It was your normal day, a little more than eleven years ago. The sun shed it's gentle rays on the earth, the wind whispered through the trees, and birds sang. In a small, not altogether nice white house on a pretty normal street, a normal, though fairly big, family was getting ready to go to another normal family's house for a friendly get together.
The house was a fairly busy, lively place as it housed five kids, not to mention a mom, a dad, and a dog. The youngest was a little girl named Nicole. She was only three at the time and observed more than she talked. She was painfully shy around strangers and preferred to sit with the adults then play with the children. Parents and adults thought her sweet, but often encouraged her to talk and play with little kids her age or a little bit older, something she hated fiercely. She didn't like making friends.
That was why, when they arrived at the house where the party was being held, she was more than a little wary when another little girl who looked to be about her age was led towards her. The host of the party, a mother herself, introduced the little girl as Staci, who turned out to be only a month or so older than her. Nicole's mother introduced her to Staci because Nicole was too nervous and shy to speak.
She liked the look of this Staci, with her brown straight hair and cheerful red top, but she hated that she was being forced to play with her. Staci looked equally shy and also equally chagrined when they were told to “run along and play”.
Reluctantly, the two girls walked inside, and headed for some shelves they knew held toys for the younger people who visited the house to play with. Nicole wondered aloud if they should ask before playing with them, but Staci shook her head. “I play with these all the time. We can just go an' play.” Nicole trembled inside. She didn't want to get scolded by an adult if they weren't supposed to play with them but she was too shy to cross or question Staci. Nervous, she followed Staci towards the shelves.
To their surprise however they found that someone had pulled a large chair in front of them and was sitting in it. Finding that there was plenty of room for two small girls to squeeze behind it though, they quickly did just that and then began to play together.
Nicole grew more talkative and cheerful away from all those strange probing eyes, and Staci also seemed more at ease. The girls prattled on together, finding they had more and more in common. Both girls came to this house very frequently, so they talked of the favorite toys they had here. Staci said a certain one was her favorite and Nicole agreed, saying that was her favorite too. It wasn't strictly true, but she enjoyed feeling like they agreed on something.
For the rest of the day the girls stayed together, fearless now of all adults and strange faces, because now they had each other. They ran through the house together, while adults smiled at them and said things about them over their heads that the girls didn't care to listen too. It was strange how little the adult world (several feet above them) had to do with them as little girls. At the end of these romps through the house they would go back behind their chair, and the nice man sitting in it never said a word about it or seemed to mind their childish, disjointed talk from directly behind him.
It was while behind this chair during one of their chats that Staci first said, “Do you wanna be best friends?” Nicole paused, suddenly shy again. This was very sudden. But she liked Staci a lot so she smiled and and said, “Sure!” For the rest of the day they ran through the house holding hands, telling anyone who would listen that they were best friends.
It was a childish pact that no one that day thought twice about. It was just little kid stuff, and it would probably all be forgotten by tomorrow. That day the little girls went home with their different families. But they didn't forget each other. That childish pact was the beginning of a wonderful friendship that knit those two girls together to be almost close enough to be sisters. They didn't forget their promise, and still have not to this day. Eleven years later the friendship still flourishes.
The girls have seen each other through good times and bad, through tears of happiness and tears of pain. They have little in common anymore as far as their daily life goes, as they live several states away from each other. The house where they promised to be “best friends forever” in is sold to some unknown person and who knows whatever happened to that old chair. And yet they are still best friends, Nicole and Staci, though so different now from their selves as they met them all those years ago.
How do I know all this? Because I am Nicole, the girl who as a three year old began a friendship that will last a lifetime. My friendship with Staci has changed both our lives. And we are truly living out every day our promise to be “best friends forever”.