Here's to friendship

(Creative Writing- Prompts: "The hallway was silent" and "Her laugh broke the silence")

The hallway was silent, except for the footsteps of the two passing each other. They looked at each other awkwardly, but with recognition. They had been strangers, and if the same incident had happened just a few days before the two would have continued walking as if one another hadn’t even existed. Now they weren’t sure what to do. She looked at him as he looked at her, with an aura hanging in the air that they should say or do something. Instead, they continued to stare.


She took a long look at him. That face that she had barely known a day before, now seemed almost too familiar. Unknowingly, the same thought crossed his mind as it crossed hers. Was it possible for a friendship to grow too fast, or was it possible for a friendship to grow the wrong way? Was there a right way to form a friendship? They stared at each other, acting like frightened cats after having just gotten away from a pack of thin, starving dogs.

Her laugh broke the silence, “What are we doing?”

Although relieved that she’d broken the silence he didn’t quite know what to say to her, “No clue. Then again, does anyone ever really know what they’re doing?”

Finally, a decent conversation, “Well, if we never know what we’re doing, how can there be a never. There has to have been a time when someone’s known what they were doing.” She gave him a look as to say ‘I have to get to class ’, but instead of walking away he turned to walk with her. That’s how it always seemed to work; it was awkward, until the conversation started, then it was possible one might mistake them for best friends.

“Well, I suppose, but I just like to make it up as I go along.” He held a heavy door open for her that lead into the next hallway. She was glad that he didn’t know her schedule; otherwise he might have noticed that she was walking in the opposite direction of her class.

“I’m beginning to learn that.” Her brown eyes looked up at him, but they dashed around his face, afraid to make unwanted, awkward eye contact again.

They walked in silence for a minute, this time not quite as awkward. But with each step they took, and the distance of the dying conversation a strange sense of discomfort began to fall upon them. The girl noticed this. The boy probably did too, but it was almost impossible to tell if he would shake it or simply let it consume him. So, she spoke up.

Now, there are some things that everyone knows about this girl: She’s quiet, because she lacks the self-confidence to speak up for herself. She doesn’t smile very often, not because she’s always sad but because she only smiles for things that are truly worth it. And lastly, despite her lack of self-confidence she will speak her mind. She didn’t know what to say to him though. There was something particular about him, not in a way that she liked him but that she wanted to be something more than just a girl he shared random conversations with every once and a while. So, she made herself say something.

“What class are you going to” she improvised, “or leaving in that matter.”

“Physics, not that it matters much anymore,” he smirked, “And you, where exactly are we headed.”

Her cheeks turned an elaborate shade of a newly blossomed rose, “Well, nowhere really, but everywhere at the same time.”

A slight bit of confusion crossed his face, but not nearly as much as any other person would have given her. More, he was curious as to what she was going to say. It seemed curiosity may have been the reason the friendship had ever bloomed in the first place.

“I’m supposed to be in history, which as you probably know is at the other end of the school.” She explain ashamed, “But I feel what I’m doing right now may end up being more important.”

He nodded, “Well, then I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

She laughed, “Well, then I’m glad you didn’t find that extremely creepy.”

“Only if you promise not to find this creepy,” he waited for her to give him a nod, “Let’s get out of here.”

She knew exactly what he was saying, and despite the warning signs going off in her head she shook her head yes. Despite the fact that there were still three classes left in the school day. Despite the fact that her parents would ground her for life for skipping, and possibly kill her for getting in a car with a junior boy. Despite the fact that the whole world would be against her, she agreed.

Now nobody knew this. In fact people would be teasing them for years after, but they really never wanted anything more than friendship. People couldn’t get it through their heads that a guy and a girl could be friends without liking one another. No one could ever fathom it. That day, when that girl left in the car with that boy, was they day everyone saw them as a couple. Which they most certainly were not. That day, the boy had the same intentions as her. They all said it sounded slimy, a junior boy stealing a girl away his car, before even the school day had ended. It was anything but that. They did nothing of the sort.

They snuck out the gym entrance at the school and quietly ran to his jeep parked not so conveniently on the other side of the parking lot. He opened the door for her and she hopped in as if she’d been doing it for years. With that he got into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.

“Here’s to friendship!” He said as he sped out the exit and into the world with her smiling right beside him.