Rule #1 – This is only going to last for a week

~*~

ASHLEY

Ethan was my first friend back in second grade. I think Ethan might have been my only friend in second grade. He was kind of a jerk back then, too, always trying to prove something to someone. I don't know what he wanted to prove, though. He kept asking me weird questions and trying to get me to say things, but I didn't want to.

I still liked him, though. He was fun to hang out with, and he didn't always ask me weird questions. It just happened sometimes, and the rest of the time he was nice. He was the only one who bothered to get to know me.

One time at recess he said he had something to tell me, though.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“I'm going away,” he says. “My mom's been kind of sick so I'm going away for a little while. I won't be in school.”

“Oh,” I said. “Why is she sick? Does she need soup? My mom knows how to make really good soup.”

“Nah,” he told me. “It's not that. I don't know what it is. She has to go to the hospital, though.”

“Is she going to be alright?”

“Yeah, of course!” he says. I don't know if he believed it or not. He said it with conviction, but his eyes wavered, unsure. “It's only going to be for a week. I'll be back after that. I'm going to stay with my grandparents.”

“Don't forget to do your homework, though,” I told him.

He gave me a funny look. “You always do your homework, huh?”

“Yup. We have to do it.”

“We don't have to,” he said.

“We're supposed to,” I corrected myself.

When the day ended, Ethan left. It was a weekend, so I wouldn't usually see him again until Monday. On Monday, I almost forgot, and kept wondering where he was. I glanced towards his empty desk, waiting for him to show up, but he never did. When the bell rang for us to go to recess, I remembered, though. It was only going to be for a week. That's alright, right?

I spent the entire week's worth of recesses alone, though. I kept thinking about all the things we were going to talk about when he came back. I wanted to think of things to tell him about myself, too.