Sweet Forgiveness

When I was little I had a hispanic friend that I played with at recess in kindergarden. After that year his family moved away for a couple of years, or at least he went to different school. In 3rd grade he moved back and he was big. I was tall, but he was tall and big. He and I had different groups of friends, but we were both athletic. One of the games that we liked to play at recess was smear-the-queer. As a little kid I had a habit of letting my fingernails grow too long before I'd clip them. Well, it was a hot day and we were playing the game (someone has a foot ball and everyone tries to tackle them). He had the ball and I was going for a horse collar tackle. My nail scratched the back of his neck and I saw the blood start as sweat dripped into the open wound. He shrieked in pain, threw down the ball, and turned with anger in his eyes towards me. The crowd started to chant, "fight, fight, fight..." and I heard someone say, "you're dead." I took off running, he chased me and the crowd followed. At one point he was close enough to throw the football and hit my legs. I ended up running for the rest of the break and was glad to hear the bell sound so that I could escape to class. I had to watch my back the rest of the day.

That night I was back at the school for some sort of parent teacher night thing. My mom was meeting with my little sister and her kindergarden teacher and I was waiting outside in the dark. Suddenly, my worst feared enemy was at my side! He said, "Hey, are we cool?" and I felt so relieved. I said, "yeah, we're cool" and then he offered me some of the candy he was eating. It was awesome to be forgiven like that. I learned a valuable lesson and gained a valuable friend.