Just friends (a very short story)

You walked towards me, and I walked towards you.

Okay. Scratch that. Who are we kidding, this isn't a movie.

You were walking, I was walking and our paths were about to cross. The feeling was almost unreal. It was like walking towards a wall, dreading the moment of contact between cement, brick and human. Yet, a miracle occurs and you walk through wall. Like the Roadrunner does. So we walked past each other and I began to wonder...

Why are we friends, or rather, people who know each other, but don't talk to each other? Why do you quickly look at your phone and me at my hands or the ground when in each other's presence?
We used to be friends. Talk day and night. Have our own little jokes. And then, we just stopped talking as regularly. A few weeks later, we stopped talking altogether. We didn't argue. We didn't have a fight. We didn't say something to the other which we regretted. We didn't reveal our feelings because we didn't have any special feelings towards each other. We were friends and we were content with friendship.

I sometimes go to our conversation box. That terrible way Facebook stores the conversations we have in case we want to go back to them and remind ourselves of our past.

In our last conversation you start with a hi. I reply with a hi accompanied by a simple smiley. You ask me how I am. I tell you I'm managing. I ask you how you are. You say you are 'k' and I send you a smiley. You tell me you are a bit busy and will get back to me. I tell you I understand and that we'll talk soon. The end.

So no clues there. None in our previous conversations either. Could be because there are no clues, nothing at all. We were like oxygen to each other. Okay, bad example. I could live without you. I am living without you. Back then, it didn't seem possible. We were so tied together. We knew everything about each other. Maybe we were immature. We were silly to believe we would grow old together, proving to the world that a male and a female could be friends without falling in love.

But I think love had something to do with what happened between us. Love distanced us. Love drew us apart. I loved you. And to be honest, I'm not quite sure if that feeling belongs in the past. Maybe tucked away in a corner of my heart is a love for you. If I didn't love you, we would still be friends because then, I wouldn't be scared of what I could lose. This fear crippled me, made me not put an effort into continuing our friendship.

Don't worry, this isn't a confession. I'm not talking about the kind of love people, our friends, expected us to feel for each other. No butterflies in my stomach, heart or mind, no expectations, no secrets. Friends. Just friends. Once upon a time.

But I had lost so much already. People I thought were my best friends ended up betraying me, lying to me. All childish reasons, but once you end a friendship it isn't easy to go back to it. I had lost family members. I had lost so many people I loved, and I didn't want you to hurt me too. That would have been unbearable. So I let you go, gradually, slowly. Just so that my system had time to adjust to this new emptiness. And I guess, you did the same.

Timing was crucial. If you hadn't also slipped away at the same time I was slipping away, you would have made an effort. Neither of us did. We both wanted out. We both didn't want our hearts broken.
And now, each time we see each other or have to walk past each other, I want to beg you to let me into your life again. But we both know I would never do that. Call it pride. Call it stupidity.

Maybe someday when we are actual adults, maybe with kids of our own, we would be friends again. For now, that maybe is enough. It gives me hope.

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