Strangers With Memories

Fighting Words: A story by Rachel Turley (13), St Raphaela's, Stillorgan, Co Dublin


We were inseparable. We did everything together. We laughed until we cried, we talked for hours and never ran out of things to say, we ran in the rain and climbed trees, we blasted music at top volume and danced to it in the middle of the night. We lived life.

Some days we were artists who had more paint on each other’s clothes than on the canvas. Some days we were bakers who baked cakes that looked like rubber and were inedible. Some days we were actors who used phones as cameras and couldn’t get through a scene without laughing. It didn’t matter what we were doing as long as we were doing it together.

We knew everything about each other. I knew her favourite colour was orange because it reminded her of the sunset. I knew she cried if a bee died or a flower was trampled. I knew all her silly little habits that made her unique, like how she fidgeted with her hair when she was nervous.

We were best friends, soulmates. Where did it all go? We always said we’d be friends forever, but everyone makes promises they can’t keep. It was so sudden. In the blink of an eye we were strangers again. Not friends, not enemies, but strangers . . . with memories.