I could never remember when we moved in the house next door to Joe’s because I was only seven months at the time, and he was only a month and half older than me, but from what we were both told later on, it was a traumatic time for my family.
My dad had walked out on my mum only a few weeks before, leaving her with absolutely nothing. She was heartbroken, and left with the sole responsibility of sorting out a life for me too. It was almost overwhelming for her, and she really struggled to pick herself up. There was another downwards spiral when she found out that Dad had a whole other life, and that his other girlfriend was pregnant with twins. He must have deemed them more important than me because I never saw him again. Admittedly I hadn’t thought about it for many years, but now it was weird to me knowing that I had half-siblings out there, somewhere in the world. It was like some kind of unfinished business that I had no idea how to tackle.
Of course, I’d never gone so far as to look them up, because I was afraid to open that can of worms, but every now and again they would pop up into my mind. I often wondered if he managed to stick around for them, or if he left them high and dry too…
Joe’s parents were saviours, picking Mum up from the bottom of the barrel, helping her turn her life around. They helped her organise her house and get herself a job—who knows what would have happened to us if they hadn’t. According to the legend between our families, Joe’s mum brought us a lasagne round on our first night in our new home, Mum burst into extremely grateful tears, told her what was wrong, and a friendship was born. As simple as that.
The photo I held tightly between my fingers showed a picnic we all went on together only a few weeks later. It must have been taken by Joe’s mum, because it showed my mum, his dad, his older sister Marie—who was then a toddler—and us two as babies. Even in that image, the very first one of us in existence, we were gazing at each other, as if we already knew we couldn’t live without one another. It was as if that unbreakable bond was already forming.
Of course, it wasn’t quite as unbreakable as we’d always assumed, but I didn’t find that out until much later on…
Because of our close living situation, we grew up to be the absolute best of friends. We were inseparable before we were even a year old, and we got lucky in school too because they kept us in the same class, allowing our friendship to continue. To be honest, we were so wrapped up in one another that we didn’t even care about the rest of the world. We didn’t bother to try and make new friends because we just didn’t need to.
We had each other and that was all that mattered.
Of course it meant everyone else thought we were weird, and that they had a lot to say about us behind our backs, but that didn’t bother us either. Even when it became a real issue for me, Joe kyboshed it pretty quickly.
It happened once when we were eight, and all the other girls in the class decided I was a loser and started picking on me. Maybe they were jealous that I was so close to a boy, or maybe they just didn’t like my flame red hair. Who knows, but they started to make my life hell. A week after it began, I ran out of class sobbing when one of them scribbled all over my homework, and without a second thought Joe chased after me to comfort me. Once I calmed down, he took me to the school nurse and told her I was sick so I could go home early, meaning I didn’t have to go back in there and face them all over again.
Nothing ever happened to me again after that. The girls were never my friends, but they left me well alone. However much Joe insisted that he didn’t do anything, I just knew he did. I tried to get it out of him for years, but he never did tell me. I could only assume he may be threatened them or something…although I couldn’t picture that really. Joe was a gentle, caring soul, with a heart of gold. Although he always stood taller than the rest of the class, towering over everyone, so maybe they all saw a different side of him. Maybe he was scary to them.
I guess I’ll never find out the truth for sure…
Anyway, whatever he did, it made me feel even closer to him, even more pleased that he was in my life. I wasn’t sure what I would do without him. I was dependant on him, probably far more than I should have been, but it didn’t seem to matter to either of us.
Our friendship was perfect; I didn’t think anything would ever get in the way of it.
How naïve I was…