This week’s Writers Island prompt is Friendship. It’s timely as the novel I’m writing for NaNoWriMo is titled Forever Friends and is about two girls who become best friends in kindergarten then have a falling out at the end of high school that completely splits their friendship apart. They meet up in later life and find out exactly what it was that happened to cause the lifelong rift.

So, for this week’s contribution, here is the prologue of my novel-in-progress. Please remember this is only a first draft and it has had little editing. That process will come later, in Dec., when I’ve completed the 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo…

Prologue

My mother was always making me late. And then there was the added guilt.

“Pack your bags,” Maggie used to say. “Looks like you’re going on another guilt-trip.”

Mom had been sick, on and off, since I was born. I suppose that was my fault since she had me later in her life when everyone said she was a fool, and having a baby at that age would probably kill her. But she told me when I was older that finally giving birth to me had been like a gift from heaven after all the miscarriages she’d suffered. I was to be her one and only child. Well, I may not have killed her at birth, but she never let me forget that I would eventually be the death of her for various other reasons, mainly to do with being an average teenager. She was wrong on there though. She almost outlived all of us. But looking after her—because Dad said we couldn’t afford to hire a nurse every time Mom suffered one of her “episodes”—became my job in the summertime whenever I wasn’t in school, especially once I hit my teens. And that situation, as a teenager having to look after my mother, was almost the death of me.

And was why I was constantly late. And why, when I did finally get to the beach that day to meet Maggie and Gary, I saw something I wasn’t meant to see. And why, after that moment, my whole life changed irrevocably.

***

It was hot for early June. Perfect for lazing around on the beach for the afternoon. But Mom had had a turn in the morning, so I had to wait until she was asleep again, well after I’d served her lunch, before I could throw on my bathing suit and a blue terrycloth cover-up, and race out the door of our house.

“Mrs. Smith, Hi!” I shouted on my way past the next-door neighbour who was sitting on her verandah. “Would you please check on my Mom at 4:30?” adding, “Thanks” over my shoulder as I kept running down the street, just so she wouldn’t have a chance to refuse.

I was already over an hour late. Maggie would kill me. She could never do anything unless I was with her, always acting like we were joined at the hip. I knew she would have been sweltering in the hot sun, not daring to touch a foot to the water’s edge without her Mae – me – by her side. She had been the one who said it was urgent, that she needed to see me that day, had even taken the afternoon off work so we could meet. I didn’t know what could have been so important that we had set a time, like it was an appointment or something. But then it crossed my mind - she also hadn’t bothered to come looking for me either, to see what was taking me so long. So it couldn’t have been that important, I figured.

School had just finished for the year and my graduating class was enjoying several days of freedom before final results were received, and summer jobs began. Those were the halcyon days of the early seventies, when we were all high school heroes, a string of academic, athletic, and social successes and achievements notched on our belts, but with life’s real triumphs still ahead of us. Well, ahead of some of us. Others would likely drift through the rest of their lives just as they had drifted through high school.

The beach wasn’t far from my house, five minutes away, just at the foot of our street. I hit the boardwalk running then slowed the pace to catch my breath, not wanting to look like I was too eager. I scanned the sandy stretch, our favourite spot, between the foot of my street and the lifeguard station. Maggie was there, sitting on a log facing the lake, and away from me – she hadn’t seen me arrive. But she wasn’t alone. Gary was with her.

Now, Gary and I had a “history,” as we all called it then – kind of an on-again-off-again dating relationship. We were considered “a couple” by all the other students all through high school, but lately things had kind of fallen off again – his fault not mine. Maggie had always said, right from the beginning when Gary and I first met, that she didn’t like him, didn’t like being the third wheel in our relationship all the time. And because Maggie and I had been best friends since forever, I kind of sided with her in the end, and had finally given Gary the boot before the Easter weekend. So now I was surprised – no, that’s too mild… I was shocked to see Gary lift his arm, reach behind Maggie, and set it on her shoulder, drawing her closer into his side. She leaned her head on his shoulder, causing me to stop in my tracks to wait, not knowing what to think.

When they finally broke apart, I gave them a few moments before shouting, “Hey!” Then I slowly crossed the stretch of beach and raised an arm in salute when Maggie turned around. She quickly waved back and turned again to say something to Gary. He jumped up from the log, looking about as guilty as a dog caught with the family’s evening roast in its mouth. Maggie meanwhile pulled a tissue out of her beach bag and was wiping her eyes with it when I finally came up next to them.

“Sorry I’m late,” I sneered. “Looks like you’ve been keeping busy though, while I was still stuck slaving over my mother.”

Gary stammered, “It’s not what you think.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. Then I ripped off my cover-up. “I’m going for a swim. Looks like you could both use some cooling off, too.” I angrily kicked off my sandals.

“Mae,” Maggie called out to me as I strode down to the water’s edge. “Please. Like Gary said. It’s not what you think.” I ignored her. My best friend. Ha!

“Gary. Go tell her.”

I turned and held up my hand at them. “I don’t want to know. I’ve seen as much as I need to. Thanks for nothing!” I shouted over my shoulder as I began walking again. When I reached the shoreline, I took a few steps into the gentle waves, working my angry toes into the sand. My hand automatically went to my throat and fingered the gold heart on its chain, a gift that was never removed, even when swimming. Now I was having second thoughts, but finally decided to leave it around my neck. I immediately plunged into the still-chilly lake water, moving quickly away from shore with several strong strokes. Rolling over on my back, I floated, gazing up at the sky, willing that Maggie and Gary would be gone the next time I looked at the shore. But there they were, still sitting on the log, deep in what looked to be a heated conversation. Maybe even an argument. Good!

What I couldn’t figure out was why I’d been blind to the warning signs. Maggie had always told me she hated Gary because he had come between the two of us, ruining the perfect friendship we’d had since kindergarten. But it was obvious now that there was something going on between them. I wondered how long that had been happening then tried to drive all thought of it out of my head. I was still furious, but actually, to tell you the truth, when all was said and done, I didn’t really care.

I turned back around and began swimming out further into the lake, not mindful of the cold, or that that day marked the beginning of the end of my friendship with Maggie.