I stared down at my history textbook in front of me as big fat tears rolled down my cheeks. I watched them splash onto the book, leaving wet marks where they landed. I didn’t have much reason to cry really. I’d been crying for weeks. And I was going to see them again. We’d promised.
Most people didn’t pay any notice to my tears. I did my best to float under the social radar, and even if I had been popular, most would dismiss my tears, writing them off as graduation anxiety. And maybe on some level it was. But mostly it was that life as we knew it was about to end. In less than three months, I, Maggie would be at the University of Missouri and Sophie would be nearly 1300 miles away at UCF. She was the only one of us staying home. Brainy Macey, the third of our inseparable trio was off to Brown. I couldn’t wait to get out of Florida, but at the same time, the thing I feared most in the world was leaving Mace and Soph. But to truly understand the way we are, I’ll have to backtrack a little.
Despite what Hollywood has led you to think (cough, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, cough), close friendships don’t necessarily begin from birth. I met Sophie Hall on the first day of fifth grade. I’d just moved from to Orlando from a small town in Missouri, and she was a native Floridian. I’d like to say we hit it off right away, but that’s not really what happened. We didn’t even notice each other until our teacher gave us a new seating chart, putting Soph and I right next to each other. I had been feeling little glum lately, and I hadn’t made any good friends since I’d moved. I tried to mask all the hurt I felt at leaving, but Sophie is one of those special people who can sense that something is up, whether she’s known you all her life or never spoken to you. And on that first day we sat together this short, skinny, freckle faced girl turned to me and said “I’m Sophie Elizabeth Hall, and I think you’re a prospective friend, that is, if you can be honest and tell me what’s bugging you.” I just kind of stared at her. Her conciseness astounded me. No one I knew was ever that to-the-point with me, except for my parents. All I could do was nod and suddenly I was spilling my feelings to this girl I’d never talked to. Soph’s a great listener. I talked and talked, and she didn’t say a word. She didn’t write anything down, but it seemed as if she was carefully filing every word I said into her brain. After I’d finished my story (and gotten the two of us into Sydney looked me right in the eyes and told me that she was going to be my best friend. And she was. For two years we had sleepovers, ate lunch together, and went to her cabin on the Gulf. We were the textbook definition of best friends.
In seventh grade, our second year at middle school, we started hanging with another girl, Lauren. Lauren was great, but after a tremendous amount of unnecessary drama, Sydney and I drifted away from her and to Macey. Macey had been one of Lauren’s friends sort of, and when Syd and I split to find our own lunch spot, Macey tagged along. The first thing about Macey that you need to know is that she is smart. She takes all advanced classes, except for math. She is a literary genius. She writes her own stories and always has her nose stuck in a book. The second thing you need to know about Macey is that she is beautiful. She has long, thick, wavy dark hair and medium skin. Her eyes are big and brown and she’s short and slender. But being smart and therefore a nerd keeps people from noticing how pretty she is. I think she likes that. Some people make it a point for people to notice them, like Syd and I. But Macey is in a different group. She isn’t shy, but she doesn’t seek out attention either.
The three of us just kind of clicked. It started with eating together at lunch and hanging out in the courtyard before classes started. Soon we were walking to classes together, having sleepovers, trying to get out of any class we could to “help” in the school library. It’s almost like the three of us complete one single person: silly Sydney, brainy, beautiful, Macey, and me, Maggie, the…the what? The Mormon girl. The boy crazy one. The sentimental one. Anyways, I’m sure you can now understand how after six years of that kind of relationship, none of us can think about college without heartbreak. Each one of us is reluctant to let time pass, and carry us into our adult lives. We’re about to face the biggest challenge together-the one that may pull us apart.