Hurt People [1/10]

I remember when I was a kid, I had a friend named Jackson. Jackson was a year younger than me, but my mom was friends with his, so there you have it, we were friends. Actually, that’s how I’d like to remember it, but I can’t remember ever actually spending time with him unless I had to, when our parents pushed us together. A year doesn’t seem like much, but when you’re a kid, it feels like anyone a year younger than you is a baby. I was in kindergarten when we met. One day, Marie, his mother, called my mom to talk. They were always good friends, and I had to go with her sometimes when they went out together. My father had taken on a second job recently, and Marie had the idea that I could come to her house when my parents were busy. That didn’t make much sense to me. My mom said she’d talk to me about it and let me decide. The thing is, my mom was always home anyway, and while Marie ran a daycare out of her home, I didn’t feel like I needed a babysitter. I thought about it, and I really did like Marie and her husband Ted. He always gave us ice cream when we were at their house, and they felt like an extra pair of grandparents for me. But this was clearly meant as a play-date for me to spend time with Jackson, and I didn’t think it made sense to plan a hang-out session with somebody that I didn’t even know. Even so, I guess I figured, “Why not?” Not being home for a while sounded fun.   
The day came, and when I left my house, Marie had already been outside, waiting. I thought that was strange, because they practically lived next door. But adults tended to do things like that. I was barely out the front door when the kid came running with his arms outstretched, shouting, “Audreyyyyy!” I was taken aback, but I tried to be polite and hug the kid. I said hi to Marie, and she just smiled down at me. I went into their house and it took a while to stop feeling awkward. Jackson almost immediately ran off in excitement, and I wasn’t sure whether I was meant to stand and wait or run off with him. I just stood there. When he came back, his arms were full of wooden puzzles and he clunked them down on the kitchen table. He handed me one of them, and then sat on the other side of the table sitting opposite me, where he placed Marie’s egg-timer. He grabbed another puzzle for himself, and dumped the pieces onto the table, so I figured I should do the same. After I did, he locked eyes with me and said, “Let’s race!” He set the timer, and then said, “Ready, Set, Go!” His hands were a blur and I barely had time to process what we were doing before he started snatching pieces to place on his puzzle board. I started to work on my own puzzle, but there was no way I was beating him. At first I thought that he just practiced a lot, and I guess he did. But over the next few hours, as he put together more and more of his puzzles in record time, I realized that he was just really good at this. After each round, he would triumphantly announce, “I win you!” instead of “I beat you.” For whatever reason, I just smiled and never corrected him. Sure, he was socially awkward, but God, was he smart. I did have fun when we played over the years. I felt cool, because he liked me and I was older than him. We played with puzzles for a few years, and I thought we were good friends until he stopped contacting me. I wonder if I did something wrong, or if he just grew apart from me.