James

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"Ready to head to the beach?"

Evan asked as I walked onto my front porch, where he'd been waiting for me.

Much to his and my surprise, late in the afternoon on the first Monday of summer vacation, Farrah invited the two of us to meet her and a few others at the beach for a bike race. Since she said she'd also invited Harlee, I decided to come along. I needed to see Harlee as soon as possible and try to make amends.

Hopefully, she would at least hear me out.

"Yeah, I'm ready," I told him as I put my key in the keyhole and locked the door.

My dad had spent Sunday with me, my mom, and Lizzie; then, he had to take his Monday morning flight to his next business venture. We hadn't gotten much time together, but that was nothing new. Mom was at work, and Lizzie was downtown with Karissa leaving me to hang out on my own for the day. I felt a bit saddened at how spread out my family and I were, but that was nothing new either. At least I had my friends to keep me company.

One of them anyway.

Evan and I hopped on our bikes and rode to the beach together.

The weather was perfectly mild as to be expected for the first week of June. Glaring sunlight radiated from the sky above us. Cars whizzed by us as we pedaled towards the beach with a slight breeze whipping at our backs.

We arrived a little earlier than the others, so we kicked our shoes off and splashed our feet in the water for a few minutes before everyone else got there.

Initially, Evan wanted us to get in the water to cool us off from the ride there, but my aquaphobia wasn't having it.

Evan crunched some sand between his toes, then rinsed them off in the water and turned to me.

"Are you going to try and talk to Harlee?" he asked, eyes hopeful.

Farrah had seemed to have forgotten all about Saturday, given how quickly she invited us to hang out with her again, but I knew that with Harlee, we would not be so lucky.

I gave Evan a determined nod and told him,

"That's the plan. If we can just talk today, I plan to say sorry. Not just for Saturday, for everything."

"Sounds like you're really sorry. Do you ever plan to tell her why you stopped being friends with her? Heck, are you even going to tell me?"

Farrah, Hyland, and Amy showed up just as he finished asking that, and I darted off towards them, feeling grateful for the save.

"Hey," I said, skidding to a stop before them.

"Hi, James." Hyland smiled at me.

I smiled back, feeling relieved she didn't seem to still be angry with me.

Evan walked up behind me. "Hey." He waved cautiously. "You don't still hate us after Saturday?"

Farrah put a hand over her heart and gasped at him.

"Hate you? Evan, I could never hate you. I was disappointed at the fact you sided with James after how he treated Harlee, which I hope he will apologize for today." She stared daggers at me as she finished her sentence.

"I plan to do just that," I told her.

She folded her arms and continued, "You better; That's the only reason I invited you today. Because you need to say, you're sorry to my friend."

"I know. I'm going to," I said in reply, hoping she'd back off. I hated myself enough for what had happened; there was no need to keep piling on.

Fortunately, Farrah gave me a satisfied nod at that and then turned her attention back to Evan. She and Amy started lecturing him on how it was essential to be a good friend in order to be a good boyfriend.

Evan snorted at the "boyfriend" remark.

"Bless you! Do you need to borrow my handkerchief?" Farrah offered.

"People still use those?" I mumbled.

Hyland giggled. "Farrah does," she said.

"Um, Farrah? That was a snort, not a sneeze," Evan corrected her, tone laced with frustration.

"Oh, I wouldn't know. I don't do that," she said back confusedly.

Evan just rolled his eyes.

Jasper and Mike arrived shortly after that.

They both looked disgusted at the sight of me.

That was just Jasper and Mike being themselves, though, so I just ignored it and talked to Hyland. We chatted about our plans for summer vacation, but my mind was elsewhere.

I was thinking about Harlee.

What am I going to say to her when she shows up? I asked myself.

Will she leave the beach just at the sight of me?

Will she slap me in the face the way Farrah did?

Have I made her so angry she never wants to see me again?

My fears were put to rest when she finally did show up.

She didn't run or slap me or any of that.

At first, she didn't really pay me any attention at all.

But then, Farrah laid out the rules for picking bike racing partners, one of them being each two-person team had to have a boy and a girl. I noticed then, Hyland's proximity to me seemed to be making Harlee uneasy.

So when Harlee offered to be my biking partner for the race, I quickly took her up on the offer and hurried over towards her.

I hoped somehow Harlee could find it in her heart to forgive me.

I didn't hope strongly enough.

