Page 18 of Hitting the Goal Line
I do what he says, unlatching the two parts and look at what’s inside.
Both sides have a picture of the two of us. One from when around the time we met and we claimed each other as friends. It’s actually the first picture we took together.
I was in the process of learning an axel and after falling so many times, I was able to land one. It was the happiest day for little Sophia. When we were leaving, Blake, who was finishing his hockey practice, came running to me excitingly, telling me how it was so cool that I was able to land the jump. It was small but it was mighty.
My mom took this picture of us as we so happily talk about how I was able to jump so high. Because a few inches off the ground was so high for a five-year-old.
I didn’t know mom had taken the picture until she showed it to me a few years ago. It became one of my favorites. One I didn’t know that Blake had.
“How did you get this picture?” I ask, feeling tears form in my eyes at the sentiment behind this gift.
“I fought your mom for it. That lady can be vicious when she wants to be. She didn’t want to give it to me. I think her exact words were ‘I’m not giving something so priceless to the boy that doesn’t even wash his hands’. For the record, I was my hands.”
I laugh, looking up at him. “Not all the time.” He grunts at my comment, probably calling bullshit in his mind. “I’m guessing she finally caved and handed the picture over?”
He shakes his head. “Nope, she showed it to me and I took a picture. So, it’s a picture of a picture. Which I guess is better because I don’t want your mom to murder me because I had to cut up the original so that it would fit in the tiny circle.”
I laugh, because while my mom won’t attack him with a knife, she will give him the death glare every single time that she sees him for the next month or so.
“Did you see the other picture?” he asks, nodding toward the locket.
I was too preoccupied with the one side that I actually didn’t pay attention to the other. You would think that a picture so close to the other one wouldn’t be hard to miss.
Moving my eyes to the other picture, I see that’s it’s a more recent one. One from my actual birthday a few months ago.
I didn’t want to do anything big, so my mom made a small dinner at our house and ordered a banana cake from my favorite bakery. It was just me, my parent and Blake. Mom got a little picture happy that night and took pictures of everything.
The picture staring back at me is one of me and Blake smiling at the camera with faces covered in cake and frosting after a cake fight that my dad had started.
Both pictures capture our friendships perfectly.
“I love it,” I say, wiping away a tear and smiling up at Blake.
“If you love it, why are you crying?” he asks, his voice filled with concern.
“Because this gift is everything and my Christmas gift to you is complete shit.” And it is. How do you compare tickets to a hockey game to a locket with pictures that mean the world?
“I’m sure I’ll like it.”
“I know you’ll like it but it doesn’t have sentimental value that this does,” I argue. Sure, mine would be fun, but it’s not something he will remember forever.
“Soph, anything you give me has sentimental value. Because it came from you. That’s all that matters,” Blake tells me, a smile on his face, and his blue eyes shining in the moon light.
I look at my best friend for a few seconds and I can’t help but to wonder when he started to look so much older than his actual fifteen years of life. The more that I look at him, the more I feel the sensation of butterflies fluttering around my stomach. A sensation that has never been there for Blake until this very moment.
“Whatever you say,” I say, trying to not to think about the butterflies and holding it up the necklace to him. “Help me put it on, will ya?”
He takes the necklace and I turn my body so that my back is to his front. As the cold metal slides along my neck, I can’t help but to hold my breath as his fingers glide against my skin.
Never have I done that when Blake has touched me before. Never have I held my breath and never have I had butterflies. What makes this time different?
Maybe it’s that this necklace means the world to me and I’m afraid to lose it. Maybe it’s the sentimental value of it.
Maybe…
“There,” Blake says as soon as the necklace is secure.
I turn back to face him and without any hesitation, I lean up and place a kiss on his cheek like I have done a million times before, but this time, it feels different. A hell of a lot different.
