The Thing About Daniel
The thing about Daniel was that he basically always did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. I had railed on and on to him about this being a part of toxic masculinity, but he always came back with something about not bending to society’s demand that we be someone we aren’t, so then I usually said something derogatory about his Leo Sun/Aries Moon/Aquarius Rising combo, which is usually when he stopped listening and fucked off to do whatever he wanted. Again.
You might wonder why we were friends at all. I’m going to tell you.
The summer I turned 19 was not a great one. My mom had passed away a few months before, and my dad spent any time he wasn’t at work asleep. My older brother had only been able to stay in town for a few days after the funeral and didn’t seem eager to communicate with more than a few text messages. My younger sister had spent the rest of the school year at her boyfriend’s house instead of at school, so that summer she was stuck in summer school.
I had spent most of my freshman year of college at home, taking care of my mom in the final months of her illness, so I didn’t make a ton of new friends. Then, after she died, I didn’t really feel up to making new friends. So when everyone from high school came home for summer break, it was a relief. At first.
But no one else that I was friends with had lost a parent yet. One had a mom who had left, but that wasn’t quite the same. So a lot of them were awkward with me, and I spent a lot of energy pretending to be happier than I was so they would be comfortable.
Except Daniel. Instead of shying away from the topic of my mom, he brought her up, even if I didn’t necessarily want him to. We had been friends since we were 12, so he had known her pretty well. All that summer he would reminisce with me about little things, like all the times he’d come over after school and my mom had heated us up a box of Bagel Bites each. I didn’t want to talk about how sad I was all the time, but these little memories were nice. Without his reminders, I might have forgotten about the time she helped Daniel bake his first girlfriend cookies because his mom was a terrible baker. Because of that, I went and dug out her chocolate chip cookie recipe and spent the summer perfecting it.
Naturally, Daniel missed her too. It was hard for me to see that at first, but once I was a little less sad, I could tell he felt the loss as well.
When my birthday rolled around the first week of August, I considered ignoring it. My family seemed to be forgetting it, so I thought maybe I could get away with just pretending it wasn’t happening. Nineteen wasn’t exactly a special birthday anyway—not like 18 or 21, so maybe we could just all forget it. Plus, I didn’t want to acknowledge my first birthday without my mom.
But that afternoon, Daniel showed up at my house early with sandwiches and chips and water bottles. When I had looked at him like he was crazy, he had grinned his usual capricious grin.
“C’mon, Alex. Birthday hike.”
He drove us north out of Los Angeles. When he got off the highway in Altadena, I thought I knew where we were going. Sure enough, soon after we were parking at the entrance to the Inspiration Point loop, taking the very last parking spot.
The loop was a harder hike, one that we had done a few times by then. I knew that we could finish it in about four hours, and that I’d be so pleasantly tired by the end I’d be ready for bed the second I got back home.
“Hey, thanks for this man,” I said as we got started. He clapped me on the back and led the way. We struck up an easy speed, waving to other hikers on the crowded trail. We talked easily, wondering what sophomore year of college would hold for us.
About an hour in, Daniel started checking his map every few minutes and grumbling to himself.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. I knew we weren’t lost.
“Nothing!” He said quickly. He flashed me a smile, but it seemed a bit forced.
“Do you want to turn back?” I asked.
“No, c’mon!”
We hiked a bit further, less than half a mile, then Daniel suddenly darted off the trail.
“Daniel, what the hell?” I yelled.
He laughed, and shouted something about following him if I dared.
“Daniel! C’mon man, stop messing around!”
I didn’t want to get off the trail. Angeles National Forest was enormous, and it was easy to get lost in it. While I had grown up hiking for fun, I wasn’t exactly a practiced outdoorsman. If we got lost, I wasn’t going to be able to get us home.
But I also felt awkward just standing on the trail staring into the thick trees where he had disappeared.
“Ugh, fine,” I grumbled to myself. I stepped off after him, feeling nervous. I tried to keep the trail in my line of sight while also searching for anything that would give me a clue to where Daniel had run off to. It felt like a very high stakes game of hide-and-go-seek.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” I shouted, thinking that if Daniel was just having a laugh, it would behoove me to pretend like it was a game too. Even if my heart was starting to race. Less than fifty feet from the trail and the forest seemed much quieter now.
But he didn’t respond. Immediately I began to panic—what if he had fallen and knocked himself unconscious? There were bears here. Though, I was sure if a bear had attacked him I would have heard that. We had barely been separated two minutes.
“Danny!” I shouted.
Nothing.
Thinking along the same game vein, I yelled as loud as I could, “Marco!”
And at least twenty voices suddenly responded, “Polo!”
I froze, my blood running cold through me. What the hell had that been?
“Daniel?” I called out. I didn’t move.
No response for a second, then a bit of crashing through the trees to my right. I turned, my stomach clenching. What was I about to see?
“Alex, c’mon!” Daniel was there, just a hundred feet away. Waving and laughing.
“Daniel, what the hell?!” I shouted, I ran through the brush as well as I could, then suddenly stumbled into a barely-there path.
Daniel disappeared behind a few trees again, still shouting for me to hurry and laughing.
Despite the weirdness, I felt calmer—this was just like Daniel, to play a weird game with me in the middle of the forest.
“Marco?” I called out, trying not to sound exasperated.
“Polo!” The voices all shouted again, this time much closer.
I climbed up a small hill, and when I got to the top I couldn’t help but bust out laughing. There was a campsite there, a colorful banner with my name, and twenty of my favorite people.
“Surprise!” They all shouted. Their combined voices were so loud, flocks of birds left the trees tweeting furiously.
I laughed harder, and was pulled down into the group. Twenty people hugged me, wishing me happy birthday. To my horror, I shed a few tears as the reality of the surprise birthday party sank in.
“Did you organize all of this?” I asked as I hugged Daniel.
“He did most of it,” my dad said. “You didn’t think the rest of us forgot your birthday, did you?”
I shrugged, sheepish.
My dad started grilling, and my sister pulled out salad and chips. We played games and talked and laughed for hours. It was the happiest I’d felt since the doctors had declared my mom’s cancer fatal.
“Having fun?” Daniel asked, sitting at a picnic table next to me while I ate a second piece of cake.
I nodded. “And good job, I was really surprised.”
“Yes, I nailed it,” he said. I could tell he wanted to clap himself on the back, but I reached over and did it for him.
“How am I supposed to top this for your birthday next week?”
He laughed loudly. “You’ll figure something out.”
I rolled my eyes. Then softly, feeling embarrassed, I thanked him again. I had never thought anyone, except maybe my mom, would ever go through so much trouble for me.
He slung an arm around my shoulders. “You deserve it.”
When people first met Daniel, they often thought he was arrogant and had never been told no. And there was probably some truth to that. But I knew after that summer that he would always be one of my closest friends. Because the real thing about Daniel was that he used his confidence for good, and that doing whatever he wanted usually involved making someone else happy. He was the kindest, most thoughtful friend someone could ever hope for.
Prompt
You can use this prompt to write your own story, draw something, sing a song, whatever you like! I will (probably) use it for the next story!
Include this dialogue:
“But you have to! It’s tradition!”
“Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.”
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Stay safe and healthy wherever you are,
Valorie