When I was younger, my best friend was a boy I went to preschool with. He lived about a block away from me and his parents would always throw pol parties and barbeques in his backyard. He had a seesaw that looked like an airplane and sat 4 people, some sort of symbol of the possibility of the future.

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Our other friend was a girl named Victoria. They were both a year older than me, but that never mattered. I don't remember how we spent our days in school, but I do remember being inside his home. I remember his mom marking my height on their living room doorframe and I remember the cacti they had along their windowsill, tempting me to touch their spines and see if they'll prick me. I remember when my nose bled on their kitchen floor and how his dad taught me to stuff a tissue up my nostril to absorb the blood. I remember his second room, set up and decorated for him to move into when he got older. I remember hopping the fence into the neighbor's backyard so we could run back to the front, where the patch leading up to his front door had his signature carved into the path. I remember Halloween spent with him in the neighborhood, especially the one after the hurricane when we had to hop over fallen trees to knock on doors instead of ringing the bells. 

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It was the three of us for a while. We saw each other in school, then went home and waited for the day to start again. Eventually summer came. We had moved on to different schools, but the pool parties and playdates never stopped. Preschools turned into afterschool and a new girl arrived to break out peace. I don't remember her name exactly, but it was similar to the name of the park we went to in our free time- Kristina, I believe. Victoria slowly started to spend less and less time with me, choosing to be with someone her own age. No first grader would want to play games with a kid in kindergarten. The presence of the new girl at my best friend's backyard functions seemed to completely overshadow mine. I guess you could say I was jealous. One day I was washing my hands in the afterschool bathroom when Victoria revealed to me that "he said if he wasn't friends with her, he was going to marry you." And I can still feel exactly how I felt in that moment, although today I wouldn't be sure how to explain it. The only married people I knew were my parents, and marriage wasn't even a topic I had ever really thought about for myself. But yet again, my place was overshadowed by another, and I never got the chance to defend myself. I do remember feeling strange about the fact that something so big had almost already been decided for me, only for it to be switched up - all without my knowledge. 

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Eventually life moved on as it does. I don't remember the last time I saw him. I just remember realizing years later that it had been a while. He had been removed from my life without any goodbye or even a warning. 

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My mother told me later that his parents had gotten divorced, and he moved to a different neighborhood. And no one thought to tell me. He left, and no one thought to tell me. They let me forget about him and our time together, and I didn't even realize it until I saw him one night in a dream. He came to my door with Kristina. They were going back to his old house, and they wanted me to come with them.  We walked the short walk back to the house and when we got there, the entire building was abandoned, covered in vines and moss. We went straight into the backyard and had to hop over the inflatable pools we once played in, now covered in duckweed and lily pads. the airplane in the back was broken and rusted and would never take us anywhere again. 

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I questioned my mother again, and she told me his father still lived in that house, although none of us had seen him lately. I'd seen Victoria and her mother a few times walking in our neighborhood, but other than those few passing waves hello, those parts of my childhood were gone.