The Friends I Used To Have

Green Day. That was the band whose song was playing in the car that night. I don’t remember what song it was. My mind was elsewhere. To be honest, it was in about a million different places. I sat in the back of that car staring out the window into the cold and windy winter night.

I hate winter. It makes me moody. I hate how quickly the sun disappears at the end of the day. I hate puffy coats and winter hats. Yet, on this night, my mood had little to do with the frigid temperature. It had everything to do with the individuals I was in the car with. Specifically, our destination, our intention, and trying to figure out how I ended up in this situation.

I never had a lot of friends growing up. In school, I tended to keep to myself. It wasn’t that my classmates weren’t friendly. It was more like I had trouble fitting in. I could never strike up a ‘best friend’ type relationship with anyone in my school.

I mostly played by myself during recess. It might have been because of my big head, round glasses, or inability to dribble a soccer ball. Regardless, I was usually found walking the perimeter of the soccer field while the other kids played. During the winter, I was off in the corner of the gym tossing a ball against a wall.

Occasionally, someone would stop and invite me to play with them. Yet, most of the time alone is how I spent my time. That was because I did a pretty good job of seeming okay. I didn’t look depressed or upset. On the outside, I looked normal but on the inside, I was pretty lonely.

I spent plenty of weekends alone in my bedroom playing video games or reading magazines. For the most part, I was pretty content. The most difficult weekends were the ones when I knew someone in my class or grade was having a birthday party. It hurt knowing that I didn’t make the cut for a party that included 30-40 kids. I never understood why I struggled so to make friends. Since I couldn’t pinpoint the problem, I was helpless to solve it.

I guess that’s part of the reason I was stuck in the back of a 20-year-old car that smelled like weed and Cheetos. Feeling nauseous and wondering what was about to happen. Knowing I should try and get out of the car but also knowing what would happen if I did. Knowing that everything I ever wanted would be gone. Thinking about those nights in my bedroom and how I so desperately wanted to avoid going back to them.

When you don’t have any friends, elementary school can feel like an eternity. Pictures from my 5th-grade graduation show me smiling from ear to ear. It was because I was glad that part of my education was complete. It wasn’t that elementary school was terrible. I didn’t have many fond memories to look back on. I also didn’t have any close friends to miss during the summer.

I had mixed emotions entering middle school. On the one hand, it was an opportunity to meet new kids that lived in my town but didn’t go to the elementary school I attended. On the other hand, it was an opportunity to be rejected by a whole new group of classmates. I guess that’s why having Ryan say hi to me on the first day of class is a vivid memory I’ll never forget.

As I got older, I would joke that Ryan was the more expensive version of me. We both had the same likes and interests but he was taller, skinnier, and better looking. He embodied the “popular crowd” that I longed to be a part of. I was excited when he plopped down next to me in Math class on day one and said hello, . I guess you could say that was the start of a long journey that led to this particular car ride.

Later that day, Ryan introduced me to Phillip and Jerome. The three of them had been friends for a few years. I clicked with them immediately because of how similar we were. We all enjoyed watching baseball, playing video games, and eating junk food. We also liked talking about girls and laughing way too hard at bad movies.

They invited me to hang out with them after the first day of school. It was a complete shock for someone who had been going straight home for the last 6 years. I called my Mom to tell her the good news. I could hear the relief and pleasure in her voice. She never said this to me, but I know internally she was thinking “Thank God. He finally made friends.”

When it came to my desolate social life, I always felt bad for my Mom. She always took it hard seeing me alone in my room week after week, month after month, year after year. She worried that I would never make friends and it would hamper my ability to communicate with others in the future. She thought I would become a criminal or crazed serial killer who, after being caught, blames it all on not being popular in school. The irony was not lost on me as I sat in this car, speeding down the highway.

At first, I was a bit reserved around the guys. I was a bit afraid to be myself. I figured once they got to know the real me they would pull back. As those first few weeks went by, I noticed how open and carefree they were when it comes to being themselves. Finally, I let my guard down and gave and unleashed the full version. I remember Jerome joking that he knew I was holding something back. What a relief it was to finally feel accepted.

