These days, Kristy Thomas shouldn’t be a big part of her life. Claudia doesn’t remember the last time they spoke, more than just a few words forced out in class. They have separate friends, separate hobbies, her life revolves around her art these days, creating anything she can. Or it should. But Kristy has sat behind her all year and she can’t help let her mind wonder about what the other girl does these days. Maybe Mary Ann should cross her mind too. Mary Ann, also her former best friend, someone who she shared those childhood years of her life with. But when she thinks of all that has happened in her life, Kristy shines through instead, obscuring everything else from being important.
Kristy doesn’t really understand, so she pretends. She pretends that she keeps an interest in what Claudia does because she’s popular and everyone looks at her. Kristy pretends she isn’t bitter for a friendship that ended years ago, but at herself, never Claudia. She pretends she doesn’t want the fashion – loving girl back in her life, giggling with her and Mary Ann. She pretends that her lifetime neighbour no longer matters to her. But the baby-sitters club will need help and Claudia outshines everyone else she can think of, a vibrant, bright option above the rest.
Most days, Claudia forgets why she ever cut off her friendship with Kristy. The BSC is thriving and they are all best friends, there for each other through anything. She has Kristy (and Mary Ann) back in her life and everything seems that little bit happier, everything is uplifted and inspiration is everywhere. Except for days like these, when Kristy is trying to be in charge a little too much, and the painful memories rise to the surface instead. It’s so much better though, than it used to be, Kristy cares about all of them now, she thinks.
Kristy knows she can be overly bossy sometimes. She can be too hurtful, too brash compared to quiet Mary Ann or polite Stacey. But when she feels herself slipping, she notices, these days, and she stops, because she remembers a time when Claudia Kishi hardly glanced in her direction, a time when her days weren’t lit up by her best friends. So she tries, for Mary Ann, who cares about Dawn so Kristy will do her best to too, for Claudia, who’s friendship means the world to her, even if Kristy pretends it’s just friendly smiles from across the room.
High school is a shock to their iceberg friendship group. They all have their separate niches in school, Claudia with her art, Stacey and cheerleading, Kristy and sports. They make time for each other though, her friends come to her art festivals and she sits with Mary Ann and Dawn and cheers at matches, and somewhere in between she finds herself learning more about herself. Claudia has always been self-assured, she loves the individuality of her clothes, her own voice in her art. So as she sketches the basketball team and notices her eyes straying to one player in particular more than others, she isn’t afraid of what it means.
Kristy hasn’t forgotten her friends, no, she spends at least some time every day with them and they’re all ever-present in her life, but so is soccer, and basketball, and every other sport she plays. Sports take up a lot of her time these days, so she normally doesn’t have time for the school’s rumours. Kristy’s always been pretty oblivious anyway. She loves her friends though, she loves it when Mary Ann sends her thousands of cat videos, or when Claudia sits in the stands and sketches while she practices. She loves it when Claudia makes loud banners to support her at games, she loves it when Claudia sneaks her extra sweets in the corridors, she loves Clau-. No, because that’s not a thing she has time for, not with sports and her siblings and her friends. One day though, Claudia walks in with a pride pin on her forest green jacket, and Kristy begins to wonder if she should think about that idea.
For all her calm and collected nature, she has no idea how to go about her master plan, so Claudia finds herself brainstorming with Stacey after school on a perfect fall day. Stacey is no help, way too excited about the ‘possibilities’ and the ‘fanfiction worthy trope’, which means Claudia is running on pure instinct when she stays back after Kristy’s practice. Normally she’d pack up her art stuff and leave, they’re not neighbours anymore. But today, she packs up then sits on the bottom steps of the stands, chin resting on fist, and tried to calm her terrified heart.
Kristy isn’t expecting anything really, so she can only stare at the picture of perfect that is Claudia Kishi waiting outside for her. They start the walk back to the Thomas household, slowly, the long way round, hardly any words passing between them. They stumble under the large trees together, the trees they’d had many picnics at last summer, the trees they’d learnt to cycle under, made friends under, and they stop. Around them, fall rages at its finest, the sky is gloomy, the wind is bellowing, tossing the multi-coloured leaves around the two girls. Kristy isn’t expecting anything really, but what she gets is a girl in combat boots and a pretty dress step towards and kiss her.
These days, Claudia spends her lunch break with her friends, she spends her classes with happiness for what she creates, so much more alive than she’s ever thought possible, and then she walks home with her girlfriend.
Girlfriend. Kristy has never really thought she’d get one, but these days she walks home through the trees that hold too many memories, to the street where she had lives once, but to the house next door, all with the girl of her dreams beside her. These days, Kristy is pretty happy.