Fraying Threads

The sun tickles our faces with its lovely warmth, wrapping us in its shimmery glow. I lift my head up and drink in the scent of the surrounding nature. Beside me, Rita picks absentmindedly at the grass while Macy chews her hair with her usual nervousness. 
“I don’t know, guys,” Macy says, her eyebrows scrunched up in worry, her clear blue eyes darting anxiously between Rita and me. “What do you think I should do?”
Rita heaves a great sigh and stands up, stretching and yawning. Her height and long black hair temporarily cast me in shadow, cooling the sun’s warmth.

Neither of us answer her question.

We have analyzed her boyfriend situation again and again, picking it down to its threads. We have conclusively agreed that he may or may not be cheating on her. And we have absolutely nothing further to add unless we can track down her boyfriend and interrogate him.

“Drop it, Macy,” Rita says finally, her voice tight with impatience. “We’ve been over this a thousand times.”

And it’s true. Her boyfriend has filled the topic of almost every conversation between us for the last two weeks.

But the moment Rita’s words are out, the air grows cooler. Macy snaps her head up in surprise, her mouth a small “o”. She didn’t expect Rita’s response, or her tone. We’ve always been patient with each other. In fact, there was a time when we were practically joined at the hips.

Maybe it’s time for all that to change.

Macy looks to me expectantly. I’m supposed to be the peacemaker of our trio. But even I have had it with Macy and her gripes about boyfriend issues.

“She’s right, Macy,” I say tersely. “Drop it.”

The rustling of grass and leaves are the only sounds of movement in the otherwise still atmosphere. I avert my gaze from the expressions on their faces. Instead, I watch an ant struggle to carry a bread crumb back to its home. I envy that ant and the simple life it leads. It knew its purpose in life and had no decisions to make. Just straightforward, simple living.

I wish my life was like that.

Macy snaps off a blade of grass and tears furiously at it, peeling it into wispy threads of fiber. Her shoulders hunch forward, creating a small concave space shielded by her body. She doesn’t look at us, only continues picking grass and tearing them into shreds.

Rita, meanwhile, heaves another sigh and meanders her way a few yards from us where a lone tree stands straight and tall. I watch her disappear into the shadows of the tree, squinting against the brightness of the sun. She looks towards the road that runs a few yards past the tree and spots some girls from school whom she knows through theater.

Even from a distance, I can see her perk up and wave at them with a sudden bout of enthusiasm. They make their way towards her. Rita glances back at us in the grass. She hesitates.

“Rita! We’re going to the beach!” her theater friends yell. “Come with us!”

Her head swivels back to them and though I can’t see her face, I know instinctively that she’s smiling at them. Then she turns back and jogs to us.

“Deedee, Macy, we’re not doing anything special, right?” she asks with false cheer. “I’m going to join these guys, okay?”

I stare at her for a moment, wondering if she realizes the weight of her words. We have come to this tiny hidden field of grass every Friday afternoon for as long as I can remember in our ten years of friendship, flopping down on the soft carpet and sharing the latest news and gossip of the week. We would giggle, run around, and shriek at each other until the sun began to set and we had to go home. The ritual was a sacred tradition, the hallmark of our friendship.

I gaze at Rita’s face. Her eyes are pleading with me in a way that I have never seen before. Today is certainly a day of firsts.

Not quite aware of the full significance of my actions, I shrug my shoulders indifferently and say breezily despite the weight in my chest, “If you want.”

Rita bounds away in delight, giving us a quick wave of her hand in goodbye. I watch her retreating figure, laughing and chattering with her theater friends.

Next to me, Macy sits up straight and watches Rita pensively. She pulls out another blade of grass, peels it strand by strand. Her sparkly blue nail polish is chipped and cracking. The last time we had a manicure party was over three months ago.

Time stretches and bends between us, full of thoughts and feelings not quite right for words.

Finally, she too stands up and brushes off the grass bits.

“Track starts at six,” she says carefully. “I should probably get home.”

I nod once in response.

“Um...yeah, okay,” I say. “See you Monday.”

“See you,” she says quietly. Her voice seems to come out differently than before, with a tinge of nostalgia or was it sadness?

And with that, she is gone too.  To her own world of track friends, that does not include me or Rita. Or our special little grass field.

I sit on the grass now, alone. The sun has begun to set, and I shiver in the sudden coolness. Shadows have begun to creep around the edges of the field, eating away at it inch by inch. Soon, there will be no distinction between light and shadow. But by then, I will be home. And Macy and Rita will, too. Each of us in our separate homes, our separate worlds. Come Monday, this afternoon will be blurred by the weekend, faded into nothing but a distant memory. And us?

Maybe we will too.