Y'know, I have this weird thing where I don't miss people. I don't usually miss people, unless I had a very close relationship with them or I don't have any way to immediately talk to them. Hence why I don't miss any school friends right now, because I have to ability to talk to them on my phone.

H o w e v e r

As you can tell by the name of this chapter, I'm currently in a state of missing old friends. Well, the few friends I had

And what I mean by that, is that in this chapter, I'll be reminiscing about one certain friend. So, you can leave right now if you wish. Unless you want to continue reading and hear about the memories I have, then-

Just really do what you want

Alright, so, let's call this friend... Carm, to make it easy.

So, it all started in Kindergarten. It was my first day at a new school in the middle of the school year in the noon class. (I was a noon kindergartener 👌)

I was sitting alone, in the corner, having nobody to talk to as the shy kid I was.

Now, here are a few things about VERY young Ghosty: Young me was much shyer around everyone, talked occasionally, mumbled a lot, and was a bit scared of my older brother. It was also the beginning of when my parents started to fight, yell, and was considering divorce. However, young me was completely oblivious, opposed to my two older siblings, who didn't like me around them because I was too young.

So, I was quiet and very hesitant to make friends. And well, probably wasn't very fun to talk to.

At some point, however, a boy in my class came over to me. We talked a bit, which was mainly him talking, but that's unimportant-

As the weeks and months went by, we became closer. We became friends.

Kindergarten came to an end, and we both hoped to be in the same first grade class.

And guess what? This kid almost tackled me to the floor when he saw my come into that class room. Which was kinda easy to do, since we were both pretty much the same height.

First grade was also when my mom met a guy, since then my mom and dad were starting the divorce process. I remember him, but was never told what happened when we suddenly stopped going over to see him at his place.

But, slowly but surely, when my mom went to see the guy, she started leaving me with Carm, his mom, and his much older brother. Which then led to a chain of Carm and I having sleep-over after sleep-over. Eventually having sleep-overs at their apartment for weeks.

You see; Carm and I were practically siblings. Soul Siblings, as our moms liked to say. He felt lonely since his older brother was in early high school, maybe late middle school, while my older siblings didn't bother with me at all since I didn't understand anything. So, we bonded over being the youngests and being blocked out by our older siblings.

Second grade; my mom met my current step-dad, parents were further into the divorce process, my sister was going through a rough patch and pushing everyone out more than ever, and my mom didn't want my brother pinning me down and restraining me for awhile or beating on me anymore, while she went on a week long business trip. So? She left me with Carm, his mom, and his brother.

Of course, neither Carm nor I knew why I was with him and his family mostly for second grade. We just knew this meant more sleep-overs.

Which leads me to most of my memories.

So, Carm had a bed that had a big empty space under it with a hole that was big enough for a second grader to crawl into. Commence the scare off.

Pretty much, whenever one of us left his bedroom, the other would hide somewhere and then scare the other when they came back. Or if we both left at the same time and one of us came back first, one left and at some point the other did to and then one of us came back first, etc. If you hid under the bed, you'd wait to see the others feet come into view and then either grab them or shout. Anywhere else; you wait for them to go far into the room and then shout.

I commonly hid under the bed, being more flexible, while he went for behind the door or his closet.

And one of my favourite memories was that once Carm left to go get a drink. So, I took the opportunity to go under the bed. After maybe 5, quiet minutes, he came back. He looked around, and noticed I wasn't on his bed nor on the floor. So he took the opportunity to run into his closet and hide.

Which resulted in me laughing, crawling out from under the bed, and just laying on the floor as I did so. Which ended up in Carm coming out from the closet and going: "GHOSTY! I THOUGHT YOU LEFT!"

Another fond memory was when we went trick or treating in the same grade. I went as a leopard (I liked leopards back then-) and he went as Batman. Pretty much, I was being a scaredy cat (hehe, get it? I was a leopard? Eh?) when it came to going up to people's doors and knocking. And our moms weren't going up with us. So, Carm pretty much grabbed my hand whenever we went up to a house and held it until the person opened the door. In return, I stood infront of him whenever someone had a pop-up thing on their lawn.

So I guess you could say second grade Halloween was Batman who helped a socially scared leopard go about their day while the leopard shielded Batman from spooks on lawns and doorsteps in thanks.

We also split the candy we got and gave each other the other's favourite candy-

Another favourite memory would have to be when we went swimming at his apartment complexes pool. At the time, I had been in gymnastics for a bit. So, I was doing backflips underwater and pushing off the pool wall to help do it. Carm, who was watching me do this next to me, asked me how to do it. So, second grade me tried explaining to him. Eventually, he got the hang of it. Which led to attempts at synchronizing it. Which led to holding hands as we flipped underwater.

As mentioned before, during second grade, my mom went on a business trip. So, I stayed with Carm and his family. His mom and brother knew about what had been happening, so they gladly took me for the week.

Now, here's some context. Carm and I were both very scrawny kids of the same height. Because of this, we both weren't bothered with sleeping in the same bed. We always slept in his bed during our sleep-overs. Our moms weren't worried or freaking out about one's son and one's daughter doing this like apparently most parents are and would be, because, well, we were literally in SECOND GRADE. We didn't care. We literally saw each other and called each other siblings, brother and sister, etc. Besides, both our moms had better things to worry about than their second grade children sleeping in the same bed, just sleeping. We also were so close, it just felt normal to do that. It was also much more comfortable than one of us sleeping on the floor when both of us insisted: "I should be on the floor, I don't live here!" "Exactly! You don't stay here, so YOU should get the bed!"

So, when I went to floor in the middle of the night and just layed there? Waking Carm up because he felt the mattress get lighter? When I said, "I dunno, I just kinda want to be on the floor tonight."? He knew something was up. It was obvious my voice was starting to get a bit shaky and unstable as I was suddenly on the verge of crying. We both could tell when the other was upset. So, he moved to the floor next to me, and layed there. Let me cry in the dark while he sat next to me. Eventually, he put his Toothless plush next to me. Why? Because months before he said Toothless made him feel happier. And he knew I also liked HTTYD. He knew I liked Toothless as well. So he let me sleep with Toothless that night. It meant a lot to me that moment.

There's so many memories I could never forget with Carm.

Like how during recess these group of jets called the Blue Angels, if I remember right, would fly overhead while we swung on the swings together. So Carm and I ended up being infatuated with the Blue Angels. We said we'd become Blue Angels together one day.

We also loved imagining scenarios and acting them out. A lot of them consisted of us saving each other from strange planets, being dragon trainers from HTTYD, flying spaceships together, going on adventures. Everything we could imagine.

Then my parents finally divorced. And I left with my mom.

I cried on the last night of our final sleep-over. I cried when I got into the car and we drove to North Carolina. I gave him one of my two cross necklaces as a good-bye gift, as a good luck charm.

Apparently he did to, when he met my mom again when I was visiting my dad.

Apparently he misses me as much as I miss him.

Apparently he can't wait to talk to me again.

I really want to meet up with him soon :']