I was still in my car, idling in the driveway at the house I now called home, when I opened the second envelope from King. I pulled out a picture frame. The actual frame wasn’t anything special, but what was inside of it WAS. It was the drawing King and I had drawn together in my notebook on the day we met on the playground as two kids who didn’t know shit about life except that it could be cold and cruel. I ran my fingertips over stick figure King and Preppy, then the Star Wars stilt home. I laughed at the blood spattered on the page from my broken nose and made a mental note that Tyler, the bully responsible for that bloody nose, was long overdue for a house egging. I read over our notes in misspelled block lettering. HOBBIES was in bold letters with King: art shit and Preppy: bitches written underneath. Next to HOBBIES was GOALS. Underneath we’d written: Own the town. Be our own bosses. Kill anyone who gets in our way.

That day changed everything.

It changed ME.

King and I entered that playground as kids with no futures. We left with one we’d created.

Scribbled on the bottom of the frame, in bold black marker, in King’s shitty handwriting, was a single sentence.

We did it all, and more.

“Yes, yes we motherfucking did,” I said out loud, blinking back fresh tears and smiling like a crazed idiot.

Fucking best friends.

THE MOTHERFUCKING END