picture source: https://pixabay.com/photos/beach-hats-women-pair-couple-1868132/
This is my entry for the 'Tomorrow' prompt! enjoy!
Louisiana hadn’t played with Dakota for a long while. About six months. This was the longest it had ever been. The two had been best friends since kindergarten. No, longer than that, thought Louisiana. Since they were toddlers!
Their friendship started when both kids were four. Pre-K was a scary place for Louisiana, who grinded her teeth like crazy the moment she and her mother got there.
“‘Ana, stop grinding, you’ll shred your teeth,” Her mother told her, and for the moment tiny ‘Louisiana did stop, but resumed when the teacher came over.
“Oh, is this Louisiana?” Asked the teacher.
And while the teacher and Louisiana’s mother talked, Louisiana walked around the classroom, looking at everything. Little tables about a foot and a half tall were everywhere each with three seats. In Front of all the seats was a colorless smiling sun. There were letter magnets on the white board and pictures of smiling faces all around the classroom.
Louisiana saw some tables were empty, and some were full, and one had just one girl at it. Perfect. Louisiana didn’t want to be at a table filled with people, but she certainly didn’t want to be alone.
She sat at the table, grabbed a fat pencil, and began writing on the back of paper with the black and white sun. Once there was a sun named Ray. he loved shining on good children in the day time, and talking with the moon at night. The end.
She looked up to see the girl sitting next to her looking over her paper. She laughed. “That’s a funny story.”
Louisiana smiled. “My name’s Louisiana. What about you?”
“Dakota. Hey, my names prettier than yours!” Dakota yelled. Then she went on. I thought we were supposed to color the sun, so I was busy coloring it.” Dakota laughed.
“Oh, I didn’t think about that,” Louisiana said, embarrassed.
Louisiana looked at Dakota’s sun, which was yellow with squiggly black eyelashes, purple eye-shadow, and orange polka-dots at the bottom of it.
“Why’s the sun have polka-dots?” asked Louisiana.
“That’s cheetah print!” Dakota explained quickly. And both the girls laughed.
When Louisiana got home, she told her mother of her new friend.
“She sounds full of herself, saying her name is prettier than yours.” Mom told her, but Dakota didn’t care.
She couldn’t wait until tomorrow when she could talk to Dakota again, but as it turned out, Dakota’s grandmother’s car was driving down the same street, with Dakota in the back seat!
The girls looked at each other through the back seat windows, and as soon as their relatives stopped the car, they ran out to each other, and started to play a game of princess monkey fairies.
The next day though, Louisiana found another girl sitting in her seat, Dakota talking to her about Louisiana.
“Louisiana was acting so dumb. She wrote a story about the sun yesterday!”
Both girls laughed while Louisiana looked on, sadly.
“Well, you colored the sun, and gave it eyeshadow! A sun with eyeshadow! isn’t that funny!?” Louisiana laughed, but found she was laughing by herself.
“A sun with eyeshadow? That seems stylish.” said the other girl.
“Well, anyway, you're in my seat.” said Louisiana.
“So?” said Dakota.
“Get out of her seat,” yelled the teacher from her desk, and the girl had to move.
That day, Louisiana and Dakota didn’t talk to each other. Their friendship had been hot and cold since then, always not friends and then back friends again.
When Dakota pushed Louisiana’s baby brother, Dakota and her ended up in a fight and they weren’t friends for two days. Then Dakota started ganging up on Louisiana with her new friends, and then they weren’t friends for a week. Finally, when Dakota had thrown eggs at Louisiana’s garage on Halloween, Mom and Dad said that that was the last straw and she couldn’t hang out with Dakota anymore, since she was always causing trouble.
At first Louisiana was sad, since she had always had trouble making friends in her life, but her mother said she would make friends soon enough.
“Mom, can I go to Dakota’s house?” Louisiana asked.
“‘Ana, you know she isn’t a true friend. And besides, we have to finish up cleaning the whole house so it looks presentable.” Mom told her.
“Please? I don’t have any friends. And she’s the only one I can actually say goodbye to.”
“She egged our house! Does that seem like something a friend would do!?”
“No, but she was 9! She’ll be 10 by now! Common, I bet she won’t do that again. Plus, it won’t even matter tomorrow.” Louisiana argued.
Mom sighed very loudly. “Fine. But as you hang out with her now, I bet you’ll see she’s not really a true friend.”
It had been six months since the egg incident, and Louisiana was going to Dakota’s house.
She knocked on the door, and Dakota herself swung the door open.. She had highlighted weave in her hair. One hand held a candy bar, the other sat on her hip.
There were girls in the background laughing and watching TV. uh-oh. Whenever other girls their age were around, Dakota got to acting rude and unbelievable, like a completely different person.
“What’chu want little girl? Finally got lonely playing with yourself on your tablet?” Dakota laughed and the other girls behind her laughed too.
Mom had been right. Dakota wasn’t a true friend. The difference was that now, Louisiana knew she didn’t have to take this. “No. I just wanted to tell you that I’m moving tomorrow, you little rat. You think you can call me a little girl, but my birthday comes before yours, and I’m eleven, so really you are the little girl, loser.
“Oooooohhhh!” said all the girls inside the house while Dakota’s mouth widened. Louisiana turned around to walk home while Dakota continued to yell at her, words Louisiana tuned out.
Now Louisiana really had no friends, but at least she had a Mom, Dad and Brother who cared about her. That was more than Dakota could say.
She’d rather have no friends at all than a fake one.
Mom looked up at Louisiana as she came back inside the house.
“How’d it go?”
“You were right. She’s not a true friend at all.”
“I told you honey. But don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll make friends in Mexico. You’re a smart, pretty girl.”
Louisiana smiled at her mother.
“I love you Mom.”
“I love you too.”
Three weeks later, Louisiana found herself walking around her new neighborhood to try and get new writing ideas for her blog. She saw a short girl with black curly hair and dark brown eyes with a floaty and a book, presumably going to sit at the pool.
“Hey, I know that book! ‘Summer’ is the name, right!?” Louisiana said in Spanish best she could.
“Yeah! Are you new in the neighborhood?” asked the girl.
And there came Louisiana’s first true friend.
Check out my NFT's at: https://ab2.gallery/address/VFJRN2LQ3F6I65YKQIMF6ULSYVF3B5HJRNLOQMTYTBNPJQNSYJANGFL6KU
thanks for reading! :)
I think you evoke the world of childhood insecurities rather well in this piece, and I enjoyed it that Ana found enough strength to stand up for herself and call the bully out. Great character development.
😊❤️🤔
Childhood friends can be so difficult. Kids are trying out all kinds of behaviors to see what effects they have, and also to win popularity. And some are simply mean-spirited. You captured all of that so well in this story, @restcity. Well done.
Thank you for reading and commenting on the work of your fellow writers! That helps to keep our community strong.
Thanks fore reading!
I really enjoyed this story, @restcity, even though aspects of it take me right back to the most painful aspects of my childhood! You write well, and do a wonderful job of integrating narrative, action and dialog.
There was one thing that caught my eye which you might want to fix. I think in this sentence, Dakota should be Louisiana:
Nice work! Keep writing.
You're right, that 'Dakota' should be Louisiana. Thanks for reading!
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I always get so pissed when I see or come across kids who let themselves be bullied for the sake of friendship or fear of loneliness. Louisiana standing up for herself felt like the ultimate high in this story. Very beautiful.
Thank you. You showed us that it'll always fall into place and we shouldn't settle for less.