She doesn’t believe in accidents. There is no such thing as an accident? Even to this day I find that hard to believe. As if someone can purposely think a big-boned woman is pregnant; or purposely trip over a rock; or maybe even purposely spill grape juice on a bright white carpet.

My best friend Nancy Garcia believes things happen for a reason, but that reason isn’t always good. Five years ago, the summer before I started high school, I was sitting in the living room watching TV and doing what I do best; minding my own business. The phone suddenly started ringing. I answered it and the voice of a soft-spoken girl chimed in.

“Is this Slash?” (If she were calling a girl, I thought, “Who would name their daughter that?”)

“Nah, this is Phillip.”

“Who?”

“Phillip.”

“Oh I’m sorry; I think I have the wrong number.”

“It’s all good.”

After a long pause she asked, “So what’s your name?”

That threw me off. Due to the fact that I told her my name twice already and I didn’t know who she was, neither did she know me, yet she asked for my name. I told her my name for the third time, and in return she told me hers, then she started talking to me.

Even for me, that was very awkward, but I decided to be nice. She called the next day, and the next day, and the next day, until one day she asked me to come to the park to meet her in person. At first, I didn’t want to go to the park and meet her, nor did I plan to, but I was so bored that day; I had nothing else to do, so I went to meet her.

As I got to the park I saw this pretty Mexican girl, a few inches shorter than me, sitting down on the sidewalk looking around. I thought that it could be her, so I just walked up to her. She looked up to me, and asked if my name was Phillip Romar. When I said yes, she smiled and tears started to roll down her cheeks, “You came,” she said, standing up hugging me.

I don’t really know why she was crying, but I thought that I had game, so I hugged her back. We spent the rest of the day at the park talking and laughing (well she was the only one laughing because she thought just about everything I said was funny). The next day she wanted to meet me at the park again, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day.

I usually found her kind of annoying because she always wanted to be around me. “P.J., where are you going?” “P.J., wanna hang out?” P.J., P.J., P.J. That girl made me hate those two letters in the alphabet!  At the most, she called me more than four times a day. She’d just talk and I would just listen. Once I put down the phone; went to the store, came back, picked up the phone, and she was still talking!!

It was so embarrassing whenever she called because my dad would say something about us having multicolored bumblebee kids. That’s when I met Nancy’s mother, Paola Garcia. She gave Nancy hell since birth. I don’t know what happened to her father, nor does Nancy, but her mother and the mother from the movie Precious should be best friends. I’m not going to go into detail what she does to Nancy, because I’m already crying just writing this.

What I will say is that Nancy would be limping most of the time whenever we walked anywhere. I found out about her mother when I asked her why she was walking weird one day. I met her plenty of times and whenever I did, I almost got myself killed trying to defend her. I literally feel bad because the major reason why I’m her friend is because I feel sorry for her.

She is the best friend I have and ever will meet. Even to this day, Nancy and I are still best friends, and we do a lot more than hang out at the park. Usually when I’m sick, she’ll come over and feed me chicken noodle soup and read those retarded Twilight books to me. Every time something funny happens and I laugh, she smacks me; and worst of all, she won’t get off my case about my homework! She’s really like a second mother to me.

Nancy told me a few times that she’s glad she called my number, but if you ask me, we accidentally became friends. I’m sure she didn’t purposely call me that day.