by Cece Peters
“You’ve already seen the reunion AT the reunion,” I reminded her. “He’s here to work, I’m working. We will probably only spend a few hours together, tops. There’s nothing to witness here.” I tried to make the tone of my voice sound as casual as possible, but inside I was bursting with excitement over the prospect of spending more time alone with Matty. However, I wasn’t going to let Krista know how I was really feeling. I was determined to keep my feelings about Matty to myself least Krista share them with anyone else.
“Sure,” Krista said smugly. “Work for him, work for you, blah, blah, blah. You two were always so secretive. I know for a fact that you haven’t told me all of what you two used to get up to together. Like what you were doing those nights he crawled into your bedroom window. Or when you took those long walks together.
“Um, I did so tell you; we talked and we walked. Sometimes we walked and we talked. Matty and I were friends. That’s it, you know it all,” but I was lying, of course; and I knew that Krista knew it, too. As much as she truly wanted to respect my privacy, I also knew that she was dying to find out everything that Matty and I had done in private when we were younger. If I ever did decide to spill the beans, she would be more than willing to listen.
And there were definitely beans to spill. Yes, Matty and I had been, above all, friends. But at times we had pushed the bounds of our friendship into another dimension entirely. We started out as enemies in the sixth grade, but after that day in the hallway when I had moved my seat away from his in history class, something changed. Eventually I would go from avoiding Matty at all costs to spending more time with him than without him.
But of course, it took a while for us to actually have private time together, at least, real private time. Sixth graders of the opposite sex didn’t spend a lot of time alone together. I wasn’t even allowed to go to the movies with friends and without a chaperone until seventh grade; and even then, a parent or older sibling of course drove us to and from the theatre.
Matty’s teasing went on for the first half of our sixth-grade year; and while I was outwardly frustrated with him, I secretly started to like the attention. Changing my seat in history class really seemed get to him, and his jabs went from mean to more enduring. And the notes he slipped in my locker were nicer. “Just saying ‘hi’ to you, Leah!” and “Admit it, you miss sitting next to me in history class!” replaced the semi-insults he had heaped on me before.
I was especially happy when Matty would stop his friends from joining in on poking fun at me. “I’m the only one who gets to tease Leah; you guys need to back off,” he would say, giving the other boys dirty looks, which not only confused them but ticked some of them off. A few of the guys in Matty’s group were just plain jerks and did not like me at all, despite the fact that I had never done anything to them. Thankfully, they eventually fell out of our circle of friends and formed cliques with other kids, which was a huge relief to me. The friends who eventually became our core group all got along with one another.
Looking back on those moments as an adult, I cannot help but laugh at our childishness. But at the time, I remember feeling special that Matty considered me “his.” But then he would do something outrageous, like give my stinky gym sneakers to a cute boy I liked so that I would have to walk over to said cute boy to ask for them back; or he would write “I LOVE MATTY” in permanent marker on my brand new white Ked shoes, and I would be mad at him all over again. But now instead of Matty nearly bringing me to tears, he would often make me laugh. By the end of our first semester of sixth grade, I found that I was rather fond of him and missed him when he wasn’t around. I didn’t let on that I felt that way, though; outwardly, I still made sure to scowl at him and let him know that I did not approve of his behavior or his jokes.
Then came Christmas break. It seemed that all of our friends took warm weather vacations with their families over the holidays, and Matthew and I found ourselves the only ones in our friend group who were stuck in town. The other kids on our block were much older, I didn’t want to hang out with my little sisters, and Matthew was an only child. So, if we wanted to socialize during school break, we only had each other.
“Well, I guess I’m stuck with you for the holidays, LEE-AH,” Matthew said in his exaggerated sing-song voice.
“And I’m stuck with you, MATT!” I replied, knowing that he hated being called that. We were standing outside on the sidewalk in front of my house a couple of days after Christmas, already bored of being at home and away from our friends. It’s funny how as a kid you cannot wait for vacation breaks; but then when you are out of school, you desperately want to go back as you miss socializing and seeing your friends.
