Donna, Donna, Donna!

When I was a young lass growing up, I lived on the same block as a wonder of a girl, Donna.  She was my best friend in the whole world.  Like all girls we competed with each other - over grades, and skills, though not looks (she won that one hands down).  Our families couldn't have been more different.  Her biological father was always buying her things to make sure she still liked him more than her step-dad.  My bio-dad was not in my life.  She had a single sister and I had three brothers.  I was dirty from all of the rough-housing with my brothers and she always had the best hair and cutest clothes; and she smelled like soap.

In the beginning of our friendship, we spent all of our time together - at school, at home.  I spent the night at her house but she never spent the night at mine.   I learned to play Chinese jump-rope from Donna and the "Miss Susie had a steamboat" rhyme with the appropriately difficult hand clapping gestures that went along with it.

We were never in the same grade class though (there were multiple classes for each grade since we were at a bigger school).  So, when after a while, we stopped seeing each other all that much at school, I thought it was just a coincidence and she was making new friends in her classes.  We still walked home from the bus together. 

One day, I wore this horrible outfit my mother had bought me to school.  I knew it was a mistake the second I showed up to school.  Everyone else looked normal in jeans and t-shirts.  I had on, essentially, a cowgirl outfit. My mom always bought me silly clothes like that and I was socially awkward enough to not notice they weren’t what the other kids were wearing.  The kids made fun of me mercilessly.  I didn't care too much.  Most of them weren't people I even liked.  What killed me, though, was when Donna joined in.  My best friend.  I hid in the bathroom - which was a feat as the teachers would come in all recess long and try to shoo us out.

The following season was the time when little girls gave each other those stupid best friend necklaces.  They were two necklaces with pendants that represented two halves of a heart with one saying "best" and the other one saying "friends".  I saved up two weeks allowance to buy a set for Donna and myself.  I walked to the store that had them early on a Saturday and was back before noon.  I went straight to Donna’s and knocked on the door.  She came out onto the porch to talk to me.  Sitting on the porch with her, I excitedly told her I got us necklaces and reached into my little plastic bag and held them out to her.  I asked her which half she wanted.  She pulled a necklace out from under her t-shirt that was one half of a "best friends" necklace.  I didn't even know the girl she said had the other half. 

My ears filled with the whooshing sound of my own blood.  I couldn't hear much of anything else. The birds and the cars of the busy road behind her house seemed to have been replaced by a white noise - it was like I had shoved cotton in my ears.  I told her I thought we were best friends and she didn't seem to care, just said the other girl asked her first.  I ran home in tears.  I later gave the necklace to someone else who I didn't even like just so I wouldn't be the only one not wearing one. 

Donna and her family moved away to Oregon a year or two after the big quake.  We sent each other a few letters but I had no heart for it.  She finally came to visit and she apologized to me for teasing me with the other kids saying "you just looked so dumb and I didn't want anyone to know I was your friend."  I told her I was a witch and a lesbian and I never heard from her again.

Comments

[Michelle]

Dude I am so sorry!! I had no idea that your younger years were filled with such torment. What a heartless bitch Donna was. It is very hard when you don't feel accepted. People are all so judgemental weather we want to admit it or not. Everyone does it. When you hear stories like this it reminds us that beauty is not only skin deep. What makes you beautiful is your soul and inner beauty. Sounds like she is the one who missed out on a true friend.
Too bad so sad for her

[Kim]

Heh. I still think of her very fondly. She was the best friend I had. I adored her and would have done anything to be her. Thanks for your kind words, Michelle. YOU are a true friend!

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He is a good friend that speaks well of us behind our backs.