Dillen and I first met in preschool at the community waterpark. It had aspen trees surrounding it and one small splash pad for little kids. Dillen and my parents had met before, so they started to talk about the new year. I was playing with Julian, one of my friends, when my mom led me to meet Dillen. We were both nervous to meet each other. We said our hellos and then parted our own ways to go play. For the first couple of weeks of preschool, we didn’t hang out at all, but one day Dillen and I were at the drawing table both drawing horses. I looked over at her paper and realized she was drawing a horse, too. I told her that her horse looked exactly like my dream horse, and from that day on, Dillen and I talked about horses all day. Throughout elementary school, if you saw me, you would always see Dillen next to me. We never did anything without each other.

Toward the end of 6th Grade, Dillen and I were FaceTiming, talking about how excited we were for summer and 7th grade. Little did I know Dillen was keeping a big secret from me. I started to see worries in Dillen’s eyes, and she started tearing up. I asked her what was wrong. That’s the moment I knew she was moving schools. She said, “The Community School just isn’t right for me.” She was moving to Sage School, another private school in the Valley. Her family felt that The Sage School would give her the extra support she needed. I started crying also. I hung up the FaceTime call, and I started bawling in my room. Sadness and heartbreak were running through my head. Dillen had always helped me when I was going through hard times, though, so it was my turn to help her out. I did the right thing and called her back. When the call connected, Dillen had her recently purple-dyed hair covering her tears. The first thing Dillen said was that she felt like she just ruined our friendship. I talked her through the fact that we would always be together and that it’s okay to move schools. She knew that I was that type of friend who would support her through this.

That summer Dillen and I hung out a lot. We both forgot that she was switching schools. Once it got closer to August, it hit us all over again, and we got sad. This was a really hard time for me. I would write songs and poems about her to help me cope with the sadness. After a lot of worries about the new school year, the first day finally came. I was excited for the new year but also scared that I would have no one to hang out with. My loneliness only lasted a couple of days when some of my not-so-close friends started to hang out with me more and include me in their friend group. I got a lot less worried about the new year.

I tried to call Dillen multiple times after school to just check-in and talk. Dillen never answered. I started to get worried about her. Then finally, one night she called me. We talked for a long time about how we had found some new friends at our different schools. We were both very excited to get into the year more knowing that we had good friends by our sides. Dillen also told me that she was going to start riding at the same barn as me. I got really excited because that meant I would get to see her often. All the nervousness I had that Dillen would no longer be a good friend of mine left my body, and excitement and happiness filled me.

© Elise. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.