We both scowled at each other as we debated on what we were going to do before agreeing to walk to a pond on the outskirts of a wooded area, which was about a half mile away; it was supposedly frozen over and good for ice skating. Forget that neither of us had skates or even knew how to skate; unless we wanted our parents to drive us someplace, we were stuck walking. The temperature was hovering in the upper thirties that day, which was a warm up from the previous week when it had been in the teens. At least we’d had a white Christmas.
While I cannot recall everything we said to one another while we walked, I do clearly remember that it was the first time we had ever had a normal, prolonged conversation where we talked like actual friends; no fighting, no teasing. We’d never spent more than a couple of minutes alone together before. That day was the first time we’d ever been together without our friends or classmates around.
We walked….and we just talked. Talked about what we had gotten for Christmas and what we wished we had gotten. We’d both received lots of clothes and some CD’s. Matty had wanted an electronic keyboard and I’d wanted a pair of expensive earrings, but neither were under our trees; Matty’s parents had told him a keyboard was a waste of money and my folks had laughed when they saw the price of the earrings I’d picked out. We compared stocking stuffer contents and agreed that chocolate coins were the best and candy canes were the worst.
For a good part of the walk to the pond, though, we were silent. Not in an awkward way, but with the understanding that we did not need to talk. It was the first time I had ever felt relaxed in Matthew’s presence. And he seemed comfortable in mine, too. It was a striking difference compared to how we had previously acted around each other, constantly arguing and being overly dramatic; and I remember that feeling of contentment, of us finally being able to just be ourselves around each other, to this day.
We arrived at the pond to find it was mostly frozen over, but not in every place. We both realized skating was not going to happen; apparently, we had thought we would glide in our sneakers across the ice. But Matthew thought it would be fun to throw rocks at the frozen-over surface of the water instead of walking out on it. That sounded incredibly boring to me, but not as boring as being stuck at home; so, I joined in the hunt for small stones to toss.
Once we had a decent sized pile of rocks collected, we started throwing them as far as we could out onto the ice. Matthew then decided the game was to get a stone into a section of the ice that was not frozen over, sort of like getting a basketball to go into a hoop. I thought to myself that it was a bit more interesting than just throwing the stones into the air, so I tried to play along and show some enthusiasm, even though I thought it rather childish.
“Oh, I’m not very good at this,” I said as my fourth attempt at throwing a rock barely made it three feet. “I’ve never been good at throwing balls. Or stones, I guess.” I let the rest of the rocks in my hand fall to the ground.
“You can do it,” Matthew said, coming over and picking up one of the stones I’d dropped and handing it back to me. “Here, let me show you how. Point your toes forward, bend your knees, and lean back to throw.” I followed his directions and the rock did go much further than my previous attempts, although it still fell short of making it through a break in the ice.
“See, there you go, th
at was better,” Matty said as he smiled at me. “It’s just like throwing a baseball.”
“Which I’ve never done,” I said. “I’m not very good at sports, as you know. I don’t like throwing balls; and I don’t like balls being thrown at me.” That last part was to remind him of always hurling whatever ball we were playing with during gym class directly at me. Volleyballs, dodgeballs, basketballs. I was almost always the person Matty was trying to either hit with a ball or pass a ball to. I never caught any of them, instead ducking or running in the opposite direction.
“It is pretty funny how scared you are of balls, Leah” Matthew said, laughing. “And you know I’m just teasing you. I would never throw it hard enough to hurt you. I always hope you will catch it and throw it back at me. Our friends would think that was hilarious!”
“You give them enough entertainment by tormenting me, Matthew,” I said in an overly dramatic tone, which I matched with a sarcastic smile. “No need for me to make even more of a fool of myself by attempting to catch a ball, much less throw one. I’m pretty sure it would end up just bouncing back in my face.” I turned back to the stone throwing, wishing we could go back to not talking.
