I’ve had my best friend for as long as I can remember. It was friendship from the start when we realized we both ate our chicken nuggets with honey AND ketchup! She moved onto my street when we were both really young. She was a year younger than myself, but we met even before that. And even though we have our differences, we’re still best friends.
Alexa and I met at our brothers’ high school band concert because our mothers both decided to dress us in the same outfit. When they realized we were dressed alike, we were placed in front of a Christmas tree for a photo. She smiled real big, and I looked sassy in my cool pink little girl sunglasses.
Soon after that band concert, Alexa’s family bought a house on my street. My mother took me there to kidnap Alexa, at least that’s what I’m pretty sure her mom thought. We drove up and Alexa was sitting on the rail of their front porch without shoes on.
My mom invited her to come to McDonald’s with us, and Alexa got super excited and ran inside for shoes. She came back out with her mother closely following, freaking out about some stranger trying to get her daughter. When she saw it was us, she calmed down and let Alexa go with us.
The first thing Alexa said to me was, “WOW, you have a belly shirt. I’m not allowed to wear those!”
After that we discovered we both liked to eat our chicken nuggets the same way and had to buy socks just so we could play in the play place for hours. Sometime after that day, Alexa started getting sick. She had some trouble with her heart, and I remember telling her she was boring because she couldn’t do a lot of things anymore.
I just didn’t understand what was happening when it came to her heart. To this day she gets sick so often she can’t come to school that much. But I still see her a lot because she’s literally right down the road.
My best friend’s sickness doesn’t stop her though. It’s something she struggles with, of course, but it’s also something she grows from. She’s a strong individual, and although she’s younger than me, I still look up to her because of the way she handles things.
She isn’t just my best friend anymore; Alexa is my sister. We bail on each other sometimes and we pay for each other so much that we don’t keep track anymore. She walks into my house like she owns the place and asks what’s for dinner. And I do the same at her house.
Through thick and thin Alexa is like family to me, and I couldn’t live without her.