Friendship Scars

This summer at my dermatologist appointment, my doctor was checking my back/stomach/neck/arms/legs for any spots that could be possibly cancerous. (It's nothing that serious, it just runs in my family, so I have to go get my skin checked out a couple times a year.) I have had three of these possibly cancerous spots taken off of me already, two on my back and one right above my eye. All three of those spots were sent to a lab and the results came back benign. (Which means they had no chance of becoming cancerous.) She was looking at a couple of spots on my right arm. I felt her cold hands stop. I looked over; she was examining a scar on my arm. She was asking me all kinds of questions about it. I laughed when I thought about what happened.

Volleyball my freshman year. It was the "freshman team" (people who weren't in the fancy-pants select volleyball team) vs. the "JV team" (people who were in the fancy-pants select volleyball team). Our team worked well together. Syd was our libero, Shelby C. and I were the middle blockers/hitters, Tresann and Ashlen were our setters, and Ashley and Alisha were our outside hitters. For some reason Ashlen wasn't at practice, so Syd took her place. Poor Syd, she was not a setter. The ball came over the net, it was hit deep, passed by our back row. The second hit is always supposed to go to the setter, but it was coming straight for me. Alisha was calling out to hit outside, so I set the ball from the two position. Little did I know, Syd was running at full speed to try and set the ball. She ran right into me. It was almost like a football tackle. Thank goodness for ankle braces, otherwise we could have had some major problems. Some how we successfully got the ball over the net. They set the ball to the outside hitter, so it was the responsibility of Syd and I to block that hit. I looked over at Syd and we both got in to our 1-2 position (squatting before the jump). Then a mean question popped into my head... Could Syd even reach over the net? That answer was yes. We both jumped up and while Syd followed rule number one of blocking (spread your fingers as far apart as possible), she failed to follow another blocking rule (arms straight up). Her hand flung into my arm, her long pretty nail slicing a chunk of skin off. We both fell on the ground. She got up, and I extension rolled. Big mistake. By extension rolling, my shirt was shoved into my cut. White shirt. Red blood. That stupid cut bled like CRAZY. It was still bleeding at the end of practice. That night I went through at least 5 different gauze pads.

A couple months later, a beautiful scar formed, and Syd always gave me this "I'm so sorry" look when ever she glanced at it. I would always laugh and say "Now I'll have something to remember you by." When I told the dermatologist that my friend clawed me in volleyball she said, "What a great friend." I think she was being sarcastic, but I replied, "She's an amazing friend." Then I got the usual "wear sunscreen, don't go tanning, you're very fair, and skin cancer runs in your family, so on and so forth" speech and we were out of there.

On the way home I started bawling. I just couldn't hold it in. Some people leave scars on your hearts, but those are bad scars. My friend left a scar on my arm, and it is the good kind of scar. Believe it or not, your arm is technically connected to your heart.