“Leah,” Matthew said quietly, turning to face me. “I’m really not trying to be mean to you. You are just so uptight; I can’t help teasing you. It’s so easy to get you worked up. I’m honestly sorry if I have hurt your feelings,” he said before adding, “but you really hurt my feelings when you changed seats in history class, you know.” He turned away from me and threw a larger stone at hard as he could into the pond as if to made a point about how mean I had been to him. The nerve!
“Seriously, I hurt your feelings? You humiliated me in front of everyone about my jeans. Why would I want to keep sitting next to you?” I tossed the rest of my stones down and turned around, “You picked on me, embarrassed me in front of the entire class, and I defended myself; but now I’m the mean one? I am going home. Goodbye!”
“Leah, wait,” Matthew said, reaching out for my arm. And at that very moment, a freak accident occurred that neither of us were ever able to understand, much less explain. Basically, I stepped onto a patch of ice that had formed on the shore of the lake. My foot slid just as Matthew grabbed my arm. I fell backwards, pulling Mathew forward. I landed on my left arm, the one Matthew had been holding, and heard a crunching sound before I even felt the pain of my bones breaking. Matthew’s hand had slipped from my arm as I fell, but it become tangled up in the hood of my coat, so that when I fell, he tripped, falling forward and landing on his right arm. The loud ‘snap’ of his bone came within two seconds of mine.
“Ow, oh my God, ow!” We both laid on the ground, arms broken, howling like babies. I was in tears immediately, and after a few moments, Matthew began sobbing, too.
“Okay, listen,” I said between hysterical sobs, “we’ve got to get back home. We can’t stay out here; we’ll need to go to the hospital.” Tears were streaming down my face and my arm hurt worse than any pain I had ever felt before. But I knew we needed to get help and that it meant we needed to get up and start walking.
“My parents are gonna kill me,” Matty said with tears rolling down his face as he continued to lay on the ground. “No basketball or swimming this year, and maybe no baseball. Oh my God, my arm hurts so bad!” Matty’s face crumpled and fresh tears sprung to his eyes.
“Don’t worry about sports now,” I replied sternly, finding that I was gaining some composure. One of us had to take the lead, and it was not going to be the eleven-year-old boy hysterically crying on the frozen ground. I rolled onto my good arm and got myself into a standing position, realizing in the process that my back and legs ached, too, as did my head. Actually, everything hurt. My arm was throbbing horribly, and I knew Matthew was feeling the same. “Come on, get up; we have to get home.”
“I can’t, Leah; it hurts too much!” Matty was curled into a ball on the ground, laying on his good arm, and making no attempt to stand up. I was getting annoyed with him; I had managed to get up, but he couldn’t? He was the athlete; he should have been able to jump right to his feet. Boys, I told myself, can be such babies.
“Yes, you can; give me your hand, I’ll help you,” I said as I reached down to try and assist him into a standing position, even though the motion sent waves of pain through my body. Fortunately, I didn’t actually have to pull Matthew up, I just helped guide him onto his feet by telling him to push himself up with his non-broken arm. “Okay, let’s go. We need to hurry.”
And with that we started stumbling towards my house, as I knew that my parents were home. Even if Matty’s parents had been at his house, I am sure we would have still gone to mine. I didn’t know Matty’s folks yet at that time, I just instinctively knew that we needed to go to my house for help, not his.
At one point during our walk back, I stumbled a bit and Matthew grabbed my good arm, letting his hand slid down to mine. We laced our fingers together and continued holding hands until we reached my house. We were in such shock and pain that we hadn’t even thought to put our gloves back on, so holding hands kept us a bit warmer. And it gave both of us some comfort, too. I remember realizing that it was the first time I had ever held hands with a boy outside of playing a game such as Red Rover in my younger years.
Once back at my house, all hell broke loose. My dad called Matthew’s parents, who Matty told him were having lunch at the country club. My mom, meanwhile, ushered us both into the backseat of her car. “Matthew, your parents will meet us as the hospital. Girls,” my dad said to my sisters, Sarah and Katie, “go next door to the Millers and tell them what happened. They’ll let you stay there; we’ll call them once we know if these two will need surgery.”
