I am the Skeleton in the Closet

Great, Another Friend

Jo and I may have been good during soccer, but outside of that we didn't really have a whole lot to talk about or do. See everyone has that one person who just seems to do everything right. Jo was that for me. She was creative and constantly winning contests for her art. I recall one time she had submitted a random painting she made a few years prior to an arts competition that was held yearly at my school. At that time she had been too busy with her honors classes to put any actual effort towards it. She won an award for that painting. Meanwhile, I had spent hours perfecting my submission only to receive an honorable mention, if anything. She wasn't just good at art though she was an honors student that would frequently win awards in school for her academic excellence. That was one thing that we had in common. One of the few thinking about it now.

We would frequently set up dates to hang out and granted a lot of those times we did meet up and actually hang out. Often times we would get her siblings and some neighbors together to have a water balloon fight. We'd spend hours filling up the sacks of water and then five minutes soaking each other with them. She had this game she liked to play. The game was to tie me to a tree and then see how long it would take for me to get out. Jo would frequently bring up this idea when I was dumped at her house and we didn't know what to do.

"Here, just stand here for a second." She instructed with the rope in her hands

"Oh we're doing this again?" I moved over to the spot on the tree that was already partially curved from years of this. "Ready."

"Alright let's see if you can get out of this one." She got to work on my wrists. She had been studying knots in her free time for fun as she often did with other random subjects. I would let her squeeze the rope around my wrists tighter and tighter as she went. Her go to knot was to wrap the rope around my wrists behind my back three times. Then she would wrap around my legs and body a few times before returning to my wrists and wrapping around the rope in between my wrists three more times before tying it off. "Aaaand.... GO!!" She'd snicker and then run off.

She was always doing something completely different when I'd find her. Reading a book. Writing. Messing around on her computer. Watching TV with her siblings as the window in the family room faced out towards me. I'd come and find her a little while later "Your turn!" I'd exclaim with the rope in hand.

"Oh yea! I forgot you were out there." She'd laugh. "No I'm doing this now. When's your mom get back? Here." She handed me a blank piece of paper not even waiting for a response. "Color or something."

"This is just printer paper. Can I have like a blue paper?" Thinking she must have a bunch since I had seen all of the crafts she'd shown off through the years.

"Just color it in." Jo shorted me as she walked me over to the table with her baby brother.

He could barely speak so I just tried to figure out what colors he wanted when he would point and yell. Somehow he's still being nicer. I complained in my head as I grabbed the red crayon for the third time and tried to hand it to him.

"What are yoooou doing?" Her two sisters peaked around the corner simultaneously.

"Coloring. Want to join?" I gestured towards the supplies.

"Sure!" They seemed excited.

"It's been so long since I've actually sat down and colored." The older one giggled grabbing a colored paper from the cabinet. "Why are you just coloring on printer paper?" She laughed handing me a sheet.

"I don't know, I figured I'd color it. Didn't want to use up the construction paper for you guys ya know." I lied and took the sheet. "Here let's try this game." I flipped over my white paper for a clean sheet. "I'll draw something and then you draw something and we'll just go around and add on one at a time."

"Sounds like fun let's do it!" They agreed.

I started by drawing a background. It was a guy's bald head and he was looking up at the one hair that looped over him. His forehead took up most of the bottom of the page and you could just slightly see the tops of his eyes and nose. From there a house was added, then a fly, then a few liver spots, craters, meteors, suns, dragons, birds, etc... You name it and it was probably in the picture. It was gloriously random and sporadic.

"Let's come up with a story." I suggested and immediately a few ideas were shouted.

"The bald guy's God and this is all of the stuff!" Yelled out the younger sister biblically.

"No, no, no. His bald head is just so big everything is orbiting around it!" Yelled out the other middle child laughing hysterically.

"Nooohh is a herpls feioj sje. An jes trils ferping." Yelled out the baby brother excitedly silencing the room as we tried to piece together exactly what he was saying..

"I like that one. Let's say it's that one." I decided after a long pause. "The hurples fejoy se gez thrills flerping." I mimicked to much amusement.

"What are you guys doing?" Jo stated walking in at the abrupt laughter.

"Playing a game you want to join?" I offered showing her the picture.

"No. We have to eat dinner soon so..." Then she disappeared from the table.

Moments later her mom came into the room "Your moms on the way here.... What are you doing! We have to eat soon! You know we're not supposed to use this table before we're about to eat! Who's going to clean this up!?"

I didn't understand the issue, it could all easily get put away whenever she asked. "We were just about to...."

"No, you go sit on the stairs!" She pointed at me and I obediently left for the staircase.

Her voice was low but I understood the yelling. She was angry because now she'd have to completely re-clean the table and blah blah. I focused on the stairs. They were right by the front door and reminded me of salt and pepper. Not normal salt though, himalayan salt, the pinkish salt. It was a straight staircase. A painted white banner ran all the way up. Since they still had their baby brother around, it was fenced off after the second step. I awkwardly positioned myself hunched over on that step with my knees up to my chest blowing at the dust bunnies underneath the old black and gold chest of drawers they had on the opposite wall. Mom soon came for me. I told her nothing about my troubles. I didn't want her to try and fix them. If nothing else I can just play with her siblings, they all like me. It's not like I have really any other good options for friends that mom will let me see outside of school. I figured climbing into the back seat obediently.