Separation Sisters

The red paint was peeling off the pole next to me but I didn't notice it, why would I? Above my head, a platform covered in splintery wood, gray with erosion and age. To most, it was a part of an old, run down playground. To me, it was the firehouse, a part of my carefully crafted imaginary fairy world. But more importantly, it was memories.
Across from me, another girl, my age, sat, her legs crossed, her eyes wide. The space was tight, although how it got to be that way, I was unsure, as we always used to fit down there. My naive self couldn't believe, rather, refused to believe that I could actually be growing older.
We were hiding, our heartbeats erratic, our bodies on edge as we waited silently. We knew it was a useless hope to think we would be unspotted forever, but hoped anyway. With childhood naiveness comes unquestioned belivance.
Yes, we would stand up for what we believed in. It made perfect sense to us. Everything added up.
Literally.
Everything.
A missing button, a certain date, an absent teacher, and some mysterious phone calls in french.
Yes, it made perfect sense at the time. It was insane.
The people we were hiding from didn't find us. But someone did. Someone worse. We didn't realize it at the time. Our minds were too concentrated in protecting the mission at hand, and its secrecy. We didn't care what anyone else thought, what anyone else suspected, as long as they didn't know.
We were foolish.
From the outside, our actions looked odd, to say the least. Our teacher asked us if we were okay, giving us a concerned glance. Something about the way she said it made me know...she would be watching us more carefully now.
I didn't know it then, however it became blatantly clear later in life that it was because of that moment, of that closeness between the us that the teacher placed us in different classes the following year. Clearly, there was something unusual about it, something different. Not the normal closeness between two friends of this age. There must have been something different about it, something to indicate need for splitting friends, placing them in different classes.
We never spoke of the incident again, her and I, but we always associated the closeness in our friendship with that year. I don't even remember being friends with her before that year, that moment in time. We had been friends for four years previous but as far as I'm concerned, that moment was the first time I decided that we were friends, no, best friends. It was the first time I decided that she was someone who I wanted to be friends with for the rest of my life.

As years passed, our closeness only grew. We survived the tests of time, from the first days of elementary school to the first of high school; nothing could keep us apart.

The forces of evil that attempted to destroy our bond used separation as their greatest weapon. However, if anything, the weapon backfired as it proved to have the opposite effect. Everything life threw at us: bitches, teachers, separate schools, other friends, and even my mother, became our motivation to stay together and beat the odds rather than be the obstacle which tore us to pieces.
If we had learned anything in our time together it was that one thing would never change: We would always be there for each other. Our naive childhood promise to each other would not be in vain, we would be friends forever, we were sure of it, even if I acted cynical about the matter at times. Deep down, I wanted nothing more than to be bragging about our friendship when I turned one hundred. I wanted nothing more than to tell my grandchildren about how in ninety five years of friendship, we'd never fought once.

As for our mission, well, that was forgotten long ago. A silly childhood fantasy, a game we played, pretending we were something we were not, detectives. Detectives with an unsolvable mystery, the mystery of life.
We've moved on to other fantasies, other games which prove our close bonds. We act like old ladies, partners in crime, a married couple (jokingly, of course), inseparable twins, sisters. She was the sister I never had, being an only child.
Sure, our mission has changed, but the mystery is still the same. We're still traveling the same path that is life, that is our identities, together.
We are the proof that not everything has to change, some things can remain. I can't imagine my life without her. Where I would be, or more importantly, WHO I would be. I would most certainly be lost without her.


Nine years of memories in our story of forever. Best friends forever.