In the coming months, I would remark more than once that I wish I went to the same elementary school as them. If only my parents had bought a house a few blocks over. Life would have been so much easier. My weekends would have been so much more full. My friendship with them would have resulted in more friends. Things could have been so much better than they were.

On occasion, I would find myself angry at this fact. While caught up in irrational thoughts, I would be upset at my parents for not buying a different house. As if that made any sense whatsoever. I would snap myself out of this funk after a few minutes. I would remind myself that it was different now. Middle school was different. High School would be different.

My joy about finally having close friends is most likely what made me oblivious to the small but significant warning signs over the years. The thing about warning signs and red flags is that when they come at you one at a time, it’s easier to dismiss them. When they come at you spaced out by weeks, or even months you tend to forget some of them.

For example, they all smoked weed whenever we would hang at the park. They were smoking when I met them in 6th grade and never stopped. In hindsight, smoking an illegal drug at the age of 13 might be a red flag. Two things to remember about why I dismissed it as nothing. First, they never pressured me to smoke with them. Second, when I finally did try it and ended up coughing a lung, they told me I could stop.

On occasion, we would go into a store and steal a few things like candy bars or sandwiches. At the time, it seemed harmless. For me, it wasn’t about the items I got for free. It was about participating in a group. It was about getting to laugh with friends afterward. I don’t remember what was on the sandwich I stole, I remember not having to eat it alone in my room.

Over the next few years, we continued to get into a bit more serious trouble. We used to go into a crowded parking lot and let the air out of people’s tires. A couple of times we threw eggs at the back door of the church. We never got caught, so I never thought much of it. To me, this was the same as watching movies in my basement or playing video games in Ryan’s garage.

I was also pretty good at coming up with internal excuses as to why this was okay. In my mind, I was making up for lost time. All those years I didn’t get to spend having fun with these guys, I was making up for it now. It’s easy to look back at something and think about how stupid you were for doing it. It’s a lot harder to examine that same situation when you're in it.

I know now that it wasn’t the same as movies and video games. Maybe, if I had realized this earlier, I wouldn’t be sitting in a car with a pipe in my hand and a ski mask on my face. If I had gotten in trouble, my parents would have made me realize I was hanging with the wrong crowd. If only a few people invited me to their birthday party, I wouldn’t have been so desperate to remain friends with the strangers I found myself with now.

By the time the four of us hit high school, we had a reputation. It was not a good one. We were labeled as bullies and trouble makers. We would take someone’s books, hide the occasional backpack, and steal food off other student’s lunch trays. We made kids late for class and disrupted the teacher as much as we could. Most of our classmates didn’t like us. I didn’t like them so what did I care?

I would however bring this up to my fellow partners in crime on more than one occasion. It was as if, while my morals were being corrupted, that wholesome version of me was still trying to speak out. As if, it knew I was going down the wrong path. The “good” version of my was gasping for air. He was still alive, but I hid him away for a while.

Whenever I would feel bad, I would pose a question such as “Do you think we go too far? Are we really bad people?”. They would laugh and tell me not to be a pussy. They thought I was mocking other people by asking these questions. Then, they would state that anyone who felt this way was also a pussy.

About two weeks before this infamous car ride, Lisa, a girl I knew from a distance my whole life, approached me in the hallway. We had smiled and waved at each other on occasion but never held a serious conversation. It had been quite a while since someone other than one of the guys stopped by my locker. I was perplexed as to why she was standing there, waiting to speak with me.

“You know, you used to be a nice guy,” she said with a serious face. “Now, you hang with those three clowns and you're just another bully. I’m truly worried about what is going to happen to you,” she told me as we paused in front of my locker. I was stunned that this girl I barely considered an acquaintance was sharing her negative, unsolicited opinion of my lifestyle choices.

