[ TT ] A friend you lost contact with for several years walks up to you asking for help at the store you work at . They do n't recognise you but you recognise them .

`` It's just the next aisle over, towards the middle...'' My voice trailed off as I looked up at a very familiar face from my before time. I just gulped slightly; hoping against hope that he would n't connect the dots. I continued to kneel down in front of the coffee filters I was stocking. 
 
 It was Jeff. My best friend all through grade school and until the summer before 8th grade. We'd drifted apart a long time ago. His whole family still had the Jesus bug even still all these years later. Last I had heard through the grapevine was that he'd gone on to bible college. 
 
 My mother and me had left the church just about the time that life was getting harder and harder for me to deal with. Mom had understood and she took me away from all that. We'd moved down to the big city of Knoxville. It was n't much better, but it sure was n't the hollers of Appalachia I had grown up in. I could be the weird kid and wear eyeliner to high school without getting my face caved in. 
 
 He looked down at me with a hungry gleam in his eye. His eyes lingered on my breasts. 
 
 `` Do n't I know you from somewhere?'' he asked. `` You have a really familiar face.'' 
 
 We had been inseparable for years until that day during the summer before 8th grade. He was like a brother to me. No, he had been a brother to me and we had gotten into all kinds of hijinks. The hidebound religiosity that was supposed to govern our behavior was just a suggestion. We had been little hellions from the hollers. 
 
 `` No... I do n't think so.'' I hoped that my voice did n't betray me but thankfully it was so high and squeaky from the hard edge of anxiety rippling down my spine. 
 
 Neither of us spoke as I smiled blankly at him hoping that the confusion in his eyes did n't turn into the spark of recognition. He shrugged and beamed at me with an awkward smile, full of the false bravado men project when they meet a woman who turns them on. 
 
 `` Well, ok then'' He turned away, heading towards the next aisle and chunky peanut butter. 
 
 `` No Jeff, I do n't know you. Not anymore. And you never really knew me, not the real me. I'm just the little boy who loved you too much until that day when I finally kissed you and you ruptured my spleen and cracked 3 ribs.'' 
 
 