“Surgery?” Matthew and I both exclaimed in unison. “Won’t we just get casts?” I asked.
“Have you two looked at your arms?” my dad asked incredulously. “I’m no doctor, and I hope I’m wrong; but I’d be shocked if casts will be enough to fix either of you up.”
And that ended up being true, and both Matthew and I had broken multiple bones in each of our arms. The ride to the hospital was brutal. Our bodies jerked in pain at any slight bump in the road; and we once again found ourselves holding hands while sitting in the backseat, squeezing tightly anytime the car hit even the smallest bump. My mom glanced in the review mirror at one point, and I swore I saw a slight smile on her face as she noticed our fingers laced tightly together.
Matthew’s parents beat us to the emergency room; and at that point, we were both taken into different exam rooms, albeit in the same section of the E.R. I could hear Matthew’s father berating him for being so careless, angry that, as Matty had predicted, he would have to miss out on playing sports in the coming months. I didn’t hear his mother say anything. Meanwhile, my parents, while not happy to hear we had been out by the pond near the woods in the first place, were more concerned about my well-being and what I would need in order to recover. It would not be the first time that I would see and hear the difference between my folk’s and Matty’s parenting styles.
The next thing I remember is waking up groggy after surgery in a recovery room. I didn’t recall actually going into the operating room or being put under. My arm was mostly numb but I could still feel an aching sensation. I drifted in and out of sleep as the nurses continued rousing me to take sips of water and to check my vitals. It seemed only minutes later that I was in my own hospital room, although, glancing at the clock, I realized that several hours had passed. I looked towards the window and was startled to see that it was already dark outside. My parents were sitting next to my bed, and my mom, seeing me open my eyes, helped me get as comfortable as possible. I don’t remember falling asleep again, but the next sound I heard was someone whispering my name.
“Leah? Hey, LEE-AH, wake up!” I opened my eyes to see Matty in a wheelchair next to my bed, leaning over with his good hand resting on my shoulder. He gave me a smile, and I managed to bring my lips up slightly to grin back at h
im.
“Just a few minutes, young man, then you need to get back to your own room,” a nurse said before giving me a wink. “He’s been nagging me all night to come see you.”
I turned my head to look around the room. “Your mom drove your dad home,” Matty said, seeming to read my mind as to where my parents were. “She’s on her way back, don’t worry. Both my parents left shortly after I got to my room, but your parents have been checking in on me. They are both super nice.”
“Uh-uh,” I agreed in groggy voice. “I’m so tired.”
“You were in surgery a lot longer than me; your arm was in a lot worse shape. Took them awhile to piece you back together. The doctor told your parents that it will take you a bit longer to come out of the anesthesia since you were out so long.” Seeing the look of panic on my face, he quickly added, “But you’re okay; they fixed your arm up and you’ll be back to normal before you know it. We both will. And in the meantime, we’ll be cast buddies!”
I managed a small laugh and asked him how he felt. “The breaks in my arm were clean; the doctor thought they would heal okay on their own with just a cast, buy my dad insisted on surgery as he thinks I’ll get better faster. Gotta be ready for baseball season, you know,” he added with a shrug of the shoulder that wasn’t in the cast.
I wanted to comfort him, but I could feel the medicine luring me back to sleep. As I drifted off, I muttered the one thing I wanted him to know, “I’m happy you are here with me, Matty.”
“Me, too, Leah,” I heard him say as I succumb to sleep. And just before I went completely out, I could swear I felt the brush of a kiss on my forehead.
That was the day that our relationship made a complete one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. The teasing between us continued, but the joking was gentler and usually in private. In public, we went from two bickering kids to best friends. I don’t know if it was the guilt of what had happened or the shared bond it created; or if all along we were headed towards friendship. But overnight, all the animosity I had felt in the months prior vanished as Matty quickly became the person I trusted most.