I should have appreciated the genuine concern this girl was showing for me. However, I found myself quickly filled with rage. This girl, who basically ignored me for a decade, was now trying to shit on my friends. The only true friends I ever had. Looking back, that is not what she was doing but I couldn’t see it at the time. In my eyes, she represented the old life I didn’t want to return to. The one that had hurt me.

“Let me ask you something,” I said as I wound up the verbal swing I was about to take at her. “How old are you? Better yet, how many birthday parties have you had since we’ve known each other?”. She looked perplexed and I didn’t even bother waiting for a response because my point was about to be made. “Was I ever invited to any of them? No, I wasn’t. Those “bullies” are the only fucking friends I have ever had. So, fuck off Lisa” as I stormed away.

Man, I should have listened to Lisa. If I had, I’d be home right now, playing video games, by myself. Instead, I was listening to Phillip, high on cocaine explain how Star Wars is connected to the Kennedy assassination. I was watching Ryan chain smoke cigarettes while drinking vodka out of a paper bag. I was looking at Jerome while he drove with one hand and twirled a handgun around in the other.

I was always able to rationalize away our behavior in school. I didn’t care who I was mean to because I felt they were mean to me first. I didn’t feel bad about cutting class because I had no interest in going to college anyway. To me, these offenses seemed like victimless crimes. It was the crimes that had victims that began to open my eyes to what was really happening.

The first incident that shifted the dynamic of our group occurred one summer night during our Junior year. Earlier that night at dinner, Phillip had mentioned that he was going to go cruise the train station parking lot for “goodies”. I didn’t believe he would do something. Even when we left the diner and started strolling up and down the rows of cars, I wasn’t too concerned.

Then Phillip peered into one car’s window longer than the rest. He told us to stop walking for a second and began hunting for something by the fence. Ryan and I were in a heated debate about baseball and thus were not paying much attention to whatever Phillip was doing. I was looking something up on my phone when I heard the crash.

There Phillip stood with a rock in hand in front of a shattered car window. As the alarm blared he quickly opened the door, grabbed something, and started to run. It was board daylight and there were a few people around whose attention we had drawn. The three of us had no choice but to sprint towards the wooded area at the end of the lot.

We ran about 50 feet into the woods before we felt comfortable enough to stop. As I caught my breath, I began to get increasingly angry. I could not believe he did something not only illegal but so reckless. Something that could have very easily landed us in the back of a cop car. I turned to confront him and assumed the other guys would join me in my disgust.

However, when I turned around the three of them were laughing hysterically. They thought it was funny! I was in utter shock that anyone, let alone the three of them, would find humor in almost getting caught during a robbery. While they laughed, Phillip began playing music on an iPod. It took me a minute to realize that the iPod was not his. That is what he snatched from the car before he booked it out of the lot.

I was mortified and screamed at him to put it back. I felt like I had all of sudden become the moral compass of a group that had lost its way. If I had to pinpoint it, I would say this is when my long-time best friends began to turn on me. They seemed genuinely offended that I had the audacity the scold them for breaking into someone’s car. I think they started to notice, even before I did, that I wasn’t one of them after all.

Once I realized that my anger was falling on deaf ears, I walked out of the woods and towards my house. I exited on the opposite side of the parking lot so I have no idea if the cops were called or not. My head was spinning in so many different directions. I was terrified that someone saw us and would turn us in. I was shocked my friends had done something so immoral and wrong.

That night I wrote out several different text messages but didn’t send any of them. I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t want to apologize for being upset but I also didn’t want to lose them as friends. Foolishly, I hoped for a group text that contained an apology. Something that confirmed they would never do something like that again. That apology and confirmation never came.

The next morning, the group chat was fired up again with no mention of what had happened the night before. I stayed silent and decided that I would let this one go. In my eyes, they had forgiven me for yelling at them so I would forgive them for what they did and how they reacted. It was an uneven trade-off but I wasn't ready to leave my friends yet.

