Dana

The thing that made me want to be Dana’s friend was that I realized that the person she pretended to be wasn’t who she was at all.  She was trying to protect herself with a tough girl persona, but she was really very sensitive, and I recognized myself in that.  

When we were fourteen, Dana had a slumber party at her house, a slumber party that she organized because the other girls in our class wouldn’t invite her to their parties because they thought she was a bitch.  We got to talking about Dana’s middle school boyfriend and she told us the story of how he’d been hit and killed by a logging truck while out riding his bike the summer before we started high school.  She didn’t even flinch as she talked about it.  It didn’t seem to bother her.  I remember thinking, “wow, she is tough.” 

Later that night, when everyone else was asleep, I heard Dana quietly crying.  I knew then that she wasn’t as tough as she seemed, and I knew that we had to be friends.

© Salahub 2003