The sky was painted with beautiful watercolors of pinks, reds, oranges, and yellows. The leaves crunched under our feet while our legs carried us through the Rockford highschool cross country course. Step by step, stride by stride, my best friend Makenna began to creep closer to me. Makenna and I’s friendship began when our 7th grade history teacher decided to sit us next to each other. And after that the rest was history. Running by her side felt just like when we used to run together in middle school. By mile two we were running in sync, we felt unstoppable. Yet something was off. The mental connection wasn’t there. When we ran together before it was like we were having this conversation with each step we took. But now there was no conversation between us, with every step we tried to one up one another. Fighting to see who could run faster. 

My competitive side kicked in and this race was no longer for fun. It was to beat Makeena. As she would speed up I would mimic. The voice in my head telling me, You can’t let her beat you! This is YOUR race! I began cutting her off at corners and sprinting ahead every time I saw her in the corner of my eye. With no words we were having the first big fight in our friendship. 

After a long mile of fighting to get ahead the finish line was in sight. We both took one look at each other thinking, You better get out of my way! THIS IS MY RACE! And we bolted to the finish line. Those 200 meters felt like a lifetime and yet it was over in just a few seconds. As Makenna passed me I felt like screaming and if I had any breath left I just might have. Devastation flowed through me as I watched her cross the finish line from behind. My competitive side ached with pain. Winded and gasping for air we both looked at one another. 

A whole rant formed in my mind but only a few words came out of my mouth, “What the heck was that?” 

“I could ask you the same thing. You were the one who wasn’t letting me pass you.”  She replied while hunched over. 

“No, you're the one who wasn’t letting me pass you.” 

“I think you’ve got your stories mixed up there.” 

“Let's agree to disagree,” I said, sick of the bickering. 

You could see the tension between us. While we both stood there panting we looked up at each other. Our eyes met. As I looked at my best friend the heavy anger that weighed me down the whole race melted away. I came to the realization of how truly ignorant I was being. The tension between us shattered to pieces as our laughter filled the evening air. Now that we were out of breath from laughing and not running we rapped our arms around eachother. We knew at this moment that we are better together than apart. This wasn’t my race nor hers. This was OUR race!