•  How can you say that! I trusted you! I can’t even look you in the eye anymore…
    She said that to me last week… I haven’t seen her since … it’s beginning to make me worry… I mean what if something should happen and I can’t do anything for her… really what good am I? I can’t even help my best friend…. She’s going to kill me, literally and I deserve it… I can’t believe it actually happened.
     - Hey Kara, you know where Jess is?
     - No I have no clue. I haven’t spoken to her since last week
     - Has something happened between you two? You guys are almost inseparable most of the time.
    Is anything really what it seems? And do I really care about her to the amount that I think I do… or am I just being hormonal again and taking everything out of context?... I just don’t know anymore.
    Wandering through the school yard alone, makes the days seem even longer. The warmth in the courtyard seems cooler than normal… even though its 30 degrees in the shade, I’m shivering in my shirt and blazer. The whole day has been hard but It’s almost worth the lies I’m telling; they’re all for her… they don’t understand what its like to be alone and scared…
    Dodging soccer balls and the occasional badminton shuttle c**k, walking through the old high school grounds and remembering the days we spent together as kids. The paths still the same and the trees while different they were still in roughly the same spots as they were back then as well. Footsteps running up behind me cause me to turn and see who’s behind me; half expecting it to be a random year 7; it surprised me to see Nat – slightly out of breath – behind me.
     - You still walk as fast as ever. Hey Kara, hows things going? I heard your studying overseas now? Where are you now?
     - I’m in England at the moment but I’m transferring to the US in a month, the department I’m doing the research for want me to go and experience research practices in the US so I can decide whether I want to do the research in the UK or in the US.
     - Wow… I can’t believe what you’re getting up to these days. We all knew you were going to be academic but we didn’t know the extent to which you were going to take it.
     - I know exactly what you’re talking about; and the distance is going to be hard for me as well, I’m missing my family so much and just chatting online with everyone feels – hollow, in a sense. But it’s my calling to work with those kids; they need me, half of them would have died within the last week if we hadn’t been there. We’re all needed over in Africa, and I’m best suited to the lab work and working on the HIV/AIDS vaccine with my supervising professor – it’s really all his fault I’m involved with Doctors without borders.
    Nat looked a little hurt, but then again she’s a good actress so I can’t be sure whether she felt the emotion or she was hiding a much stronger feeling under the surface. We wandered through the old science block and reminisced over old teachers and funny moments when we were in junior school together. The memories bring back the innocence that we had, we were so in-tune with things around us; you could tell if something was wrong just by a sentence that someone said. I miss the ‘good old days’ and the way we didn’t need to worry about anything…all that really concerned us was what we were going to do tomorrow and on the weekend…and the simple idea of playing outside in the sun, grazing your knee and getting the Winnie the Pooh band-aid from mum…but it all fades with time…we can’t go back there…not anymore…
     - When everything is gone, do you really think it was all worth it Kara?
     - I don’t follow you Nat, what are you talking about?
     - All the trouble we got into, was it really worth it? All the time we spent on studying and trying to pass our exams… did we really need it?
    Why is she talking like this; she sounds like Jess…? I mean she had nothing to worry about she went to film school and now works in the film industry…her life turned out ok…I think… we were on the roof now. Looking over the river and out to the houses beyond. I was behind Nat as she walked up to the edge railing; her skirts slapping against her ankles in the breeze.
     - We knew that the exams didn’t really matter at the time. Why do you ask?
    I moved up next to her and leaned on the rail as well, taking in the view and the wind against my face; throwing my hair back in violent gusts and flicks of hair against skin, stinging where ever they managed to land on my skin. She remained silent for a moment, her gaze directed out towards the river. Before she turned to speak to me; some emotion passed over her face, I couldn’t pick it at the time and it passed over so quickly. So when she eventually looked at me she seemed so tired, the fight had completely left her. Smiling softly she spoke
     - Do you remember on graduation day when we were taking photos up here for the view and we saw the big fight between the senior leaders and the guys who came and egged the juniors? And how Katie tackled one of them to the ground and also managing to catch another two on the way
    She started laughing at the memory, her face lighting up with smiles; the light returning to her eyes…that’s the one thing I missed about Nat, her laughter.
     - I remember her sitting on top of them looking extremely proud of her catch; I still don’t know how she managed to take down all three of them…it was so entertaining.
    I couldn’t stop myself from grinning when I saw that image of Katie sitting on top of three burly guys all at least double her weight; perched quite delicately on-top yet still being able to hold them down. She always managed to be feminine no matter what situation you saw her in.
     - That was a pretty big day, and all the arguments between me and Sally just seemed to fade away…we’re not in contact still but it’s not angry now, you’ve found that as well. Anything we thought was a big deal is nothing compared to the corporate world we had no idea what was waiting for us out there did we?
    I guess she’s right…I mean we did have a pretty easy ride through high school. Having fun on the weekend with friends…the occasional gossip flowing through…normally hilariously funny…we really did have it pretty good…sure we didn’t always have the best times though, some days were tough and worse than others.
    By now we had made our way down stairs to the second level of the building before noticed out of the window; a figure wandering around the entrance to the school. And suddenly I realised who it was. Before Nat knew what had happened I had rushed past her and was galloping down the stairs two at a time. As I burst out into the court yard; the one thought that was rushing trough my head was is it really her…do I dare hope it is…has she found it in her heart to forgive me? Or was it to be the last goodbye?
    As I rounded the corner and almost tripped over the tree roots pushing up against the concrete that bound them to the earth, I saw her disappearing around the corner of the hall out of the corner of my eye. I followed her around the corner and found her staring at the carving that I had made. It was so long ago now I had completely forgotten its existence; she just knelt there looking at it. I didn’t know what to do; I just froze she looked as tired as I felt.
     - You remember when you carved this? How young we were?
    Her voice seemed steady, but it cracked at the end and she fell silent, her head bowed so I couldn’t see her face. I knew that she was trying not to cry, I knew her well enough to see that.
     - How could I forget, it was a great day and we had so much fun being young.
     - You always could find the positive in a situation, no matter how dire. It’s the main thing I remember about you – you could always make me smile.
     - Jess I’m sorry about last week, it was out of line. You know I don’t think that of you; I couldn’t think that of some one who was practically my sister, my twin.
     - Really…are you really sorry Kara or are you just feeling bad and want to gloss over everything? Pretend that everything’s ok? Because it isn’t. What do you want me to say? Everything is fine, I can trust you again…it isn’t going to happen over night, I’m still hurting.
    Why won’t you listen to me! Why…why…why! Do I mean that little to you? Why are you even here? She slowly rose up and stood before me; a silhouette against the afternoon sun.
     - I need some more time to think about everything…would you be able to grant me this?
     - What did you do for the last week then? When you disappeared off the face of the earth.
    I spat the words out, still angry at her earlier outburst. She walked past me, I felt her shirt brush my shoulder and I barely heard her last words, as she said quietly.
     - Running…that’s all I’ve been doing for the last 20 years of my life…and I’m going to stop today.