Post by Crysta Ericson on May 18, 2013 18:33:29 GMT -5
I met Crysta when I was five. It was back when I lived in New Jersey, which I still do, sorta. Right now I’m away at Boarding School in New Rochelle, but that’s against the point, I’m getting ahead of myself. So yeah, we were both five when we met for the first time. I’d lived in the same house with my mom, dad and my big brother Jess since I was born. Crysta moved in across the street from us, with her mom, dad and her two older brothers, Tyler and Matt. I can’t remember exactly how we met, I think my parents just went to say hi, and I tagged along … Or was dragged along, I dunno, I was five. All I really remember is like, walking through Crysta’s house when there were still boxes everywhere and my parents told me to go play in their backyard, so, I did, ‘cause I still took orders at that age I guess. Anyway, so they hardly had anything unpacked but they already had a swing set outside, so I had my eyes on it, you know, ‘cause what five year old doesn’t love a good swing set? So I remember like, running over to it, and before I got there this little girl ran out of nowhere and beat me to the swing, just jumped up on to the seat as if I wasn’t even there. That was Crysta. I still kinda remember what she looked like back then, she had blonde hair tied up in this crazy ponytail on top of her head, and she was wearing denim dungarees and a striped t-shirt, and I don’t think she had any shoes on. The main thing I remember about her is how tanned she was, I dunno it just seemed kind of weird, because it was March, who has a tan in March? Later I found out it was because she’d moved from Texas, and it’s like, always sunny there so … Yeah. I can’t remember our first words to each other but it was probably something really dumb like, ‘Hello, my name is Rusty, what’s your name?’, or maybe, ‘Hey! I was going to have a turn on the swing!’. I doubt it was anything worth remembering, or I probably would’ve remembered it right?
I don’t think we hung out all that much to begin with. I mean, she was the new kid on the block and she was a girl. Plus I always had my best friend Ryan, and we’d been inseparable since like, birth. Me and Ryan hung out every single day, our moms were best friends, our dads were best friends. Ryan was like, a second big brother to me, even though we were the same age. I don’t know how to explain it; I just looked up to him the same way I looked up to Jess. I keep talking about Ryan in the past tense, and although this is a little later on in the story, you should know now, Ryan dies.
Okay, so, I only really started hanging out with Crysta when we were both nine. I think Ryan went away to summer camp one summer, and my parents couldn’t afford to send me or something stupid like that. I just remember being really pissed off that I was going to be best friendless for an entire summer. Then Crysta’s parents had this BBQ and we went over, and I was sat sulking by myself because Ryan wasn’t there and Crysta came over and sat with me. It wasn’t that big a deal, it’s not like we were in love or anything, we just talked. I don’t even remember what we talked about, maybe about music? I think I’d discovered Blink 182 by then. It was pretty normal, but after that day we just hung out more and more. I think that’s the summer I taught Crysta to skateboard, and she was really shit at it, and I laughed at her a lot. Nine year old Crysta was still blonde at this point, and I remember noticing that her eyes were green, and she wore ripped jeans and tank-tops with sharpie doodles all over them, and orange converse with green laces. It’s weird, the shit that I remember. I mean, I can remember Crysta had green laces in her shoes when she was nine, but if you ask me what year world war one started? I’d have no fucking clue. So yeah, that summer kind of marked the start of our ‘real friendship’. I don’t know man, that sounds so cheesy, but there’s no other way to put it.
We used to camp out in her backyard, and play truth or dares, just the two of us. I’d always pick dare, and she’d always pick truth, obviously, girls always pick truth. It was one of Crysta’s dares that lead me to break my arm for the second time. There was this huge tree at the front of her house, and she dared me to climb to one of the top branches and then hang upside down from it, so I did it, because I’m an idiot, and I guess I wanted to impress her a little bit. So one minute I’m hanging from the tree, the next minute I’m on the ground looking up at four very fuzzy Crysta’s. As well as a broken arm I ended up in Hospital for the night with a concussion, fun times. I think that was the … tenth time I was in Hospital overnight? So it was a pretty big deal for me.
Yeah, so when Ryan came back from camp we formed a three musketeer’s type thing and we all hung out together. I really did see Crysta as one of the guys, because you know, she just was. Whatever me and Ryan did, she’d join in, no matter how dangerous. Of course she never took it as far as me and Ryan, but she was a good sport anyway. I don’t really know what else to say about this part of our story, because there’s not much, so I’m gonna move on now.
We were eleven when Crysta moved to Franklin, Tennessee. It was really weird, and even though she’s explained it to me since, I still don’t really get what happened. One day she was living across the street, and then the next day she was gone. We didn’t have phones so it’s not like I could just text her and find out what had gone on, she just sort of vanished from my life, and it sucked. The only way I knew she’d gone to Franklin was that her parents had told my parents, and apparently Matt had said something to Jess about them possibly moving. I dunno, it was weird.
