Their first meeting

They'd both had to walk to his mother's friends' house, which was approximately thirty minutes away by foot, as Josh's father had already taken the car to go out for a day with his mates. He'd done this even though his mother had advised against taking the car, as he would undoubtedly get drunk, and drunk driving was illegal. So he wouldn't be able to drive back anyway, meaning they'd have to go to the place he'd parked the car the day after and drive it back home.

Nonetheless, his mother wasn't in a bad mood, on the contrary, she seemed quite happy. Quite unlike her son, who was silently fuming at his father for making them walk all this way for this long. Josh's mother was a rather fit woman, she went on walks or jogs almost daily and on days off she would regularly hit the gym. Her hard work paid off, and this was evident as she seemed fine after this long stroll, but Josh himself was tired and wanted to sit down and rest. This was because his short legs had to take triple the amount of steps her long ones had to, he felt as if his legs would fall off.

Once they'd reached the correct house, after what seemed like an eternity of walking, with Josh asking if every house they'd walked by was the right house, they walked up to the front door and knocked. His mother didn't ring the doorbell, as she knew her friend hadn't yet replaced the doorbell after it had broken well over two years ago. Her reasoning to do as such was that she didn't want to interact with others more than she had to. Saying that if anyone needed her for something they'd call or text instead, and if it were a parcel they'd just leave it with a neighbour or at the front door anyway.

This reasoning backfired when the deliverymen took the parcels back to the post office and she ended up having to collect them herself. However, this wasted time and wasted effort didn't seem to phase her and she didn't let this bother her too deeply, she then continued to keep a broken doorbell.

After a minute or so, from when his mother knocked on the door rather gently, a melodious voice rang out in the peaceful silence, breaking it.

"Coming!" The voice had said.

A few moments later, a figure could be seen stumbling toward the door, the outline of the person was shown through the tinted windows. The exact figure was somewhat disfigured and blurred heavily due to the strange glass. Through the glass, you could barely make out any distinctive features and the colours merged, making the figure less visible.

The person behind the door was seemingly fumbling with the keys, they let out a series of curses and bent over. The person seemed to have dropped their keys, once she'd gotten up again Josh's mother let out a slight laugh. She immediately covered her mouth with her hand and turned her head slightly to the side.

Josh was observing his mother, he desperately wanted to point out the similarities he could already see between herself and her friend.

He wanted to pull on his mother's sleeve gently and say, "I guess… friends are alike, huh?"

Although, he also thought that perhaps it was their similarities, that caused them to become such good friends in the first place, well they were close according to their mother anyway.

The figure finally opened the door slightly, causing the mother-son duo to break out of their thoughts and look toward the person. As the door fully opened, the young boy was busy picturing what his mother's friend might look like.

His mind was racing, imagining whatever he could make out from the figure he'd seen through the glass, he pictured a slightly stout woman with either average or below average height, and straight hair that went down to her shoulders. Whereas, in reality, the woman he saw, greeting them both whilst standing in the doorway, was almost half a head taller than his mother and was rather slim but wore baggier clothes.

He'd mistaken her to be short, as she had been bent over whilst trying to fit the key into the keyhole, she'd been fiddling with the keys continuously since she'd entered the line of sight which was provided by the glass.

The woman at the door looked into the face of Josh's mother, and her face instantly broke into a beautiful and warm smile. Her arms opened at the same time Josh's mother' had. They quickly embraced, both smiling happily.

"——, I haven't seen you in such a long time! How've you been? Oh, Oh, did you catch that huge sale at"

The woman standing in the doorway began talking as soon as they'd both let go of their brief embrace. However, she was soon interrupted by Josh's mother.

"——, dear. Won't you let us inside? You wouldn't keep poor guests, such as ourselves, stuck in the cold after walking for so long would you~?" She smirked playfully at the woman who stared at her for a brief moment before instantly jumping up and out of the way in surprise and embarrassment.

"I'm sorry, ——. I was just so excited to see you again! It's been too long~" she whined slightly before holding the door open for them, while standing to the side, almost fully pressed against the wall. After all, the doorway was somewhat narrow.

"Psh, too long? It's only been a week or two." Josh's mother retorted, her smile widening slightly as she stepped inside and began untying her boots. Josh followed suit and walked in closely behind her. He quickly slid off his shoes, he then proceeded to lean against the wall whilst waiting for his mother to finish doing the same.

"Exactly! Far too long." The woman replied whilst beaming, after a while, the woman turned her attention away from her friend, and instead looked at the boy. She studied him for a minute before a thought struck her.

"Tom! You're upstairs right? Can you come down for a moment?" She was facing the second floor and was looking at the stairs before a voice came from the room connected to the hallway all three of them were standing in.

"I'm here…" the voice called out timidly.