Mudpie Apology

lilmissprincess

Someone gave the name on boards, I got a picture essay in English class, wrote this and got an A! Thanks!

Summers were spent between gardens, colder winter days in front of a warm fire playing video games, or the odd game of Monopoly. That was the kind of friendship I had with Ben.
Looking back ten years, I still remember how we met in the schoolyard, four years old, he a short kid with spiky blonde hair, and I with curly black hair, a tiny munchkin, terrified of the older children. I was reading some “Peter Rabbit” picture book. He grabbed it from my chubby little hands, and made me cry. I hated him for that, but gradually over the next few hours and days we somehow managed to become friends, best friends, and it was like that ever since.
Saturdays were the football matches where I cheered him on if he got a goal, and cheered even louder when he realised it was the wrong goal. Evenings after school were when we’d have the most fun, lashing rain (it is Ireland, after all) and the two of us running down the road to home.
I sit here now, and that image, all of those images, are still clear. Every memory, every picture, every dream we ever had, in the little filing cabinet in my mind labelled “Ben and Kate”. The happy ones, and the sad, regretful ones, fewer but more recent.
It all started when Ben met Jayne, and proceeded to fall for her, amidst my laughter and mocking. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Jayne. She seemed to be pretty nice and when Ben and her started going out I saw that she made him really happy. However, a tiny problem emerged- she didn’t like the fact that his best friend was me, a girl, a possible rival. So that’s when things started to snowball downhill, I guess. Ben started spending less and less time with me, and more time with her. These days he walked home with her from school, and she was the one sticking out the freezing mornings watching him score own goals.
As I sit here now, I’m realising that it possibly made me not jealous of her, but hate her a little bit. She had taken away the most important person in my life, as if I was an enemy, and I began to get really annoyed with it.
A memory of a few weeks ago flashes in, I was sitting on a bench in the park, sent Ben a text.
“Hey, u wanna hang out? Mayb go 4 ice cream or summat? Tb.”
I got a reply turning me down, no apology, or “Maybe another time”. I was angry, really annoyed by the fact he’d dropped me like a leaf from a tree and was slowly forgetting about me. In a few years time I’d be “Kate? Oh I know that name from somewhere…did she go to school with us?”, and for ten years of being best friends, that didn’t click in my mind as being very fair. I wrote him an angry letter, mentioning all these little childhood friendship memories, asking him what position the so-called best friend took in his life these days. I shoved it in his letterbox, sealed in a dark red envelope, red for anger. That was three weeks ago. And nothing.
The sun is beaming down after yesterdays rain. I’ve been sitting here for the last few minutes nostalgically looking back, eyes closed. When I open them again, something is blocking the sun. Someone.
“Hey.”
It’s Ben. And for once, Miss-attached-to-the-hip-girlfriend isn’t with him. I sit up gingerly, sunlight now flooding painfully into my open eyes. He sits down beside me, his denim jeans brushing off mine.
“Hi.”
That’s all that comes out. I have a raging spiel of anger going on in my head, but it’s being blocked, I can only say one word.
“Look, I got your letter..”
Ah, so he had had time enough away from Jayne to read it then. Miracles happen. He breaks my sarcastic train of thought.
“I…I didn’t realise…”
The spell was broken, the anger and bitter resentment of the last few weeks was unleashed, with rapid lightning bolts of disappointment, an ugly monster on the rampage.
“What, you didn’t realise that I was still here? You didn’t realise that your best friend for the last ten years was actually half-way missing you? You didn’t realise that you had left me so totally on my own? Jesus Ben!!”
That hit him like a slap on the face. He sat there shocked by my sudden outburst, silenced. I began again, a little calmer.
“Look, I haven’t actually spoken properly to you in nearly two months. Some best friend. I didn’t drop you for anyone, not Shane, not Rory. Yeah, I understand you like her, but I thought I mattered a bit too.”
He handed me a picture, and then walked off down to the end of the garden. The picture was the two of us, seven years old, grinning like Cheshire cats, playing mud pies. We had our arms over each others shoulders, so close. Seven years ago. And now what?
My eyes wandered over to the place where he stood, bent in the wet clay. Making a mud pie. Typically childish. But the he threw it at me. Clay hit my face, wet bits sticking to my face, water falling down my face.
I ran over, piled wet clay into my hands and threw it back at him. Pretty soon, the two of us were covered in dark muddy clay, and we were both laughing unstoppably.
He went for the clay one more time, except this time it stayed put. He made a perfect mud pie in a flowerpot, poked it a bit, and then handed it to me.
Etched in the soggy dark clay was one word: SORRY. I looked at it and smiled, then threw it over his head and the battle commenced again. We kept at it until we both collapsed on the thick green grass, stitches killing us from laughing, and best friends again.
It later came about that he had dumped her. I didn’t care, I had my best friend back, and I had my mud pie apology.

Blush_01

I'm impressed with the title. Just call me inspiratron!

I really like this actually. It's not a huge angsty rant, it's got a lovely ending and it was nice to read. There are a few things I'd tweak, but all in all it's a nice little story.

lilmissprincess

I was given an A for a "heart rending story from the heart".
And yeah, it contained basically a zillion times less angst than normal..

Lothaar

lilmissprincess wrote:

And yeah, it contained basically a zillion times less angst than normal..

And, not coincidentally, it is actually very good.

lilmissprincess

Thank you. Its nice to hear that for a change...