A few days later Phillip and Ryan jumped a kid in the park and stole his wallet. When I openly questioned why on earth they would do such a thing, they were less than pleased. They called me a pussy and insist I “chill the fuck out”. Again, I obliged and rationalized away my feelings. When you pile up all of these red flags next to each other, what happened next isn’t very surprising.

A week or two after the robbery and mugging, Phillip sent out a group text laying out an elaborate plan for robbing the local 7-11 store. As shocking as it was to read such a message, that feeling was quickly supplanted by a feeling of terror when Jerome mentioned he would “bring his gun”. I had no idea Jerome had a gun. I had no idea Phillip wanted to rob a store. At that moment, I realized, I had no idea who these people were anymore.

I stayed silent, refusing to participate in the group chat. My mind raced, wondering what I was going to do. I didn’t want to lose the only friends I ever had. I didn’t want to turn my back on the very people who took me in when I had no one. I wanted things to go back to the way they were. I wanted to understand how things got so messed up so quickly.

The night of the robbery, I stayed home. My phone never buzzed. The group chat stayed silent. I hoped this meant they didn’t do it. I prayed it meant they came to their senses. I eagerly waited for morning to come so I could see my friends in school and we could all laugh at how silly they had been.

I saw Ryan after first period. He had a scowl on his face and rage in his eyes. He pulled me into an empty classroom and began yelling at me. Apparently, they attempted the robbery but were unsuccessful. According to Ryan, despite my silence, they assumed I would show up in the end. The plan they hatched involved me going into the backroom to locate additional employees. Since I wasn’t there, the plan now had a huge hole in it.

To this day, I am still not sure what happened because as Ryan ranted and raved I kept thinking back to the first day of 6th grade. Where was my friend? Where was that tall, handsome boy who said hi to me in math class? Who was this raving lunatic in front of me? When I snapped back into reality, I was able to piece together that one of the employees called the cops and that was somehow my fault.

All three of them got away before the police arrived. However, they now felt this employee who ratted them out had to pay. “Tonight. We are going to this guy’s house and we are teaching him a lesson. You will be there. No more bullshit. You say you're in this group, it’s time to prove it.” Ryan bellowed as he stormed off to class.

In this group? What group? I mean, I always thought of us as a little group of friends but Ryan was talking as if we were some mafia family or biker gang. He was also being incredibly mean. That was significant because I had always excused his behavior because of the kind way he treated me.

The remainder of that day was pure agony. I wrestled over what on earth I should do. Through the next four hours, I came to various conclusions. First I decided, I wouldn’t go but then I realized that meant going back to having no friends. Then, I thought, I will go but not participate. This sounded good in theory but I knew Ryan would once again have a role he would want me to play.

As I walked home that afternoon, the group chat began to light up. Once again, plans were being made but this time I was being called out directly. I was instructed to be at the park at 7 pm wearing a ski mask and carrying a weapon. I read that part over several times. What the fuck was going on? I didn’t own any of that. I refused to answer despite their repeated call-outs.

I should have stayed home but that meant there would have been no voice of reason to stop this madness. I could have called the cops but the idea of sending my friends to jail was not something I was ready to entertain. I realized I was the one who had to show up and talk them out of it. I had to show them the error of their ways.

I showed up at the park to plead my case and beg my friends not to do this. Not surprisingly, they didn’t listen. When they showed up, it was clear they were high, drunk, or both. Phillip had clearly anticipated that I would show up without a mask or weapon. He shoved a ski mask and pipe into my chest. Before I could even say anything I was pushed into the backseat of the car and off we went.

I sat in that car, knowing our purpose but not our actual destination. I had no idea where this guy lived. I stayed silent, knowing that my words would only do more harm than good. I remember thinking, I don’t want to lose my friends. I said that over and over again until I came to a realization. The version of the people I was with at this moment were not my friends. My friends, the video game playing, movie watching, Cheeto eating pals I grew to love, were gone. I don’t know where they went, but they were not here anymore.

