I was 10 years old when I met him, a scrawny little kid who was too energetic for his own good. I had walked through the doors of the recreation center and sat down by myself on the bleachers after looking around and knowing no one and not being very interested in making friends. See, my mom had forced me that year before sixth grade to go to summer camp and I was rebelling against her, even here where she couldn't see what I was and wasn't doing. I had fought her tooth and nail begging her not to make me go, "why can't I just stay home like I did last summer?" I questioned her until I got so tired of the answer she kept giving me that I resorted to the silent treatment thinking that she would break down and let me stay home after all, but no such luck and on that first Monday morning of camp I found myself in the backseat of the car driving to my doom.

I sat on the bleachers three rows from the bottom and rested my chin in my hand, even from a young age I had already perfected my RBF* down to a T. Nobody approached me except him, that scrawny kid, and I especially didn't want him to approach me. I could see him where he was playing basketball with the other kids and it looked like everyone was having fun with him and fun was the last thing I wanted to have so I could go home at the end of the day and tell my mom it was all her fault I didn't have fun at the camp and I wouldn't be returning. I looked around the room and saw they had every sport imaginable but I wasn't, and I'm still not, a sport person. The next time I looked back over at the scrawny kid I saw him heading my way but in my head I thought he couldn't be because I had leave me alone vibes rolling off of me in waves.

He finally made it over to the bleachers and walked up to the row in front of me having a seat, I ignored him pretending he wasn't there. "Hey, I'm Sam" was how he introduced himself and I turned to look at him. "Okay," I replied in a tone that clearly said I didn't care and he could leave. But he kept pushing, "what's you're name?" I rolled my eyes and said "could you leave me alone?" He didn't even flinch at my rude tone, just went on talking like I hadn't said anything. "What's your name?"

I sighed, "I'm Jan."

"What's your real name?" he asked as if that couldn't be it.

"Jannelia."

"Yeah, I'm just going to call you Jan." That annoyed me, he hadn't even tried to pronounce it before writing it off as too hard to pronounce. I went back to ignoring him but he still persisted. "Why are you sitting over here by yourself?"

"Because I don't want to be here but my mom is forcing me and I don't know anyone."

That summer was one of the best summers of my life as a kid. After the month that my mom had paid for was up, I asked her if she could extend it a few more weeks and she did, giving me a knowing smile and an "I told you so."

Sam called me every night to talk on the phone back when house phones were a thing. I was glad he was so persistent. We had gone to different middle schools but he went to my high school for a year before he transferred to another high school and we lost touch. After graduating high school I found him on an app called Voxer where we got to talking again and catching up.

That same year we graduated high school we became close friends again turning into best friends for the next two years, hanging out almost everyday. In 2014 we stopped being friends for many different reasons and only recently saw each other again and realized how much fun we still have together. Sam is the longest friendship I've had to date, over 13 years give or take the times we didn't talk that much but could still count on each other. Hopefully there are many more years of friendship in our future.

*RBF – resting bitch face.