Harlee didn't seem to want to say a word to me as we made our way up the biking trail. And every time I tried to make conversation, she ignored me. We rode past other bikers and a few pedestrians. I struggled to match Harlee's speed, especially on the rocky parts of the trails. Eventually, I started pedaling faster to try and catch up to her. But as we were riding up a large hill, I accidentally rammed her back tire, causing her to jerk forward abruptly. Harlee stumbled but managed to stay on her bike.

When she reached the top of the hill, she skidded to a stop.

As I pedaled up beside her, she gave me an icy glare.

"What is your actual problem, James Whitmire?!" she shouted at me. "Are you trying to make me hate you or something?!"

"No!" I said quickly. "Not at all. That's the last thing I want," I mumbled, but the last part was a whisper.

"Then, why do you keep starting stuff with me?? First, you call off our friendship, then, you ghost and avoid me for weeks, then, when we finally are talking you are rude to me, and then you admitted to despising me in front of a room full of people!" she yelled angrily then sat back down on the seat of her bicycle.

She looked around for a moment then shook her head. "And now, to top it all off, you've led us in the wrong direction. This isn't the bike trail that leads back towards the town; I don't even know where we are."

Harlee covered her face with her hands, rested her elbows on her handlebars, and sighed, "Now, we're going to lose."

I struggled to find the right words to say. I'd done so much wrong it was hard to tell what I should apologize for first.

I decided the party incident would be a good place to start.

"Harlee, look, I'm so sorry for what happened Saturday. Please just try

to understand," I pleaded. "I never wanted to hurt you at all, and-"

I stopped mid-sentence.

It dawned on me that she had just blamed me for getting us lost.

Everything else she had said was true, but not that.

She was the one leading us down the bike trail.

I had been trying to catch up with her.

"Um, you were the one leading us, Harlee, not me. I had questions about the direction you were going in, but I was just kind of afraid to ask any of them," I pointed out cautiously, hoping she would not take that the wrong way.

"Yeah, because even speaking to me is such a burden, right?" she said bitterly. "Well, don't worry. Now that I know how much I bother you, it'll never happen again."

"What? No! Speaking to you isn't a burden! I like talking to you!" I quickly refuted then added, "And every time I've tried talking to you today, you wouldn't say anything!"

She ignored that and continued yelling at me,

"And so what if I did lead us in the wrong direction? Maybe I was too busy getting my bike rammed to think straight!"

"I only hit your bike just a second ago! And that was one time!"

"Are you saying it's my fault we're lost then??"

"That's exactly what I'm saying!"

"Because everything is my fault! Right, James???"

"Harlee! I. Never. Said. That!" I stomped my foot on the ground angrily.

The action caused my bike to roll forward and start moving down the steep hill at top speed.

I tried braking, but it was too late.

"Uh, Harlee? Harlee, do you know where this hill leads to? Harlee?!" I yelled in panic as my bike began picking up speed. I heard Harlee gasp behind me and start accelerating forward. She caught up with me by pedaling and started assuring me that everything was alright.

Assuring me at the top of her lungs against the wind speed, might I add.

"Hey, just relax, James! Don't freak out! It's just a hill; it can't kill you!" she comforted.

"How do you know that? For all we know, this path could lead straight into oncoming traffic!" I yelled back.

"Oh, be realistic! Who would make a bike trail that leads straight into traffic? Just chill out and enjoy the ride!"

Right then, she rode ahead of me and started taking a foot off one of her bike pedals, first slowly, then completely.

Then she lifted her other foot off the pedal.

Needless to say, I started freaking out.

I yelled at her to "stop" and "be careful," but Harlee being Harlee, didn't listen.

In fear for her safety, I quickly pedaled to catch up to her and then asked,

"What on earth are you doing??? Don't take your feet off the pedals on a

hill like this! Are you insane??"

"Maybe, just a little!" she squealed, taking her hands off the handlebars as well.

I closed my eyes and then thought better of that and reopened them.

"Come on, try it! Before the never-ending hill finally ends! Just one time! It's not so scary, James!" she exclaimed, trying to persuade me.

Her request terrified me.

But like so many times before, when Harlee wanted me to participate in crazy antics with her, the intrigue was stronger than the fear.

Slowly and cautiously, I removed one of my feet from the pedals of my bicycle.

Then, when I didn't crash into anything, I figured it was safe to remove the other foot.

Harlee was right.

This was fun.

Challenging myself a little more, I removed one hand from the handlebars.

And when I saw Harlee ahead of me, waving her hands in the air as if she was dancing, I laughed and removed my other hand too.

I pedaled to catch up to her then removed my feet from the pedals again.

