By Lyla Cheary

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A short story about the separation from my best friends.

My two best friends and I met in Puerto Rico during the pandemic. They moved because of the military, and my family moved because of COVID. We met for the first time at a frozen yogurt shop called Yogen Früz. It was squeezed in the back of a vast yellow building shaped like a ‘U’ with one watchtower on each outer corner. They regaled us with stories of their father in the Air Force, their mother in the Dental Corps, and their Southern American traditions. They told every story with a faint Louisiana accent and distinct military dialect. My sister and I told dramatized stories of New York City subways and 99-cent pizza shops. They laughed and threw their heads back at our retellings of the life-size Minnie Mouses and Spider-Men that walked around Times Square. 

We grew really close. They came home from school with us every day and slept over with us on the weekends. We talked, laughed, swam, cried, played, watched, ran, and sat together at every opportunity. We never asked if they could come over because it was always assumed. It got to a point where my home wasn’t four walls and a roof anymore; it was them. 

But we all moved three years later. They moved to Texas, and we moved back to New York City. 

We constantly sent each other voice recordings of stories and videos of us talking while getting ready. We still do. In those videos, I illustrate my day. I mention how I make my bed every morning, and go out to get deli bagels with my friends during lunch. I tell them about the kid across the street with whom I play volleyball every night, no matter the weather. I share with them all the new stories and articles I’m writing, the things I do on weekends, and the extracurriculars I do on weekdays. I love my life now, but it’s not what we had. 

For one perfect day, I just want to see my best friends again. For one day, I want everything to return to how it used to be. For one day and no longer, I want to return to Puerto Rico with my two best friends, eating frozen yogurt at the center of that ‘U,’ talking and laughing like none of us ever moved.

Process

This piece was initially written in response to a supplemental essay I had written for a pre-college application. The prompt encouraged me to describe my current day vs. what I envisioned my perfect day to look like. Ideas swirled in my head, images of travel, study, and activism; all ideas I thought the admissions committee would want to hear. However, after many attempts to describe my extravagant international trips and selfless activism, I realized that all those ideas weren’t true. “What would I do right now,” I asked myself, “if I could do anything in the world?” That’s exactly when I understood that my perfect day wasn’t something bold or excessive but actually something quite simple: spending time with my best friends.