Moments with a Friend



Moments

It was the summer before high school when I met Sam.

I remember the day vividly. The sky was the kind of blue you only see in July, and the scent of fresh-cut grass clung to the air. I had moved to the neighborhood just a week prior, and my days had been mostly spent indoors, unpacking boxes and trying to adjust to the newness of everything. But that afternoon, I wandered out to the park near our house, unsure of what I was looking for—maybe just a break from the silence.

Sam was sitting on a worn bench near the basketball court, a sketchpad in hand, his fingers smudged with charcoal. He was drawing something with intense focus, his tongue poking out slightly in concentration. I might have walked past him if not for a sudden gust of wind that sent a page of his sketchpad tumbling to my feet.

“Hey!” he called out, springing up with surprising speed. “Can you grab that?”

I chased the page down and handed it to him. It was a drawing of a hawk in flight, its wings stretched wide, its eyes sharp.

“Wow,” I said, genuinely impressed. “Did you draw this?”

He shrugged, a little shyly. “Yeah. I like birds.”

That was the start of something that neither of us knew would become one of the most important connections of our lives.

Over the weeks that followed, Sam and I met at that same park nearly every day. Sometimes we talked about art, sometimes about school, and sometimes about nothing at all. We played basketball badly, rode our bikes until the sun dipped below the trees, and shared secrets the way only young teenagers can—fearlessly and without judgment.

Sam had a quiet kind of wisdom. He wasn't loud or flashy, but he saw things. He could read people like they were open books, and he had a way of listening that made you feel like what you said mattered. I, on the other hand, was restless, curious about everything, and always full of questions. Somehow, we balanced each other.

One particularly hot afternoon, we found a shaded spot under a sycamore tree, and Sam pulled out a new sketchpad.

“Draw something,” he said, handing it to me.

I laughed. “I can’t draw. Not like you.”

“So?” he replied. “It’s not about being perfect. It’s about what you feel.”

I took the pencil and stared at the blank page. After a moment, I started sketching a crooked tree with a swing. It looked nothing like the grand one we were sitting under, but Sam smiled when I showed it to him.

“That’s good,” he said. “You made it your own.”

That summer ended, as summers do, and school began. The halls were loud and overwhelming, and friendships formed in strange, unspoken ways. Sam and I didn’t have any classes together, and though we still met after school, something began to shift. He was pulled toward the art club, and I toward the debate team. We were growing in different directions, but the roots of our friendship held strong—for a while.

By sophomore year, we saw each other less. New faces filled our lives, and moments together became more memory than reality. I would pass by the park sometimes and feel a pang of something—nostalgia, maybe. Regret. But life kept moving.

Then came senior year. Everything was about the future—college applications, final exams, leaving home. One rainy afternoon, I walked past the old park and saw someone sitting under the sycamore tree. It was Sam, older, a little taller, still holding a sketchpad.

I hesitated, then approached. “Hey.”

He looked up and smiled, the same easy smile I remembered. “Hey.”

We sat there for an hour, barely talking, just watching the rain fall in soft curtains around us. Eventually, he flipped his sketchpad around to show me a drawing. It was a tree, crooked, with a swing.

“You kept it,” I said, surprised.

He nodded. “Of course. It was the first thing you ever drew. And it meant something.”

In that moment, I realized something important. Friendships don’t always fade because they’re broken. Sometimes, they just rest—quietly waiting for the right moment to return.

We didn't promise to stay in touch forever. We didn’t need to. What we had was real, and that was enough.

Now, years later, I still think about those moments with a friend—how they shaped me, grounded me, and taught me that sometimes, the simplest connections are the ones that stay with you the longest.