I realized that the people I would be leaving behind were not my friends. They were not the people I cared for. They were someone else entirely. I couldn’t change them back. I couldn’t stop what was about to happen. I could only prevent myself from changing as well. The “good version” of them may have died, but my “good version” was still alive and I was determined to save him.

We pulled up in a bad neighborhood and got out of the car. My stomach ached as I sweat profusely out of fear and anxiety. Phillip barely started his speech before I cut him off. This was my last plea before I cut loose the only friends I ever had. “Guys, I don’t know what has happened to you but this has gone too far. Look at us. We used to be just a couple of guys goofing off and having fun. Now we’re doing drugs, owning guns, and robbing houses?! I beg you not to do this but if you are then I am out.”

They stared at me for what felt like an eternity. “Fuck you” snapped Phillip. I knew it was dead. My friendship with them was over. A tear came to my eye as I said goodbye. I shoved the mask and pipe into Phillip's chest and walked away. Once I turned the corner I began to run to the main street. I wanted to be clear out of view before whatever was about to go down went down.

Luckily, there was a cab waiting in the parking lot of the gas station. It felt like he was waiting for me but he was most likely just dropping someone else off. I got in and felt like 1,000 pounds had been taken off my shoulders. I didn’t worry about my friends and what was about to happen because, as I said, those animals were not my friends. Instead, I spent that cab ride thinking about my former friends. I was more sad than anything else.

The next morning, as I got ready for school, my mother called me into the kitchen. On the TV were three mugshots. Ryan, Phillip, and Jerome. A resident in one of the neighboring houses saw us gathering outside and called the cops. When the cops had arrived, they found the three boys going through the house, stealing stuff and beating up that poor 7-11 employee. They were all arrested and charged within hours.

I didn’t tell my Mom the true story until years later. I just told her they must have done that after I left. I felt bad for lying but she would have just made things a lot worse. Plus, in some weird way, I didn’t have the heart to start bad-mouthing them yet. My Mom loved those guys and I wanted it to stay that way, even if it was just for a few more hours.

That day in school, a lot of people wanted to know what happened. Kids I never spoke to were stopping by my locker. I lied and told them I wasn’t there and I knew nothing. I didn’t feel the need to explain myself to anyone. Oddly, I was at peace with the whole situation. I probably should have been more worried about getting in trouble for being in the car but I was too young to know better.

After school that day, I went down to the police station by myself. I told the officer at the desk I had information on the breaking and entering that took place the night before. I was escorted into an interrogation room where I met with two detectives. A balding man with a mustache and a young blonde woman. I told them everything I knew, showed them the texts, and explained my limited role.

I believe two things helped me avoid getting in trouble. First, every witness stated only seeing the three boys they arrested. Second, the guys told the police no one else was with them. It also helped my case that I was clearly upset about my friends turning into lunatics and my inability to stop them. They took all of my information and said they would be in touch.

Mentally, I was prepared to testify against them. A situation I never thought I would be in. However, it never came to that. The evidence against them was so strong, they all took plea deals. All three of them were sentenced to time in prison. Jerome got it the worst because he had an illegal gun in his possession.

Last I heard, they all still live in our old hometown. I never spoke to them again. I quietly finished High School and went to a trade academy three states away. I made new friends and ended up settling in the same town I went to school in. I even got married and had a few kids. It took me a while, but I finally got the happy ending I was looking for.

Sometimes, when I watch my kids play with their friends, I think of my old pals. I think about what might have happened if they hadn’t made a turn for the worse. I think about what might have happened if I hadn’t gotten out of that car. I reminisce about our younger, more innocent days. I wonder what they're doing now and hope they are okay.

I snap out of it though. No point in wasting time thinking about stuff like that. All you can do is learn from it and move on. Besides, I have no time to dwell on the past. Being a parent keeps me pretty busy. Now if you would excuse me, I have to take my kid to a birthday party.

About The Author

Kyle Grappone is a creative writer who enjoys telling a good story. You can read his additional works at KyleGWrites.com/fiction.