I remember the exact sound of Sam’s laugh. It was loud and honest, the kind that made everyone around him smile without thinking. In Year 7, we sat next to each other in science, and every time Mr. Chen made a bad pun, Sam would throw his head back and let it out—a full, snorting laugh that echoed off the whiteboard. I used to time my jokes just to hear it. But sometime around the start of Year 8, that sound started to fade. At first I thought he was just tired or bored. Then I noticed he was smiling less in general, and his shoulders seemed hunched, like he was carrying something heavy. I didn’t know what to say.

The first change was subtle. In the canteen, when I cracked a dumb joke about the spaghetti being rubbery, he only gave a flat half-smile and looked down at his tray. A week later, during a group project, he let other people do all the talking. I caught him staring out the window during lunch, watching the Year 9s playing basketball. When I asked if everything was okay, he shrugged and said he was fine. But his eyes didn’t match his words. I started scanning for clues: he stopped bringing his favourite chips, he walked home alone, and he erased a message he’d been typing on his phone when I sat down. The silence grew louder than his laugh ever had.

I tried everything I could think of. I told him a story about my dog falling into a puddle—he used to find that hilarious—but he just nodded. I sent him a meme we’d both loved in primary school, and he replied with a thumbs-up emoji. After a few weeks, I started to feel frustrated. Was it something I’d done? I replayed every conversation, every group chat, looking for the moment I might have pushed him away. But I found nothing. Then one afternoon, we were packing up after PE, and I asked him outright: “Sam, are you angry with me?” He stopped zipping his bag and looked at me. For a second, I saw the old flash of humour in his eyes, but it vanished. “No,” he said quietly. “It’s not you.”

I started scanning for clues: he stopped bringing his favourite chips, he walked home alone, and he erased a message he’d been typing on his phone when I sat down.

That was the first crack in the wall. The next day, he found me at my locker. He told me his parents had separated over the summer, and he’d been living with his dad every second week. He didn’t say much more—just that everything felt different now, and he didn’t know how to explain it. I stood there, gripping my maths textbook, and realised I had no idea what to say either. I wanted to fix it, to make him laugh again, but I understood that some things aren’t fixable with a joke. So I just said, “That sucks, Sam. I’m here.” He nodded, and we walked to class in a new kind of silence—not empty, but shared.

In the weeks that followed, I stopped trying to force his old laugh. Instead, I started paying attention to the small things. We played FIFA at his place sometimes, and he’d give a quiet chuckle when I made a stupid own goal. The sound was smaller but real. I learned that listening was more important than making jokes, and that being around someone in a hard time meant accepting that their laugh might be different for a while. I stopped expecting everything to go back to how it was. Some afternoons we didn’t talk much, but we sat together, and that seemed to be enough.

Looking back now, I don’t think I lost a friend who stopped laughing. I think I found a way to be a friend when laughter wasn’t possible. Sam still laughs—just not as often, and not as loudly. But when he does, it means more. The silence between us taught me that friendship isn’t about filling every moment with noise. It’s about knowing when to be quiet and when to say, “I’m here.” I still miss that full-bellied laugh from Year 7. But I’m glad I stuck around for the quieter version that came after.