Chapter Three: The Tale of Two Friends

Jane and I stood in the driveway listening to everyone else talk and would steal occasional glances at each other. We were both a little more on the shy side, so the staring and standing around continued for quite some time.

“Jane, why don’t you go show Graham around the house?” asked Janis as she noticed that the two of us were still standing there. Jane nodded and walked back up the driveway, beckoning me after her. We arrived at the front door of the house and as Jane opened the door and a small fury thing came bolting up to us. This small fury thing was a dog, a corgi in fact.

“Sorry!” exclaimed Jane as she tried to push the energetic corgi away from the door.

“No it’s okay! I love dogs!” I said laughing kneeling down to pet him. “This is Buddy and he’s pretty much friendly around everyone but he does get very excited when he meets new people. I laughed again as Buddy started to lick my hand and jump on me. “Do you want to see something cool?” said Jane smiling. “Yeah sure.” I said standing up and smiling back as Jane kneeled next to Buddy this time. She managed to get Buddy to look up at her and once she had done that, she produced a fake sneeze, and Buddy mimicked her by producing his own sneeze. “That is so cool!” I exclaimed as Jane gave Buddy a hug. “C’mon I’ll show you the rest of the house!” said Jane, who was in a much livelier mood than she had been when standing in the driveway. The house was similar to ours in that it was made of red brick and was two stories. This house also had many rooms and even a sunroom like ours, but one of the defining differences was that this kitchen was open and could oversee the living room while the kitchen in the house next door was in its own separate room. She led me downstairs and introduced me to her brother, Jack and his girlfriend.

Buddy came running down the stairs to join us and laid on the floor next to Jane as we talked about our experience throughout high school and Hawaii. I told her about how I ran cross country and track for three years while she told me about her leadership positions and working in student government. This was particularly interesting to me, because I had always been interested in student government, but cross country, track, and school had taken away from that. For me, leadership positons were left in the grassy hills of Hawaii and the track. The subject of Hawaii eventually came up and the funny thing was that Jane and I had a very similar opinion on this too. Hawaii had been great for the time that we had been there, but it also felt nice moving away because Hawaii was in a way, an isolated rock. Once you have done everything there is to do on the island, doing it all again and again can become tiresome. With the topic of Hawaii came the topic of Alana, and we were able to share our memories of how we met her with each other.

Since I didn’t know Alana as well as Jane did, I went first. “I met Alana midway through the 7^th grade when I moved to Hawaii.” I started to explain to Jane. “Wait, when did you move to Hawaii?” she asked. “February 2011.” “Oh cool! We moved a couple months before that! Sorry continue.” “Well when we moved I started going to Moanalua Middle School and Alana was one of the first people that I met. The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about meeting Alana is her infectious smile and her short black hair, which obviously isn’t there anymore.” Jane laughed when I said this but it was very truthful. Alana had gone from short black hair in middle school to very long hair that reached her waist yet her smile still remained the same. “Oh yeah almost forgot her cousin was my English teacher last year.” I added on laughing at the fact that I had almost forgotten one of the most interesting pieces of information in my relationship with Alana. “So you didn’t know her that well?” “No, at least not until this summer. I started talking to her over messenger and we actually became pretty close!” “Oh that’s cool! I remember when I first met Alana.” said Jane as she too started to reminisce on the past.

"We both lived on Hickam and went to the same elementary school. I met a lot of people, but Alana stood out from most of the rest. She had a very similar personality to mine and we really hit it off when we started talking. Alana became my best friend and we started to do everything together. One of my favorite times was when we were on my trampoline and Alana and I were trying to bounce my phone as high as it would go. It turns out that phones can actually bounce pretty high and it flew up to the top of the roof and got stuck up there.” Jane had to stop there for a minute because our sides were hurting from roaring with laughter. "She was one of my mom's favorite people and for a good reason. We actually went back last Spring to go and see her." "Oh awesome! What did you guys do?" "We mostly just watched Netflix and hung out. I hadn't seen her in almost a year since she had been in the D.C. for the Yearbook convention." "She told me about that. Those most have been some great times!" “Yeah those were some of the best times.” Jane sighed. “Yeah I bet you guys remember those times together all the time.” I said looking at her and smiling. “Well that’s the thing… we haven’t talked lately.” “I’m sure she would love to hear from you! It’s probably been a couple weeks since you guys talked.” I said encouragingly but Jane’s face fell. “More like a couple months…” she replied, and that was the point where I realized that something was up.