Photo writing

 I do not own this photo

Tommy took this photo in happier times, before the smiles left our faces and before we forgot what 
 laughter sounded like. Every Saturday we rode our bikes to the little park that sat across from the drugstore. Lilly always told her parents she was studying at the library. Lawrence was in college and he always bought the cigarettes for us. We would smoke them under the apple tree and watch the kids pass by. We stayed there until the sun went down and the stars came up. Sometimes we talked the whole day, sometimes our days were filled with laughter, other times none of us spoke a word. Lawrence was the first to stop coming to our Saturdays under the trees, he got a girlfriend and spent his Saturdays with her at the local diner instead of with us under our tree. Jimmy left next, he got a job at the gas station and left us for convertibles. Lilly left after her parents found out that her Saturdays were not filled with studies and books. Tommy started to hang out with a different crowd and didn’t even bother giving us a glance. Soon it was just me under that big old tree with our names carved into its branches.