My friendship with Annie1 started up a few times before it really got off the ground — just before grade 1, apparently, and then again during, and then again at art camp while we were midway through elementary school. And then — for good — while walking down the street near our high school, where we had found each other again, when there was a pause in our conversation — about late-aughties post-hardcore, or vampires, or something. We were waiting for the light to change.
“Do you want to be best friends?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
That was the way it was, after that.
She got married, this week. I was a bridesmaid. My husband and I left town in the middle of rush hour traffic, collapsed into the second-cheapest motel in some Thousand Islands satellite, were awoken by the death knell of the fire alarm’s battery life and sat in a heap in the lobby while they were changed. We bailed as early as we could stand it, but the sky had already gathered to darkness, and when we emerged onto the highway it cracked open, for some old God to weep fury onto the earth of eastern Canada. The air debated a hair’s breadth between ice and water. We kept our eyes fixed forward. We arrived three hours later than the GPS said we would, one windshield wiper broken off on the side of the 401. We were delighted. Worth it, you know? Worth it for Annie.