Friends to the End, and Here's the End

Chapter One

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

 

          “Wait, I’m pretending to be your secret admirer?” I ask, making sure I heard her correctly.

          “Yeah,” Mackenzie says, matter-of-factly.

          My stomach gives a small moan of protest.

          It’s just the two of us sitting around in her room. Well, the two of us plus the ten million shirtless guys on the posters hanging around. They’re all wearing celebrity-tier smiles since they’re oblivious to how stupid our little scheme is.

          “Let me make sure I’m understanding you,” I tell Mackenzie. “You’re doing this to get Kevin’s attention?”

          Kevin Hendricks is Mackenzie’s “ex-boyfriend.” I don’t even know if you can really call the two of them exes, though. They only went out for, like, four weeks last year.

          “Right,” she replies. She leans back on her bed, a peaceful look on her face as fantasies of her and Kevin together splash through her mind. “Like, I can’t stop thinking about him,” she half-whispers. “And I can tell he’s thinking about me too. But I need to give him a little push in the right direction.”

          Mackenzie holds one hand above her, and then she sweeps it toward her heart, as if to invite Kevin into it. Or at least that’s the intended romantic meaning. Personally, the first image that pops into my head is one of her pulling Kevin toward her boobs. But I quickly let go of that picture.

          She sighs a serene sigh, like she’s in her own world. I feel like a mere peasant serving a queen as I sit on her fluffy pink carpet, looking at her neatly-made bed. Cautiously, I question Her Majesty. “And you think that, if you get a love letter, he’ll make a move before somebody else does?”

          “Boys get jealous real easy,” Mackenzie explains, like she knows everything there is to know about them. “If I get a letter and say it’s from a guy, Kevin will see that other guys like me. And maybe he’ll realize there’s a reason for it, and... yeah.”

          Yeah, there’s a reason for it all right. Today, she’s wearing her typical low-rise jeans, so low that her underwear’s always ready to peek out of them. Seriously, aren’t those going out of style? (The low-rise jeans going out of style, not the undies—people still wear those.) She has a green top on too, one short enough to give a little peek of her flat belly and low-cut enough to advertise her works in progress.

          Why does she have to dress like that around me? It’s not like there are any guys around to impress... Maybe advertising how “sexy” she is just a habit now.

          The old Mackenzie never would have showed off to me, to anyone. She never would have.

          But I should get my mind back on the assignment that the new Mackenzie’s giving me. I sit up cross-legged and instinctively start rubbing my chin, thinking things through. “So, I write this love letter, and then I secretly drop it on your desk tomorrow morning?” I ask.

          “For a happy belated Valentine’s Day,” Mackenzie says with a giggle. “Just make sure nobody sees you. I’ll read it in homeroom, and maybe Kevin’ll realize it’s now or never—ask me out before another guy steps in.”

          “But I’ve never written a love letter before, so...”

          “I’ve already taken care of it,” Mackenzie replies with a smile. She trots off her bed and opens a drawer beneath her desk. After digging through some art supplies, she proudly pulls out a piece of paper, folded up in fourths. “It’s a poem,” she announces.

          As I lean forward and take it from her hand, I ask, “You already wrote it?”

          “I didn’t want to make you write one from scratch,” she explains. “You’re already doing a lot for me, Cathleen.” She looks me in the eye and smiles. Maybe the old Mackenzie is still in there. “But I thought it might look more authentic if it was handwritten. I didn’t wanna do it myself because somebody might recognize my handwriting.”

          I grin and say, “And you want me to do it because I have boy handwriting, right?”

          It’s weird, the things I remember. In third grade, our teacher made Heather hand back worksheets to everybody in the class. But there was one paper with no name on it. So she held it up and announced, “Whose is this? It kinda looks like a boy wrote it.”

          Without thinking, I looked at it and said, “That’s mine.”

          And boy, did I get teased for having boy handwriting. Back then, Heather felt real sorry for what she said, but now it’s just a joke of ours. She’s the type of friend I can’t stay mad at for very long.

          Why does it look like a boy’s? Well, it is a bit sloppy, and other people have trouble reading it sometimes. I think it looks fine, but I guess, as a girl, I should have “adorable” handwriting. You know, dot my i’s with hearts, like Mackenzie does. But that’s so annoying—it takes forever.

          “You’re the right person for the job,” Mackenzie tells me, breaking up my thoughts. “I realized that, like, right away.”

