FRIENDS FROZEN AND FRIENDS FOR THE SEASON: CHAPTER 1

 FRIENDS FROZEN AND FRIENDS FOR THE SEASON

CHAPTER 1: Car heaters and school friends

The watch said the time was 9 a.m. She had snoozed the alarm and dozed off to suddenly wake up to a very annoying car honking. Sam rubbed her eyes and checked her watch again, the battery had died and the snooze had never rung again. Panicking, she looked out of the window. There was a flabbergasted Nat completely decked out in a white woollen dress and a fur overcoat with her arms folded and shooting daggers at her dishevelled appearance.

“What the hell Sam? You are lucky it’s a weekday and the rest of the students are out on Christmas break! Someone would have screamed at me for honking my car this long to wake you up! If we don’t leave in another 15 minutes we might miss the next train! I told H that we are going to meet him at the station 30 minutes ago, so you better hurry your ass over here!”

“15 minutes are all I need! Thanks for the wake-up call, you are the best!” Sam made a puppy dog face as she hoped that this would calm her friend of the dog years.

Sam hurried back to brush her teeth and complete her morning routine in a quarter of the time she usually took and decided she would just finish the easier aspects of make-up inside her car. So she changed into a woollen frock she had since she was in high school, wore her winter cap and scarf and stockings grabbed her parka and bags and went to check if all her windows were closed and turn her radiators off. She would not want to return to a chilly home with soaking carpeted floors from all the snow that flurried into her apartment through some creak or opening. As she went to her window she realized that Nat was now back in her driver’s seat after the yelling session and typing away on her phone.

Nat had known Sam for the longest time possible, but not quite stayed in touch. They had gone to the same kindergarten, same junior school way up to the same high school. But then their lives had drifted apart. Sam had gone into becoming a grad research student in Germany. Nat on the other hand did not have the idea what to do with her life for the longest time. Nat had taken a year off after high school ended and then suddenly wanted to become a game developer. Strangely she had never been interested in video games or computer science ever during her school life- so this sudden passion for Game design came as a surprise to everyone around her. However, fate found Sam and Nat years later in Germany, where Nat was now interning in a lucrative project for Ubisoft for over two years.

As kids, they never had the same interests. Nat was more studious whereas Sam was more into art and culture. Sam still remembered how Nat used to miss all school social events because she was always at home studying. And now from the direction life had taken, Sam was more in academia than ever and Nat was more of a conventional earning adult as would be considered by most South Asian parents. As she glanced out of the window watching Nat lost in her phone, she felt like she was trying to gain some understanding of Nat- who has become an adult. Nat suddenly laughed at something on her phone. Probably a meme. Was she still that person who gets lost in her work, always lost in her world? In their teenage years, Nat had this habit of zoning out like a kite in the sky and Sam felt like the spool grounding her to the Earth. Nat was mostly invisible to everyone in school. She topped the class but she was never popular - Even in college when Sam had seniors, or juniors who had graduated from the same high school were like “Who was Natasha?” when she brought her up in any conversation. Is Nat still invisible in Ubisoft? Or is she popular now?

 H, her grad school program friend was the reason Sam had crashed into Nat at a gathering after the regular grad school bar meet-up. And both of them had almost drunkenly sobbed, exchanged numbers that September night and texted occasionally memes, but never had any heart-to-heart conversations. Partly it was her fault reflected Sam. Living in Germany had closed her off from people. She has learned to live the “German way” she would jokingly tell her parents. She realized that she was going on this vacation to Amsterdam and H their mutual Munich friend and Nat was a stranger to her….She hoped that in those moments where she was looking at her old friend unbeknownst to her, she was comprehending this version of her friend. Her favourite colour in school was green, she liked the lemony hot flavour of Chips and in school, she also knew which actor Nat had a crush on.

Nat had now glanced at her window and seen her. Caught like a deer in headlights, Sam quickly closed the window, retracted, grabbed her bags, slipped on her boots and headed down the stairs, opened the front door of the student housing and walked out in the subzero freezing winter air. Nat walked out and opened the trunk for Sam to place her belongings and headed back inside the car. Sam closed the trunk and rejoined her inside the car. The heater inside the car had turned Nat’s cheeks pink. Sam noticed that Nat looked more or less the same since high school- just with longer hair. The hair was still the same – as bushy as ever flying out in all directions. Pink cat-shaped glasses adorned her pear-shaped face and from how enlarged her eyes looked, Sam guessed that Nat probably had developed poorer eyesight sitting in front of the computer the whole time.

Nat hugged Sam.

“So long Natty” Sam said in her school sing-song voice.

“Yes stalking me from the window… were you thinking of backing out from our ultimate school dream to go to the Amazon forests together?” smirked Nat.

“You never know....only this trip to Amsterdam will tell”, said Sam returning her smirk.

Nat playfully punched Sam.

At least she remembered the Amazon plans.

Nat drove out from the front of the apartment housing.

“Here’s my phone. Tell H we are finally heading to Hauptbahnhof”

“Done,” said Sam typing a short message and handing it back to Nat. She noticed Nat’s clean manicured nails with sky-blue nail polish. Nat was never too big on make-up in school. Sam looked at her chipped nails and dry hands from lab research work and decided to complete her makeup session.

They fell into a comfortable silence inside the car.

“You are my first friend in Germany I feel like I can finally share everything with you here” suddenly said Nat.

“Why?” said Sam as she lathered some moisturizer on her face and arms.

“You knew me when we were in school but you are still so separated from my college life and work life and I can share everything with you knowing that I can bitch about anyone without the fear of you judging me. You were always like that Samirooo. You didn’t judge anyone for anything, that’s why I am so glad I found you here”

“Then spare no deets…spill the tea and I will be spilling mine” smiled Sam.

For the first time in three years, Sam felt at home in a city where she still felt like an outsider.

Sam was now feeling warm. Was it the car heater or Nat’s hug? She didn’t care. That was the power of school friends, she thought.