Rolls. They better taste good.”
We laughed together for ages. It was the last day I was going to see him for a year but it was by far the best.
My friend and I haven’t known each other for very long, but long enough to feel comfortable with each other. He treats me like a sister not a friend, tells me things that he probably wouldn’t tell many other people, even his closest friends. Shows a different personality when we’re alone, and a different again when were amongst our friends. It makes me feel kinda special. I guess it’s because he acts so different when it’s just the two of us, he’s so nice and funny and not arrogant like he is amongst his friends. He’s soft and if something hurts him, he’s not afraid to show how he’s feeling. This only happens when it’s just me and him though.
I didn’t know who he was for a while. I just sat on the table or around the trampoline with my other friends admiring how attractive and sexy he was and how good he was at doing tricks on the trampoline. Just by watching him I knew we’d get along well. He look funny and nice and he could do cool flips and tricks on the tramp. For about 3 days he was called the “hot guy in the singlet top”. Finally we got introduced by a mutual friend. My friend and I played a game of ‘Set’ about five minutes after we had just met. Set is a game on the trampoline. It’s kinda like add-ons, but a bit easier and you only do one trick and it’s usually a really hard trick. After trying about 5 times we realised that whoever goes first is always going to win because he could do things I couldn’t and I could do things he couldn’t. He spent the rest of the day trying to teach me a stomach-backflip and I spent the day teaching him how to tic-toc.
After a while, I began to develop a crush on my friend. I mean how couldn’t you, he’s pretty much everything you’d want in a boy. All my girlfriends knew it and thought that they should let him know. At first I did not agree with this at all. What if it made it awkward?
“Oi Tom, come here. I got something to tell you,” the smallest of my friends yelled at the trampoline he was jumping on.
“What.” My friend replied.
“Come here, I need to tell you something!” The little one said again.
My friend hoped of the trampoline and started a private conversation with the smallest of my friends. After a while he looked over at me then went back to jumping on the trampoline. He didn’t say a word to me for the rest of the day. I thought our relationship as friends had gone out the window until the next afternoon, I was sitting on the playground with some of my best friends and my friend was on the other playground with his mates.
“Where do you live?” one of my friends mates asked me.
“Malvern, why?” I replied
“Oh, no reason just...” he started to say
“Mate just shut up!” my friend butted in half way through the sentence. At this point I really wanted to know what was wrong. What had I done? Had I screwed things up forever? What if he never talks to me again? He did talk to me again. After I found out why he was so touchy that day everything was fine.
“Why was he acting all weird?” I asked the blonde kid. He was my friend’s best friend so I knew he would know what was wrong.
“Oh, just the rest of the boys were being asses to him about liking you, he got kinda annoyed at that,” he replied.
“What so he does like me?”
“Yeh, if you didn’t live so far away from him, he would have asked you out.” This then floated around my mind for many days. Everything was back to normal after that. But I had never seen him act like that. He was showing that he does have a soft side and he isn’t as tough as he looks on the inside. This made me like him even more, because he’s not afraid to show what he’s feeling.
The first time I saw my friend angry was strange. He didn’t yell. He didn’t show he was pissed off at anyone. He just sat there. We were sitting in the t.v. room with the rest of our gang and I was running round like a maniac (nothing no one hadn’t already seen me do.) I didn’t really know what was going on, but suddenly he just stood up and left.
“Where’s he going?” I asked the blonde kid. He must have been able to tell I was a bit confused by the look I had on my face.
“I dunno. Go ask him.” He replied. I figured that it was something to do with the two of them so I went looking for my friend. I didn’t have to walk far before I’d found him.
“Oi, what’s up?” I yelled at him “Did ya think you could walk out without saying goodbye and me not notice?”
He laughed, and started walking towards me. “No. Nothing’s up. It’s fine.” He said trying to sound convincing. I still didn’t believe him. But there was not time to ask questions. He already had his arms around me. He looked at me. I guessed there was no escaping what he was going to do next. I mean a brick wall isn’t the easiest thing to get through. He looked at me still with his arms around me. By this time I had mine around him too. I felt nervous, I have no clue why. But the way he looked at me kinda made me feel nervous. Nothing happened. He pulled away and shook his head. I wished at that moment I could read minds so I knew what he was thinking.
“You give amazing hugs.” I said, not knowing what else to say. It was a very awkward situation we had just been in.
“That was an angry hug.” He replied.
“You’re always angry at me” I said, it was true though he always seemed angry at me. I knew he was joking though.
“You know I’m joking though. How could I get angry at you?” He said. This made me feel so warm and fuzzy inside.
Why does it take a minute to say hello and forever to say goodbye? We sat in silence. Just each person enjoying the others presence.
His dad comes over. “Mate, we gotta go.”
My friend looked at me. “Yep. I’ll be there in a minute.”
We fought for the smooth slide. As usual his muscles and strength overed power mine and he got the smooth slide.
Everyone was saying their goodbye and my friend came to me. My friend said as he looked at me with a smile on his face. I looked at him and threw my arms around him.
“I’m gonna miss you Bec.” He said whilst he was hugging me. It was loud enough for me to hear but soft enough for no one else to hear.
“I’m gonna miss you too.” I replied without missing a beat. My heart filled with tears. This had been the best summer yet and it was over as quickly as it had started.
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