Diabetes; painful, emotional, and depressing. Levi; emotional, strong, and tough. Levi and I have known each other for 10 years now, we met at age of 2. Levi has always been overweight, and it concerned me as a friend but he always told me he was fine. I loved his mother, I saw her almost everyday. She was such a role model to me being a single mother of 4, and with Levi being overweight. Levi was that kid that loved being overweight, as much as people laughed at me and him together and called him names, he didn't seem to care, he was happy with himself. Gym, oh gym, Levi would do this thing where he ran in circles with the class but then dodged into the locker room and waited for class to end. As much as he had emotional moments I still loved him.

A few weeks ago as I was leaving gym, I quickly noticed Levi wasn't coming out. I waited outside for him which was kind of awkward with all the boys walking out. I memorized all of their outfits like usual. I was strange that way. Red Nike, white basketball shorts, long brown hair ties on the top, blue flats, black Jeans, and a buzz cut that made his head shine. The moment was quickly ruined when I heard Jack screaming for Mr. Saiwd. He came rushing in and carried out Levi in his arms, throw up on his shirt, sweating, and red, very red. At the end of the day, my mom picked me up; this was a surprise, she only did this when I had a doctor's appointment or dentist.  My mom told me how he had been diagnosed with type one diabetes. She had known for a while. I stared at her in awe. She told me how he had too much glucose in his blood. The next time I saw Levi was about a week later. He was back to normal. He refused to talk to me about the “incident.”

I went to Levi’s house later that day to talk to his mother. I told her about my life and school drama, which always interested her. Then she talked. She told me about how he was diagnosed. She said Levi was going to need to go away for a long time. She said he was going to be given oral treatment, put on diets, exercised, and on regular monitoring. As much as it hurt to let him go, I knew he would come back in much less pain and be in such a better environment. I looked at him for the last time in a while; his grey shirt was really showing all his sweat but I still gave him the tightest bear hug and a best friend ring I bought. He got into his grey car and off he went, I tried so hard not to cry, Levi's mother was being so strong and if I shed a tear she would lose it.

The 3 months without him went pretty fast, I hated to say I enjoyed being welcomed by so much more people, everyone wanted to be my friend now. As much as I liked it I knew right when he came back I would be so happy, and I'd forget about these people. I stood next to his mother with my mother at my other side. When Levi walked out of the car I was knocked of my feet! He lost so much weight! I ran towards him seeing no sweat on his body and was able to cup my hands perfectly around him, the hug wasn't long until his mom and my mom piled onto the hug.
“I love you baby! I love you so much” screamed his mother clearly proud of him. She gave him about 40 kissed all over his face before’ backing off.
“You didn't forget about me did you?” He questioned about to cry.
“Are you kidding me! I thought about you every single day!” I stuttered. He bawled, I bawled, and his mother bawled. Before I knew it we were all just a bunch of random people standing in the road sobbing in a circle,a car honked and we all laughed as we walked inside.

News had gotten around the school about Levi and his story. He was crazy popular; everyone talked to him and told him he was looking good, even the school's newspaper was about him. He was asked to be with the “Cool Kids” but declined. He told me how much I meant to him and he and I were the only group he wanted to be in. I ran towards him but tripped, I squealed as I saw the ground come right towards my face. Ohhhhh the crowds in the hall joked.
“Well that ruined the moment” he said holding back laughter. I burst out laughing, which was an okay for him to laugh. We had such a great moment combined with a solid bear hug, crying, and laughing. He told me without me he would be nothing, and a friend was the greatest motivation he could ever have.