My Friends

Twenty-five years later, in the present, Louisa complains that Ted promised a love story, but it ended with blood instead. Still, she’s eager to hear more. Ted finally tells the parts of the story he held back, like how Ali gave Joar the knife and how Joar hid it in the flower beds. He tells Louisa that everyone sort of knew that one day Joar might just kill his old man.

That summer 25 years ago, Joar comes into Ted’s basement with the blood still on his hands. He tells Ted that his old man came home drunk just in time to hear Joar and Joar’s mom laughing about the injured bird in the box. At first, nothing happened, and his old man just went off to drink alone and watch television. But then something set the old man off—Joar never knew what would cause his old man to snap. Suddenly, the old man came toward Joar, took the bird box, and crushed the whole thing by stomping it, all while looking Joar in the eyes.

Joar doesn’t tell Ted everything that happened after that, but he mentions that Joar’s mom came into the room and tried to pull his old man away while the old man was beating Joar. Meanwhile, the knife was in Joar’s backpack. Now, Joar has brought the crumpled box to Ted, and when Ted takes it, he gets blood on his hands. It turns out Joar actually hid the bird outside and the blood on the box is Joar’s from cutting his hands on the window box while he was hiding the bird outside. Ted takes the live bird in the crumpled box and manages to save it, while Joar goes back to his house before his old man can notice that he’s gone.

Later, near the end of July, they free the bird by the pier, after Ted has watched it for a week with Joar coming over every day to feed it. Along with Ali, the artist, and Joar’s mom, they have a ceremony to free the bird. The bird stays in the artist’s hands for a long time before suddenly taking flight. The artist cheers, which no one has heard him do before. The bird takes a U-turn, and Ali suggests that maybe it started off in the wrong direction. Afterwards, everyone jumps off into the pier, and this is the last time that Ted ever swims in the sea with his friends.