Wednesday, Mar. 19, 2003/8:57 pm

three friends

I went for a walk this afternoon, just to get out of the house. I sat on tarmack in the park sipping diet coke with a white chocolate magnum, melting from the early rays of sunlight. Kept checking to make sure no teachers were around to catch me off school but the coast was well and truly clear. It felt good to be out.

After staying there for a while i decided to visit my two previous schools which are both on the same road. I stood at the white, wooden gates of Shottemill junior, the place where your parents, or in my case just 'mummy' used to wait for you at 3 o' clock when the day was over. I looked through the window into the hall which used to seem so large but now i realise it's tiny. The whole building is so small, so delicate, no grafitti or dull walls. I could just about see bright displays plastered with pupils work. I remembered the times there, hopscotch in the playground, the proud, oak tree that Imo and Frances and I used to hang around. Drawing chalk houses on concrete and sitting in the imaginary windows. Slippery crayola crayons tracing figures through paper, the squeak of the magical shades drawing Henry the eights wives. Making daisy chains and plaiting them into your hair. The warm smell of pastry cooking in the oven after baking, yeilding dough with unspoiled hands. Purity glistened from us, it didn't even matter what you looked like. Tall, short, large, small, black, white, gap between the front teeth, made no difference. All so innocent, so playful, a whole life waiting to greet me then.

My secondary school has some great memories but also some bad ones. It was there where i first learned that i did not belong, i always seemed to be the one who got left out. Food issues started to worm their way into me then too. Not as if i noticed, i still had alot of fun there. If only i could have treasured it a bit more, but i didn't know what was lying ahead of me. Gazing across at the lost property hut, i smiled, thinking of when we stole a pink buffalo bird puppet from there and hung it on the piano in the music room. At the next choir practice after that Mrs Leffort asked everyone if they knew how it had got there. It put us in hysterics. It was so strange to see how much it has all changed. Theres the entrace hall where i used to go every lunch time to do my blood test. The back steps that i fell down by accident after arguing with Imo over who would sit with Frances on the year 6 french trip. Sports day that took place in the feild just down the road, Frances and i won the three legged race. Imaginary games and insignificant rivalry. The taste of darilyea on cracker and cheese biscuits which i had nearly everyday from the canteen.

It was always us three, just us three. Imo with her bouncing blonde hair and chubby, red cheeks. Stubborn, daredevil Frances with wind beneath her feet, we used to call her a tomboy. Then me, the brunette who blushed easily and always felt the other two were closer and secrety plotting to leave her alone. We were faintly bound as one, best friends, christined with many group names over the years. I won't embarrass myself even more by revealing them. Several coded letters and character colours. Mine was purple, Frances was green to match her eyes and Imo had blue. There were ties between pairs and secrets within inderviduals but a strong bond that kept us all together.

Each holding a corner of the triangle, that over the years started to change and crack, fall apart and weather away. We found ourselves wandering apart, driftwood skimming across deep water. One having to leave under adverse circumstances. Missed, called after, cried over, the other two couldn't survive on their own, a part was gone. Yards away, the strongest of the three. Never forgotten, contacted, written, reunions now and then but still but leaving a gaping hole. The two remaining thought they could cope, maybe they form a tighter grip apon each other but it did not work that way. Growing up, moving on, evolving showed them that they had become completly different people. The lighter girl took the path of love, confusion, hearts and flowers. Obsessing herself in other companions and forgetting about the darker girl who had also found her own way. She took the slice of pain, torturing and lecturing herself, she learned to resent who she had become. Cutting into her skin, bleeding tainted hurt, finally realising she had always been wrong.

Once in a while they look back apon each other, over rough ground. Sometimes they get a chance to meet again as three, crowd in childhood playhouses and talk about distant lives, past, future but conviniently avoiding the present. Vodka, boys and expensive concelear. Hushed discusions, magazines and fateful exams. Deceit and lies tend to split them furthur. Purple lights become distant. Still, they have ways of knowing what the others are thinking, all is not lost. A special tie will always twist through each of them, words unneeded.

I am left in the ruins, with only precious memories to soothe me. Wishing i could have captured those moments in a bottle. Recollections are disappearing fast, behing a multitude of new, agonising thoughts. I want to scream it all away, thrash and shout, hoping it will all leave. I haven't mounted up to everything. Education, dreams, aspirations all destroyed. I feel like i've just wasted a life. I screwed up, i really did screw up