My piece is about my friends and I meeting after ten years. It explores how my friends and I have changed and stayed the same after high school.
She never thought that she would be nervous seeing them again. They used to meet at Brookfield when they were in high school, so why would it be different now? Gabi hadn’t seen Zuri and Stephen in six months, and that was a long time considering they used to meet up every week in high school. They had just graduated from grad school, and Gabi felt like she was the only one who had no idea what she was going to do with her life. As she waited on the steps in Brookfield she thought about all of the times she waited for Zuri and Stephen on these exact steps. Brookfield hadn’t changed, it had the same stores that were meant for the rich people, and it still had that same smell of money and success. Zuri met Gabi first (as usual, Stephen was late). When they saw each other, they became those annoying-ass people from high school who used to scream when they hadn’t seen each other in two hours. They hugged each other, and couldn’t stop telling each other how amazing they looked. Gabi always thought Zuri was a goddess, but Zuri never saw how beautiful she was. Zuri always thought the same about Gabi, but she could not see how amazing she was, either. They saw things in each other they didn’t see in themselves. After two hours waiting for Stephen, he finally showed up looking the same as he did in high school. He wore the same glasses, faded flannel shirt, and jeans that his mom bought for him. He was six-three and towered over Gabi and Zuri. He gave them the usual uncomfortable hug. Stephen didn’t sit down because he was hungry as hell. “Let’s go to Shake Shack,” he said.
Before ordering, they had to check their accounts to see if they had enough money, because after ten years, they still were broke. They realized they had money, and ordered the same thing. When they got their orders, they decided to go to the park behind Brookfield. “Let’s hope we don’t see any annoying-ass children,” Zuri said, even though she knew that they used to be the annoying-ass children and probably still were even though they were twenty-six years old. As they walked through the park, Gabi pulled out her speaker and played Frank Ocean. They didn’t care at all that this was TriBeCa. They all sang as loud as they could. Stephen was the worst singer, but hearing him try to sing made them all smile, so she didn’t tell him to shut the hell up. Singing in the streets of TriBeCa took them back to high school when they used to do this every Friday even in freezing weather. While everyone else in their grade was getting high and drinking on Friday nights, they would sing and run in TriBeCa. As they walked to the park, Stephen said he wanted to go on the swings.
In high school, the swings were the one place they could actually catch up with one another. Going back to the swings meant feeling like they could go back to a time when life was a lot easier and they weren’t in their twenties. When they got to the swings there was no one there. They could be alone.
“I really wish life was as easy as it used to be,” Zuri said. “Medical school is really awful. I hate it. Everyone is so competitive, and I realized that I don’t like dealing with bodily fluids, so I have no idea what I’m gonna do anymore.” Gabi and Stephen were surprised by what she said because out of all of them she seemed like the one who had all of her shit together.
“I don’t think any of us know what we’re gonna do,” Gabi said with fear in her voice. All of them agreed, and talked about how they took high school for granted. All of the times they spent complaining about the people in school, they never realized how valuable their time together was.
“If I could go back, I would have spent less time stressing and more time being a teenager,” Zuri said. There was an awkward pause among them. No matter how much they hated high school, they had to admit that compared to now, their lives were better back then because they were all together. In order to lift up their moods, Stephen talked about the great memories they made when they were in high school. They remembered all of the times they went to thrift stores and made Stephen wait while they tried on clothes and all the times they went to get bubble tea and Stephen used to spit the boba at them. They reminisced about high school, and Gabi no longer felt like they were strangers. She felt like they had become closer now that they were more honest with one another about how their lives were going. And as they parted ways, she knew that they would still be close even ten years later.