I look at my phone when it vibrates as I receive a text from Katie.
“Hey you wanna go to McDonalds?”
“Sure.”, I text back as I am walking next door.
We are riding in the car with the music blaring and singing all the words. We are slowing down to stop at the stop sign as Katie says, “Hey what are you gonna do when I graduate?”
As she says that it hits me that next year she is graduating. We have been together ever since I have lived in Marion, and she is the only person who has always been here for me, besides my family. Everything goes silent, the songs on the radio are now not important. We are driving away from the stop sign and are about to pass this neighborhood where we see two girls, around the age Katie and I were when we met, helping unload a U-haul.
I am riding in the truck with my parents and little brother, with my grandparents following closely behind. We are on the way to move into our new house. We pull into the drive way and everyone begins to help unload the furniture, toys, suit cases, and bags of clothes. I am just standing here helping as much as they will let me, but they usually just hand me little things at a time since I am only four. I am standing there as I watch this short, red-haired girl, appearing to be my age, walking accompanied by her dad outside.
“Hey, I am Katie, I live right there,” as she points to the house next door.
“I am Kayla!” I say glad to have found a friend.
We continue driving along the road just looking out of the window. To the right are the A.S.A. softball fields.
“Kayla are you ready for the game?” says Katie.
“Yeah!” I say as I am putting on my cleats in the truck.
“Let’s take a picture before the game!” she grabs her phone and my dad jumps in the truck.
“Katie do you remember when we played on the Cardinals team together when we were little kids?” I say after we pass the fields.
“Yeah. Do you remember when we were on the same soccer team?”
“Yeah I remember, your dad was the coach and use to drive us to all the games.”
“Katie I am open! I’m open!” as I run down the field ready to take the winning shot. Katie passes me the ball and I score. All of the parents at the game pass out juice boxes and one of our player’s mom walks up with a raccoon in a cage.
“Katie, why does that lady have a raccoon in her hands?” I say very confused.
“Kayla we are called the Raccoons…duh!”
We are almost to McDonald’s as we pass the high school parking lot where we had all of our marching band practices.
“Forward eight back eight,” Cracken yells telling us which direction to march in while we are doing fundamentals. “Okay now go to set ten! We are going to march it a couple of times.”
We all run the set ten. Katie is standing way further than she usually is from me in this set and I realize I am too far up. We run set ten, four times and he says, “We are going to do this set one more time!”
“Katie, this is getting annoying, and I really doubt this is the last time!” I say as we march the same set for the fifth time.
“Don’t worry it gets better, especially after we know everything!” Which she is right I later learn as we are on the way to competitions and games.
“Katie do you remember the first game?”
“Yes!” she answers but it is about the wrong topic, she tells me about our first high school softball game instead of the first football game we marched in, since we left from the same parking lot.
We pull into McDonald’s and as we walk inside we are talking about everything that has happened in our lives from when we were four years old until now. We sit down in McDonald’s, eat, laugh, talk, and then leave. There is no more awkward silence; no more discomfort as “We Are Young” comes on the radio.
“Tonight
We are young
So let’s set the world on fire
We can burn brighter than the sun”
