Friendship in Peril

It’s a couple of weeks before winter break. White covers the city like a blanket nobody can escape. Icicles hang over rooftops like frozen tears ready to fall. The sky is lit with an icy blue color, and the sun has turned ivory to compliment the snow. Winter is so much different from any other season. It’s not exactly like fall. It’s not too bold. It’s not summer because it’s not too loud. It’s not like spring because it’s much harsher and can easily cut the breath right out of you, leaving you empty.

Every year in Michigan, the water will freeze over, creating the perfect bridge for celebration. Christmas is coming up, and everyone is ready to celebrate it. However, I want to stay inside drinking hot cocoa, letting the warmth spread all over my body. There’s not much to do anyway being an only child.

Everyone else wants to go ice skating, build snowmen, or have snowball fights. My parents encourage me to go out and enjoy my time with my friends or kids in the neighborhood, but I’m not one to initiate conversation.

“Charlotte, time to get up!”

“I know!” Mom always tends to worry that I won’t get up for school unless she calls me down. I put my red sweatshirt on and flip my shoulder-length ombre hair out from underneath. I shuffle in my stiff cardboard jeans to put on my socks.

I quickly head downstairs before Mom calls me again. She’s in the kitchen, making coffee while I log on to the computer where I do school.

Once I get downstairs and on the computer, Mom comes over to the kitchen table and looks at me for a minute.

“What?”

“Honey, I know you don’t exactly enjoy it here yet, but we’ve only just moved here,” she looks at me sympathetically. “Katie, you remember Katie, right? Our new neighbor, the older lady. Well, she said she has a great-niece that’s right around your age. She says that you two could get along well together,” she says while tapping her fingers on each side of her coffee mug.

“Yeah, I remember Katie,” I mumble while leaning up against my hand, the only thing propping my head up.

“Good,” Mom smiles happily to herself as she walks out of the kitchen, “You’ll be meeting her on Friday, don’t forget it,” as her words still linger in the air, I bury my head under my arm to try and ignore it. Thinking about what this girl could be like is nerve-racking.

I bite my lip and go back to my school work. It’s now harder to focus on school. I’m not looking forward to meeting anyone. For all I know, this girl could be like one of those obscene popular girls. I don’t see any reason why I have to go.

School passes by slowly but surely, and when I log off, Mom comes back to the kitchen to talk more about what we were talking about earlier.

“Okay, so I had some time to talk to Katie, and she said that on Friday at six is when we should go over,”

I let out a huffed sigh, knowing that Mom can visibly see me get more upset.

“Charlotte, is something wrong?”

“I don’t know; I’m just not feeling like meeting someone at the moment. I know I shouldn’t have anything to say, considering I’ve never met this girl, but she could be mean, or it could be awkward. We could have nothing in common,” I slump into my seat, getting a little frustrated.

“Well, it’s just like you said you hadn’t met her yet. Also, you’re homeschooling, so I think that you need to get out and make some more friends,” I look at her offended, “Not that you don’t have any, but your social skills will go downhill the more you’re stuck in this stupid house,”

“But—”

“Nope, no ’but’s you’re gonna meet this girl and have a nice time,” she heads towards the kitchen doorway and stops, “If afterward on Friday you still don’t think you’re good friends, then I’ll tell Katie, but give this girl a chance,”

“Fine,” I roll my eyes and stare out the window. Maybe Mom is right, and I shouldn’t be so hard on this girl when I haven’t even met her. It’s just that now it’s tough to find a teenager that doesn’t have a know-it-all attitude.

I get up from where I’m sitting to make myself a cup of tea, and she turns around to look at me once again, coming up and rubbing my back lightly. “Katie’s great-niece is coming from a pretty long way, so she’s getting everything ready today. Maybe you could go over to her house and help,”

“Okay,” I head towards the front door a slip on my clunky brown boots and head over to Kaite’s house. When I knock on the door, I see her cat on the window sill staring back at me. It was black with green eyes.

“Great, she’s got a black cat, now I’m going to have bad luck,” I groan to myself. After waiting for only a couple of minutes, she slowly but surely opens the door.

“Oh, hello,” she says sweetly.

“Um, hi,” I say nervously.

“What do I owe the pleasure of having you visit?”

“Oh, um,” I fiddle with the hem of my hoodie, “my mom said that you invited us and some other people over on Friday, and I was told that you were getting ready and I was coming over to help you get prepared,”

“Thank you, sweetie. Why don’t you come in?” she steps to the left, opening the door wider giving me more room to enter. When I enter, I see book and paper stacks on her kitchen table. Her cat jumps down from the window sill and sassily walks out of the living room. I rub my arm and look around,

“So, is there anything in particular that you were thinking of doing at the moment?”

Katie shuts the door and pushes her circular thin-rimmed glasses up onto her face, “Well, I was just going to clean the living room and kitchen. I don’t know if your mother told you, but my great-niece, Lacey, will be coming along with some of her family. So you girls can sit in the living room while the adults will be in the kitchen.”

“Oh, okay,” I hesitantly answer.

“I think you girls will get along well together. From what I can gather, you two are very similar,” she smiles as she leads me to the kitchen table.

“Oh,” that piqued my interest by sadly, she cut the subject short.

“Anyway, I was planning to clear off this table, probably putting all of this stuff in the back office because nobody is going to be allowed to go back there,” she hands me a few books to take to the back.

I took the last bit of papers from the table into the office. When I came back, Katie was starting to boil water in a kettle, “Charlotte, sweetie, would you like to take a break and have some tea?”

“Sure,” I study the kettle, slowly boiling the water. It's got a shiny swirly silver handle and a white base with flowers painted all over it. I look all around the kitchen and see a bunch of different kettles on top. I see her grab around five boxes of tea along with two mugs.

“Could I have some honey and milk for mine, please?”

“Of course, what type of tea would you like?”

“Green tea is fine, thanks,” She comes over to me with an open green teabag sitting in a dark red mug. The kettle starts to whistle all of a sudden, startling me a little, while she calmly goes over to turn off the stovetop. She grabs a heating pad to use to protect her hands. I keep my hands in my lap while she brings the kettle over to pour some hot water in my mug. She quickly goes back to get me a spoon, milk, and honey. She drinks her tea straight, nothing in it. I inwardly cringe as I watch her take her first sip as she sits diagonally next to me.

“Thank you,” I acknowledge. I put the honey and milk in my drink and put back the milk and honey, where I previously saw Katie grab them. When I sat back down, Katie starts to talk to me, obviously trying to learn more about me, which I’m not stoked to share.

“So, Charlotte, what grade are you in? Where do you go to school?”

“Oh, I’m in 10th grade. I’m doing homeschooling at the moment,”

“Homeschooling?” she was intrigued, “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you homeschooled?”

“Oh,” I laugh nervously, “I have a bit of an anxiety issue,” I feel awkward about sharing this with someone I’ve only really gotten to know within this hour. “It was affecting my public school social life, so I decided to do homeschooling instead,” I take a nervous sip of my tea, that by now has cooled down.

“Oh dear, just know that as long as we know each other, then you’ll never have to feel that way again. Lacey will always be there for you, as will I,”

After talking with Katie a little longer and helping her clean her living room, I head home. I feel so much better about Friday. Knowing the things I know now makes me feel better.

I can’t wait to meet Lacey.