ISABELLA

Tatiana Bustos

12th Grade • William Jones College Prep

I made my first best friend on a hot summer day in the middle of June. The green and red concrete of the tennis court gleams vividly in my memory. My long ponytail stuck to the back of my neck as I ran another lap along the black fenced perimeter. My shadow trailed behind me, wide and dark against the concrete. Tennis camp sucked, the days were long and hot, the other kids weren’t very friendly, and I was horrible at tennis. My face was round and red and I was lonely. Everyday was the same, all summer long. I don’t believe that there was a particular moment or day when I found my best friend. It just sort of...happened. Somewhere between being dropped off and spending hours under the hot sun together pushed me and my sister together. Our brows dripped with perspiration as popsicles melted stickily down our fingers.

My little sister is two years younger than me, and my closest friend in the whole world. Her eyes are always watching me. Her eyelashes are thick, and her smirk is unforgiving. I am never more myself than when I am with her. She loves me unconditionally and brightly, our sisterhood surrounds me always.

Nowadays, everywhere I turn, she is not too far behind, matching me step for step and leap for leap, our shadows dancing together across the canvas of life. Our conversations are secrets, every imperceptible eye motion, every tilt of her head;

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a language I have come to know fluently, as she has learned mine in return. We make faces at each other over mom’s head, internally translating paragraphs of mischief hidden in the irises of each other’s eyes.

Even though she is my favorite book that I have memorized many times over, she continues to surprise me everyday. I am proud of the girl she has become, her independence fiercer, her drive stronger, and her determination tenfold mine could ever be. My mom often recounts the story of how I would hold down her legs to prevent her from crawling when I was two years old and she was still just a baby. Things are very different now.

I met my best friend for the first time on a hot summer day in the middle of June. Though she had followed me from home, and I had known her all her life, it took a sweltering afternoon tennis camp for us to meet. We would sit in the only patch of shade available on the sidelines and trade sips from the same ice-cold water bottle. My ponytail stuck to my neck and my glasses slipped down my nose, as her purple-brown knees brushed mine in comfort. These days, the friendship we forged on that tennis court is stronger than the gravity between two planets, reaching for each other across galaxies of stars, pinpricks of light that go on forever.

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