          “I’m glad my boy handwriting superpowers will be of use to you,” I say as I unfold the paper. Mackenzie starts pacing the room, her brown eyes drifting around. Maybe she’s a little nervous to have me reading her work. The paper has nothing but the untitled poem, written in dark purple ink:

 

Sharing our laughs, our play

Our cries, our dismay

Now I’ve come to see

Everything that could be

To have you as a friend would be great

But I hope more is our fate

To have you as a friend would be okay

But for more I pray

To have you as a friend would be fine

But I think our love could really shine

I don’t know what others will say

But with you I will find a way

I don’t know if your feelings are as strong as mine

But I hope I can be your valentine

​

Written with a heart of fire

By your secret admirer

 

          “That’s actually pretty good!” I say. It even calms my tummy and gives it a warm, tingly feeling.

          “You say that like you’re surprised,” Mackenzie replies, wearing a playful smile.

          The thing is, I am surprised. With Mackenzie changing so much in the last few months, it’s nice to see she still has a sweet side.

          “How long did it take you to write this?” I ask.

          “Not too long,” she replies. “I looked up rhymes online.”

          “But you did the rest yourself?”

          “Well... I did show it to Rachel. And she made a few changes.”

          Okay, that makes sense. Rachel of the grammar police is not one who would let half-baked mistakes slide by her.

          “She’s a genius,” I say with a nod.

          “Unless it’s at math,” Mackenzie says with another giggle.

          And I actually giggle too. We haven’t done much of that together lately, so it feels nice.

          “Okay, so you want me to copy the poem down in my wonderful boy handwriting, then drop it on your desk tomorrow?”

          “Will you?” she asks, clamping her hands together. “I know this is kind of weird, but it would help me so much.” She puts on big, cute, pleading eyes. Like the ones Heather has.

          I don’t even consider replying any other way. “Of course, Mackenzie.”

          She sits me down at her desk, the shirtless guys on the walls still smiling at us. Mackenzie overdoes it with the posters, but I’ve gotta admit she has good taste. They are pretty hot: smooth and with just the right amount of muscle... It’s a shame the guys at school can’t all look like them. But I need to get my mind back on track.

          Mackenzie hands me the exact pen she wants me to use (one polka-dotted with red hearts) along with a blank piece of computer paper. She thinks fancy stationary might be overdoing it.

          Before writing the poem down, I look over the draft and ask if I can make some more changes to it. It feels a little weird questioning Rachel’s tastes since I’m sure she read over it a million times. But I have to make a few tweaks.

          Like, I think it’d be easier to read if we split it up into more stanzas. Plus, I think the beginning can be fleshed out a bit, so I add, “My heart’s grown sore, wishing I could have more.” On the other hand, I cross out the lines, “To have you as a friend would be okay, but for more I pray.” Those just don’t have much rhythm to them, I guess. And I think some other parts need a facelift.

          With all my editing, I leave a flurry of red marks on the poem, almost like a teacher graded it. Everything seems pretty good now, but a little something is still nagging at me.

          Thinking out loud, I tell Mackenzie, “Those lines, ‘I don’t know what others will say, but with you I will find a way,’ they’re kind of all alone.”

          “All alone?” she asks, putting her pink flip phone back in her pocket. She’d been texting rather than paying attention to my expert editing.

          “You don’t really get into why other people would have something bad to say. I think we can cut that part.”

          “But I love those lines...,” Mackenzie says gently, as if their romantic sound is taking her away. She puts her hand to her heart and says, “‘I don’t know what others will say, but with you I will find a way...’ He’s saying that he’d want to be with me even if everybody else thought it was a bad idea. Isn’t that sweet?”

          “Yeah, except a real him isn’t writing this, so...”

          “You know what I mean,” Mackenzie says, crossing her arms. Somebody didn’t appreciate my reality check.

          “Well,” I say, “I still think we could flesh out the whole idea of what others think. How about, like, I dunno, ‘They can think what they wish...’ Umm, dish, fish—”

          “I think it’s good as it is,” Mackenzie tells me with a devilish grin. “If we make it too good, nobody’ll believe a boy wrote it.”

          I smile too. There’s no arguing with that logic.

          I write the poem down and fold it up. “I’ll drop it on your desk tomorrow, bright and early.”

          “Thanks for helping me out, Cathleen.”

          And she gives me a hug. She’s so eager that she wraps her arms around mine, so I can’t hug her back.