As I rode my bike down that hill with the wind through my hair, joy in my heart, and my former best friend beside me, I felt like I was invincible.

"You're doing it, James! You got it!" Harlee cheered happily once she saw me.

I was ecstatic to see her smiling because of me and pumped my fist to try and make her laugh too.

"We're invincible, Harlee!" I shouted.

Harlee's smile grew wider at my declaration, and she pumped her fist into the air as well, laughing, "Heck yeah!"

We continued laughing and cheering, then a few seconds later, we finally reached the bottom of the monstrous hill. There was a path there that led out to the main roads. Seeing those let me know we weren't lost after all; we'd just ended up on a route we'd never taken before.

One that had been well worth it, in my opinion.

"Well, that was epic," Harlee remarked as we stopped our bikes simultaneously.

I nodded my head and looked out at the sun beginning to set.

"It was," I said.

"I probably have crazy hair," she giggled, touching the strands of her hair that were sticking up from the wild ride.

"You do, but it doesn't look bad. It just looks kind of funny," I said, laughing.

She gave me a playful shove. "Thanks a lot."

A smile overtook my face as I asked her, "Should we ride down it again?"

Harlee seemed surprised by my question, but she didn't voice it. Instead, she asked if we should start on the path to the main road to try and win the race.

I'd honestly forgotten we were racing the others until she mentioned it.

For a moment, the world had been just the two of us, and I wanted that to stretch out for a little while longer.

"We've already lost by now, anyway," I pointed out.

Harlee seemed to ponder this for a moment as she continued trying to fix her hair. "Not necessarily. If Farrah and Evan are a team, she'll be fawning over him so much she'll make them both lose. And Amy and Jasper will be late from all their arguing," she replied, taking a hairband off her wrist and tying her hair up with it.

I laughed, "True."

I noticed she had left a few hair strands hanging loose in the front and stood to try and help her with it.

"Here, you missed a few," I mumbled, gently pushing the strands of hair out of her face.

Harlee smiled at me softly and said,

"Oh, thanks. I was actually going to leave them there, though. Remember? I feel so prim when all of it's out of my face." she explained and pulled the hairs back out of the band.

"Oh, yeah." I nodded.

I had forgotten about that.

It had been a while since we'd hung out one on one, but I was surprised at myself for not remembering that fact about her.

When it came to Harlee, I remembered most everything about her and the two of us.

"James?" Harlee called out to me.

I realized I'd been staring.

I took a few steps back.

"Uh, actually. Now that I think of it, we should probably be heading over. They're all going to worry about us if we don't show up soon."

"Um, okay...if you say so," she said, her eyes filled with confusion.

The smile she'd been wearing had faded away.

I quickly hopped on my bike before she could ask any questions.

Then we rode to the ice cream shop in silence.

Harlee seemed a bit miffed at me for my sudden mood swing, and to be honest, I was quite miffed with myself.

By the time we finally got to the Dairy Jester, I was hardly in the mood for ice cream anymore. Harlee and I parked our bicycles in the bike rack outside the parlor and started heading towards the door. We could see our racing competitors sitting and talking at the counter through the glass windows, and I knew we'd been beaten by everyone.

Neither of us seemed to really care, though.

I surely didn't.

Before I could open the door for us, Harlee placed her hand against it and stopped me.

"James, you apologized for the party. But you didn't apologize for anything else," she said, "So you don't hate me, but you...still don't want to be my friend?"

My shoulders slumped at the hurt in her voice.

I opened my mouth to try and explain myself but couldn't find the words.

I wasn't ready.

I knew someday, I'd probably have to tell Harlee the truth, but I had wanted to make that day much further into the future, if ever at all.

So I simply nodded my head and told her, "Yeah, I'm sorry, Harlee."

Harlee dropped her hand from the glass door and rubbed it against her other hand sadly. "And you still aren't even going to tell me why?" she whispered.

I let out a heavy sigh and told her honestly,

"Trust me, Harlee. If you knew why you wouldn't want me as a friend anyway."

She looked bewildered.

I felt bad for making her feel so confused.

I opened the door to the Dairy Jester for her, but she didn't walk inside.

She just shook her head at me and gestured for me to go ahead.

I figured she just wanted to think things over for a bit, so I went in.

When I walked inside, Harlee was still staring at me from the other side of the glass.

I held back tears as we looked at each other because the moment symbolized what was happening with our friendship.

The two of us separated by a barrier.

Her, on the outside, looking in.

Me, on the inside, looking out.

We were so close yet so far.

Right there with another, but as distant as could be.

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ϙ:
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