The Last First Time

By Arfa Alvi

Everything has an end. It is inevitable, known to all.

Or so they say.

Did I really think that a friendship, the very first friendship a child makes, which had continued for years, would suddenly end? The answer to this question, which boggles my mind every time, is one word, a determiner.

No.

From the very first moment I can remember, the first moment I associate with the institution we call ‘School’, the first person to come to mind is that friend. 

Notice how I still call her my friend. 

Do you remember, I ask myself, how you cried yourself to sleep when you realised, when it hit you that it was all over, that it was now past, not present or future?

I think back to years ago now. 

The first day of school, a long, tiresome journey. I dreaded it. I woke up late, forgot my lunch, missed the bus. It was a coincidence, I think now. Our encounter was a fate meant to end.

It was raining that day and my little feet ran, ran as fast as they could, not aware of the puddles, soaking my clothes wet, I clutched my bag tighter. A voice in my head said, “Run.” Was that voice yours or mine, that yearned to see you in my memory again for the last time?

The last first time.

My glasses blurred with drops and I could no longer see what was ahead of me. I fell. My knee…I thought to myself that there’s no time for this and got up again. Maybe it’s been since then that I always get back up. Maybe I’ll get back up again now too.

I didn’t have my glasses on anymore but I didn’t notice. Isn’t it weird? A basic necessity so I could see is lost but I didn’t care. Waiting impatiently to cross the street, the light turned red and I ran.

Suddenly, I’m pulled back and gasp, falling backwards onto the sidewalk, scraping that same knee again. My heart thumps. I look up but I can’t hear a thing. I could have died. 

“-I called out to you! You could have died! You can’t even see where you’re going…” A short girl of 8, hands still gripping my bag mumbled, the pitch of her honey-like voice rising and dropping. Unlike my clothes, hers were clean, ironed and fit. Mine were dirty, crumpled and loose. A red ribbon with twinges of polka-dots, tying her hair together. We were opposites from the start yet from the same school. Her hair was curly, dark brown, flowing around her shoulders as her big eyes stared at me, waiting for me to speak.

“Thank you…” 

“Addy.”

“Addy, yes. Thank you Addy. I’m Nora.”

She handed me my glasses, saying, as she turned to face the street, “You’re from the same school as me. Let’s be friends.” 

I pulled myself up, smiling to myself, “Sure.”

We then walked to school. Perhaps none of us felt to rush ourselves any more, because the other wasn’t alone. I winced as my knee hurt each time I took a step forward.

The rain didn’t help.

After getting our classes sorted, with a little bit of reprimanding from the teachers, we ended up in the same section. As we were late, all the seats were taken other than two at the back and little eyes peeked up from the small books in front of them, more curious about the two drenched children than their reading. Some chuckled and giggled, some just stared, others didn’t care. Definition of a small society.

I tried to forget about my knee but grandma’s told me ‘If you ever get hurt, treat it quick.’ And I’m my grandma’s little girl, I don’t want to make her sad.

I’m about to get up when Addy grabs my hand, her hands larger than mine. She rushes us to the front of the class, whispering to the teacher who nods, amused perhaps, at our difference in heights. I, who’s taller, her who’s shorter.

It was later that I realised you loved the attention and basked in it; but you cared more, for me.

I wasn’t sure where we were going but your hands were soft, full with determination and so, I decided to trust you. After all, you had just saved my life.

That’s when my vision blurred. I hadn’t realised it but I was sweating a lot during the whole journey to school and even in class. My hair was still stuck to my face when I woke up. A sharp pain went through my body as the nurse applied an ointment to the bruise, frowning. 

“Addy, love, where’d you find this friend of yours?”

“On my way to school.” You didn’t tell her that you saved my life — so I blurted it out, “She saved me. From a bus. She’s a heroine.” 

The nurse blinked, smiling a bit as I had now woken up, relaxing herself as she handed me money, “I bet you didn’t have breakfast young lady. My Addy here — she’s my daughter, you see. Was in a hurry today, something about meeting a friend and she threw a tantrum, saying she wouldn’t eat breakfast. Kids…” She looked like she wanted to say more but stopped herself as Addy came up to me.

“Nora, I’ll get the food for you. Tell me what you want. There’s salad, a chicken sandwich, some rice with a kind of spicy sauce, chips and a few biscuits. Mum thinks you should eat light for now though,” She glanced at her mother and then back at me. 

“I’ll have the biscuits then and some banana milk if there is any.” My favourite.

Addy left the room with the money in hand and her mother sat herself down on her chair. “She seems to like you, my Addy does. You’re her first friend.” There was a sad tone in her voice and that hint of sadness edged me to ask something…only I couldn’t.

Maybe I didn’t have the heart to ask why my first friend’s mother was sad. Maybe it’s because I was a child and she wouldn’t have told me, anyway.

Seeing that I didn’t reply as quickly, her mother continued. “Is she your first friend too?” 

I nodded.

“That’s great! First friends, first everythings…it’s nice sometimes.” She basked in her own nostalgia and then snapped back towards her computer and the pile of paperwork on her table. 

I tried not to let myself sleep again — I had to wait for Addy.

Back in my room, to the present, 12 years later, I hold polaroids in my hands. A box stands in the middle of my bed, decorated with a ribbon, ‘Ad & Norrie.’

Through these polaroids, a light shines, focusing my vision onto the two girls at a sleepover — in Addy’s house, the night of my 16th birthday.

“Here’s some biscuits and banana milk.” Addy said as she closed the door. 

“You know me so well.” I replied. The truth was, banana milks reminded me of the smoothies my mother used to make before she’d leave for work. The biscuits of my father, who brought them every time he stepped out for grocery shopping. 

Addy knew this.

It was the first ‘food’ I had infront of her and she had remembered it, although it wasn’t much to remember.

