Across+the+Country

Vincent VIllacorta

Across the Country

I walked to the park with a basketball and looked through the fence. I saw my best friend Taro waving at me, trying to get my attention. “Vincent!” he yelled.

I raised my hand to signal that I was coming and yelled back, “Wait up!” We were going to be hanging out all day. This day was going to be incredibly fun, but also extremely sad due to one fact: this was his last day in Burbank.

One morning, a couple of months before, Taro invited me to go to the park. Since I lived right in front of the park, I just walked across the street. I walked through the gate, feeling the strong wind in my hair and hearing the sound of a basketball being dribbled across the courts, and then I saw him waiting on the bench at the grass field. I thought we would be playing sports or something, but that thought changed when I saw the look on his face. He was smiling, but it was one of the awkward smiles he had when there was something bad going on. When I got to him, we started talking and he said, “Hey, Vince. I just need to tell you something really fast.”

“What?” I asked.

“I just got the news today, but my dad told me that we would be moving back to Virginia in a month or two.”

Then the mood just dropped.

I was shocked and stunned for a bit; my eyebrows went up from the surprise of what he told me. I could tell he was trying to make this less sad because he still had the awkward smile. After a few seconds, I asked him, “Why are you moving back?”

He took a moment, then said, “I’m not entirely sure why. My parents said that it was some kind of family problem, maybe my relatives in Virginia, but yeah. I’m moving in a couple of months, and I don’t think I’ll be moving back. I just thought I should let you know now.”

I tried to think about why they would have to move. It made sense that it would be Virginia since he was born there, but I was thinking that maybe his family was homesick and they wanted to move back, or maybe some kind of financial problem.

“Alright, well at least you told me now. Let’s just go out into the field.” I said, trying to forget about it. I noticed he was carrying around a Chinese yo-yo, so I was guessing we would be playing around with it for the day.

As you can guess from the yo-yo, he was a typical Asian boy. He was a Vietnamese kid that was around five feet in height, had long hair, glasses, and usually dressed in skinny jeans, graphic tees, and Nikes (which he was wearing that day). We had mostly the same interests, which is why he was my best friend.

While we were launching the yo-yo back and forth into the air, we tried to keep away from the topic of the move. Eventually, we gave in to the awkwardness of knowing that there was something bad happening. We talked about how we would tell the rest of our friends, and what we would do those last two months.

“Well,” he said, “ I still don’t have a phone, so you’re going to have to tell them. Thankfully, I still have a few weeks when school starts, so I’ll still be able to see them in person.”

“Alright, I’ll tell everyone later. But what are we going to do for your last days in Burbank though?” I asked.

“I’m not sure; I guess we’ll just hang out when both of us are free.”

We ended the conversation with that. We continued to play with the Chinese yo-yo, and then tried doing some martial arts, and when we found a basketball, we went over to the court. It was an awkward and sad day for the both of us. I don’t know what was on his mind, but I was pretty gloomy. We were best friends for about five years and now he’s moving, so how could I have not? At the end of the day, we said goodbye and went home.

I told all of our friends as soon as possible, and they felt the same way. We all wanted to try to make his last days with us special, so we hung out as much as possible. We went to the park at least once a week, the mall a couple of times, and every other place we could’ve gone to in Burbank. I’m one hundred percent sure that it was the most time we’d ever spent in two months going anywhere with all of our friends. Unfortunately, before we knew it, the day of the move came.

I was afraid that it would be the last time that I would see Taro. Thankfully, it wasn’t the last time we talked. I set up an email account for him with our other friends, and we have been contacting each other through that ever since. I was hoping that we could convince his parents to buy him a phone, but his mom says it “ruins his mind.” Yeah, thanks. Anyways, although it’s not the same as seeing him in person, it helps us keep in touch.

To this day, Taro and I are still very good friends, thanks to the Internet. It’s almost like I never lost my best friend at all. Now if only we could find a way that he could visit Burbank…