Divorce and the Fading Presence of a Friend
Connections are fragile but that doesn’t mean they can’t be reclaimed.
We rode bikes down sloped lawns into flooded streets, hitting the water with the tenacity of kamikaze pilots.
We waged wars with squirt guns in worlds that didn’t exist, with battle lines drawn in sunburnt driveways. Our helmets were makeshift crowns. Our flip-flops were shields. We fought invisible foes until the street lights flickered on and called us home.
Merritt Island was our beloved kingdom — and we ruled it with scraped knees and wild imaginations. My summers were bright, magical, and long, yawning wide through the eyes of a child.
They were a welcome break from the annual moves for my dad’s military career. Every summer was spent in its entirety with my grandparents on the rainy east coast of Florida. Meanwhile, my parents endured the bickering chaos of moving, perhaps enjoying a break from my high octane childhood.
How it started
My grandmother often took us to Merritt Island Mall. It was ostensibly nice, with the enticing smell of cheap food and a tacky arcade, full of blinking neon lights and obnoxious blings that summoned young boys. The mall was a low-key hellhole, filled with despair, weirdos, and some pretty darn good shops.
It was there that we bumped into a neighbor, a mother that my grandma knew, who was standing with a young boy about my own age at her side. They talked briefly and arranged for the two of us to hang out, beginning with a birthday party at Ryan’s that week.
We instantly hit it off. I was a wild, high energy, nerdy, happy-go-lucky kid with a penchant for mischief, and he was much of the same. We did sleepovers almost every week.
Quite often, his 16-year-old sister Allison would babysit us if we stayed at his house. Though I didn’t recognize it at the time, she was actually quite beautiful (and still is). There were always boys lurking around the house. Ryan’s parents had to chase them off with a broom.
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