Because that’s what bestfriends do.

“Have you started searching for universities?”

Silence.

For Addy to ask a question that would more prominently be asked next year than now was weird. For Addy to ask a question relating to university in itself was weird because Addy hated school despite being at the top of our class, in every subject. She said she hated the atmosphere, that there was something sickly about it. 

But I loved the school just for that. Its atmosphere, the people. I had made a lot of friends (none as close as Addy) and I had cherished every class, every assembly no matter how boring, every free lesson, every activity, thinking of it as if it was my last. In the present, whenever I think of school, I remember the chalk — the change of blackboards to whiteboards and then to prometheans. The ‘evolution of technology’ and how as we grew up, we started writing less and typing more. Our environment changed, some classmates left and some stayed, some new ones joined. We all shared the same dream at some point: To live, to dream and dream, forever. 

And then our dreams changed. Some wanted to become doctors, engineers, lawyers, writers, play sports, just live. Addy fell into the last category, she had told me one day as we sat on a bench in the park, “I just want to live life, Norrie, live life as it is. I hate change and I love the present because it loves me. Always. It’ll always love me.” I didn’t ask why.

Addy always wore her red ribbon, even now. She said it had been a gift from ‘someone special’ and I asked who but she wouldn’t tell. She just smiled, “An old lady. You wouldn’t know her.” But I did, only, I found out years later.

Coming back to the night of my 16th birthday, Addy’s mother burst in with a cake, singing. The two of them, mother and daughter hugged me and I smelt a whiff of flour and icing and — red velvet.

“Addy, did you bake this?” My eyes widened — the cake was perfect. It was beautiful. I had thought it had been made by a bakery. Addy’s mother’s eyes gleamed as she smiled, ruffled my hair and left the room, closing the door behind her. Maternal love, ever so full, wrapped around her heart with pride.

“Of course I did. I had to, for you! I was shopping for gifts this morning and only realised we hadn’t gotten a cake so I decided to make it myself before you came over.”

She handed me a rose quartz necklace, in the shape of a heart and showed me her own. “One for you and one for me.” 

I still have it. I tend to lose a lot of things, clumsy as I am, but somehow I still have it. To this day, when I smell flour and especially red velvet cake, I am reminded of her. I wear the necklace around my neck, scared that I might forget her — or that she might really leave if I lose the necklace.

On the day of my 16th birthday, my grandmother pointed out to me, “Addy looks weaker every time I see her. It’s like…I don’t know. Take care of her, and yourself.” And so I did — at least, I tried to. 

I rummaged through the polaroids, struggling to find a specific one, dating two years back, to our graduation. It fell out on the bed, flipped over.

“Addy, smile!” Addy’s mother was extra enthusiastic that day. Her only daughter and child was graduating and she had every right to be excited. 

A smile appeared on the face of my friend but it was timid. As soon as the camera turned off, her smile dropped and she leaned herself on the bench, holding her graduation cap. I remarked on this, a little worried. “Ad, what’s wrong? You look–” But she didn’t let me finish. She held her hand up, a smile appearing on her face again, now more weaker than ever, “I’m alright, it’s okay. Let’s see the school one last time.”

I didn’t stop her although I was surprised. She couldn’t wait to get out of school and hated it with everything in her but now wanted to see it ‘one last time.’ We walked around the school at our own pace, with Addy constantly stopping to rest, her worried and anxious mother whispering to her and I could see Addy was annoyed. She wanted to leave but there was something — something in her, holding her back. 

We visited our first classroom, and the woman who had been our teacher ten years ago had decorated her class with pictures of every year group she had in her section. As we walked closer to the picture, I took out my phone. 

Click. 

Two little girls, holding hands, standing close together. A similar photo recreated a decade later, marked as another memory to keep engraved in their heart.

We then walked outside towards the parking lot, now separating. “Nora,” Addy called out my name as she grabbed my hand, “Nora, listen. Take this, please.” She handed me her red ribbon — the red ribbon she carried around with her everyday. “I got this from an old lady, the day we first met. You know I always wore it. You wear it now.” 

“Why? Why’re you giving this to me?” Addy smiled but the light in her eyes, that gleam was no longer there. “Because you’re my bestfriend. Because this carries our every memory, from the day we met till now.” Her voice was melancholic but honey-like as it always was. Her hands trembled, “Norrie, you need to take care of yourself.” She pressed her hand which held the ribbon against mine. 

10 years ago, her hands were soft, delicate and dedicated.

10 years later, they shake, full of nerves, losing colour.

I was about to ask why it all sounded like a goodbye. Where was she going?

Why can’t she tell me?

And then I wake up. Back to the present. This is as far as I can remember — the rest is clouded. Misty. 

But everywhere I go, everything I see such as little girls holding hands, the word “bestfriend”, a bakery — I think of Addy.

Addy could’ve had her own bakery. Maybe she does, somewhere. She’d make the best red-velvet cakes and decorate them in red-ribbons.

Reminded of this, I walk myself into the nearest bakery.

Flour, cream, icing. 

Children laughing.

A red-velvet cake.

A red ribbon.

Rain.

I buy myself a small piece of cake as take-out and walk outside, my other hand holding an umbrella. My hair is tied with a ribbon, my long-coat protecting me from the cold.

Turning around the corner, a little girl bumps into me.

Her hair is curly, her eyes big. She gasps, covering her mouth. “Sorry! I’m so sorry!” Around the age of 8. 

A honey-like voice.

A red ribbon, polka-dots.

I smile.

“It’s alright.”

–

Arfa Alvi is in her last year of college, interested in criminology and writing. She also has a strong love for music which she listens to in her free time and loves baking for occasions. Her love for writing is inspired by her grandmother, an author and poet.