50 Word Non-Fiction: Friendship – Batch 9

Every week, we publish the latest 50 Word Non-Fiction stories of Friendship. Read this week's pieces below!

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We met through work. Spent a lot of time together. Got on well. Sometimes opinions differed but essentials were in tune…I thought. Until I disagreed with something she said. She left abruptly and a few weeks later a text – ‘ I’ve decided to let the relationship go’. 15 years.

Sweet Friendship

Maureen and sister Nora each had a precious tin containing a week's sixpenceworth of sweets – aniseed balls, parma violets, jelly beans. I had no such tin but without debate, they took it in turn to allow me to sample their revered contents – a shared treat, never forgotten.

'You'll never guess!

Can I borrow that lipstick?

Predrinks?

YouTube singalong!

Can you hold my bag?

- my hair?

- me accountable?

Midnight WhatsApp…

Are you serious?

Shut up you cow!

We ok?

Look at my ugly thighs!

He does not deserve you.'

He sat in silence, lunch untouched, a ghost in the noise.

She came anyway – never speaking, only sitting, soft as a breath beside him.

Weeks passed. Then one day: a folded napkin, three words in shaky pen –

'I see you.'

He didn’t smile.

But he came back the next day.

Tassels trailed your handlebars.

You rode out of your seat, up and down your drive.

Inching ever closer. Up and down. To my drive.

Jacaranda belles sent my bike sliding.

My torn knee tingled, painted red by your mum’s mercurochrome.

The blood spilt on your bitumen cementing a lifelong friendship.

Me, Bell and Nash were as thick as thieves, teenage tearaways doing our best to escape the ravages of poverty and neglect when Nirvana's Nevermind album dropped like a bomb and blew our minds. We drank, played instruments and bounced off walls together, friends till the end.

A lifetime later I learned we shared something more profound than having started school together.

With memories of our laughter still fresh, I know we found a solace that carried us through the darkest of times, surviving abusive parents.

It was a friendship that taught me love. Thank you my Friend.

He asks me about my childhood. She flashes into my head instantly. My total opposite, my best friend. Until she left. I stayed. The fog clears. I don't need to be here, I don't need his help. I just need to ask myself: 'What would Katy Bell do?'

I was hungry, but not quite that hungry.

'Did you cook this haddock yourself?'

'Why, what's wrong with it?'

'What's all this black stuff?'

Pregnant pause. 'I wondered why the salt seemed so big…'

George avoided me until my elderly spaniel died. He decided to check on me and brief encounters became frequent visits. He comforted me and listened patiently to my outpourings of grief. This friendship continues but I now call him Tom since George seems a daft name for a cat!