Elm’s perpetual scowl deepened as he eyed me through that shaggy curtain of hair he liked to hide behind. It was very bearded emo of him. It wasn’t above my notice the way the fingers of the hand I’d just swatted away flexed at his side. My goodness, I hadn’t smacked himthathard.
“Don’t be a baby. It was a love tap,” I grumbled defensively as I jerked my chin at his hand.
The hand flexing at his side paused and he let out a choked grunt that told me I’d startled him. Good. Take that, you oversized ball of fur.
His beard was shaped, well groomed, but it lacked that thickness of the hairs, that crisp beard look one would expect. It was more soft and fluffy looking like the hair on his head.
Forest, Elm’s father, had some form of hair overgrowth issue. It was pretty bad. His sons had inherited a much milder form of it but it was obvious to anyone who glimpsedthem. Think hyper-hypertrichosis, I believed I’d heard Sunny explaining to someone who’d been rude enough to ask about her husband’s rather overly hairy visage. Calling someone’s husband a skunk ape in the flesh, a Werewolf man, or the dozens of other not so kind comments that came their way, is not exactly polite conversation, but Sunny took it all in stride.
Elm and I had met at a park play date organized by our mothers as toddlers that became a standing thing, every single Wednesday, then went to elementary school together, same grade, same teachers every year. I had a feeling thinking on it now that Mom and Sunny must’ve requested it to be so, considering we pretty much became each other’s shadow, we got along so well. The irony was not lost on me that the hairiest boy in our small little school preferred the company of the girl who’d suddenly started losing all of hers.
Baldy and Fuzz, the children had taunted us. Well, they did to our faces until that incident… Then, afterwards, Mikey McNicknel nursing that broken arm and the bite marks, well, it was mostly said behind our backs or on the days Elm missed school.
Elm was never much for bullies, and I tended to avoid confrontation unless someone pushed me past that point of walking away.
As we got older, headed for middle school, Elm had more and more dust ups. Loud mouthed prepubescent boys decided picking fights with him was some sort of rite of passage into teendom, gang up on the hirsute giant. It was gradual but Elm had started to withdraw, his worry the bullying would extend to his hairless shadow not unfounded, and he just kept withdrawing until it got so bad his parents opted to take him out of public school completely. His brothers left about that time as well. They really didn’t have it any easier. It was probably for thebest, all things considered. I’d gotten into my first fight because of some jerkoff trying to put gum into Cy’s hair.
The Tree boys were smart, all of them, the kind of straight A students my parents would have loved to have.
Birch was really tech savvy, or so I’d overheard Mom telling Dad. Cy got into the mechanics of it all, be it dirt bikes, cars, farm equipment, anything he could work on, tinker with. I’ll never forget the look on Sunny’s face when she found her dismantled lawn mower, Cy still trying to puzzle out how to put it all back together. He was around thirteen, I think. Now, Cy’s beefed up truck was his pride and joy. You couldn’t miss the damn thing roaring down the street. Dad has helped him with it a time or two over the years.
My parents still remained fairly close with the Trees and accepted my reluctance when it came to anything to do with them.
My joke one evening post Dad lending a helping hand, about men in big trucks overcompensating for something was not a well received dinner table joke in the Dubois house. Not at all. I’ll say that much. I never knew Dad’s face could flush a weird purple in embarrassment. Why that flustered Mom and embarrassed the crap out of my father, I never quite figured out— we’ve never owned an overcompensator before. I’d had to settle for them both being flummoxed by a random penis joke from their only offspring, despite my age.
The Trees camped and other outdoorsy stuff a lot, my kind of dream family fun times, doing their schoolwork remotely, always outside enjoying something, some sort of hybrid model of learning, to hear Sunny explain it, to what they offer in public hybrid learning models now. If only that could have been me, maybe I’d have been a bit more invested in my studies.
I mean, maybe I wouldn’t. Who knows.
I’d felt a bit lost without Elm. I’d like to think I’d eventually adjusted.
I’d been more than a bit lost at first, to be completely truthful here.
Grimacing internally, I mentally rolled my eyes at myself. All bull crap aside, I’d been devastated. It had felt like a betrayal, and it cut deep.
At some point after junior year of high school, I’d like to say I’d reached a turning point but I’d honestly just stopped caring— other people’s expectations can’t crush you anymore if you stop giving a single muggy goose fart about them.
Embracing my eclectic self fully by adulthood, my straight laced, by the book folks didn’t know what to do with their think outside of the box child by that point.
They worked with what they had. I’d tried my best.
I wasn’t the greatest student, school just really wasn’t my thing. My attention span lasted about as long as a goldfish’s. Maybe less. Maybe that’s insulting to goldfish. Either way, I graduated on time, if by the skin of my teeth, that had to count for something, right?
It felt more like I’d survived, tolerated the whole high school experience. Can’t say I missed a single bit of it, not even after all these years.
Thinking offering a bit of an olive branch was in order here with Elm, soothe his pinched feelings, I muttered quietly, ““Dark Enough To See The Stars”. I know I’m a bit late to the party but I heard it the other day. It’s, like, top of my playlist right now. Right up there with “Island in the Sun” and “Buddy Holly” good.” Clearing my throat, I added, “I don’t know if you still listen to-”
“Pru, dear!” Sunny came charging up, tightly bundled in her favorite pink coat, her behemoth of a husband Forest rumbling unintelligibly a short ways behind her. Forest’s thickarms were outstretched as if in preparation to catch her, should she lose her footing. The most relatable thing about Sunny was her epic klutziness. Unlike her, I had no strapping male who absolutely adored me waiting in the wings to catch me. I ate crap, I fell, I flippin’ felt it.
It was comical watching this enormous man decked in flannel and holey denim chasing after his marshmallow of a ball of sunshine of a wife so heavily trussed up in warm clothes she looked like a pretty pink puffball confection scrambling up to us.
“Elm listens Weedzer still. Old moodvies like used to, too,” Elm grunted out shortly, before stepping aside to let his mother by.
Truth be told, I still thought about Elm often, sometimes a lot, despite how much I lied to myself and claimed otherwise. He’d withdrawn from me and our friendship completely shortly after leaving school. One moment we were besties, listening to music, embracing our love of black and white classic horror, wondering what was in store for us come adulthood, daydreaming about the day we graduated, going in on our first apartment together and staying up all night eating crap, looking for jobs, then the next thing I knew I was conductor of the oddball train, jamming out to our faves and binge watching the classics solo, party of one. There were other friends, sure, but they inevitably came and went. None were Elm. No one got me like he did. None managed to claim the spot he had, fill those monstrously sized shoes.
Maybe it’s just my teen brain building it all up to more than it ever was. What did I know? The whole thing sent me into a spiral that took me a while to drag myself out of. I felt like I’d lost a piece of myself, my soul. It nearly ruined me. I’ll be damned if I’m going to head down that rabbit hole head first again.
If there was anything I thought back on with some regret from my school days, it was that. He’d pulled away and in my confusion and frustration I’d just let him let go— didn’t even muster up a fuss about it. I thought that’s what he’d needed, what he’d wanted, and he’d come back when he was ready. He’d been the moody bear during those years, so I hadn’t expected his removal from my life to be permanent.
