“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” 
― A.A. Milne

Yuri. Jessica.

It's funny (but not really).

Friendship has a funny way of bringing people together. Sometimes it decides that you'll need to wait to find that friend who you'll never want to say goodbye to. And it's funny (but not really) because you never know how long that wait is.

(Dear Yuri...)

It was like that for Jessica and Yuri. They've known each other for almost 5 years now, and although now they're connected at the hip and backside (don't even ask), it wasn't always that way.

In grade 7, Jessica and Yuri weren't even on 'goodbye, I'll see you tomorrow' terms. They saw each other in an extension class once or twice a week, but that was it.

To be honest, Jessica was quite intimidated by Yuri, the girl who seemed to be friends with everybody and had 'ballerina', 'flutist', 'top of the class' and 'sunshine' amongst other titles to her name.

(...will you remember our hugs?)

There was a time that year when Jessica learnt how to make Yuri laugh. It involved something along the lines of tickling her in the ribs or poking a finger in the crook of her waist, making her giggle loud enough to earn the glares of a particularly scary teacher.

Jessica supposes they were friends then.

That was the year that Jessica said goodbye to Tiffany, one of her closest friends.

In grade 8, the gap between their classrooms stretched to the other side of the whole building, a minute's walk away, through several handball courts, arches of metal pipes and broken doors.

(And those mornings when I was just too tired and lay my head on your shoulder?)

It's probably accurate to say that the gap that year reflected their friendship, too. They still took that same extension class, and by then, Jessica could probably name all the instruments Yuri played, but she kept forgetting who Yuri's teacher was and couldn't keep track of all her new friends.

That year was a distant year for them, and a good one (in retrospect) for Jessica. She went through the wrong crowd and made some mistakes, but though some bad things happened, she learnt from them. And that's what's important.

There was a time that year when Yuri told Jessica that she'd be sending in her application for another school, and at the time, it was a little sad, but Jessica was happy for her. If it was a better path, then why not