I can‘t remember the conversation we were having, but I remember you suddenly said „ were friends. “ It was a statement, not a question, I was so taken aback, so surprised that I said “we are?” in a shocked and confused voice, I couldn’t help it. I don’t know what we were but we sure as hell weren’t friends.
Friends trust each other, friends laugh together, friends have no attraction to one another, friends don’t almost kiss each other all the time, friends don’t flirt, and friends don’t stop talking to each other every time one of them is in a relationship.
You bought your cigarettes and I bought cola and a donut you wanted but couldn’t afford, in return I got a smoke. You didn’t like me smoking, you said so the second time we met and I borrowed a cigarette from your best friend, you said you didn’t want me to die sooner than I had to the world needed someone like me, I pointed out that you smoked like a chimney, you laughed and changed the subject.
We walked to the pier, you said it should be our personal pier, I laughed and agreed. We sat at the end of our pier, dangling our feet over the edge, we were just sitting there talking, you smoking me stealing a drag now and again.
It wasn’t a complex moment but I believe it was one of the happiest of my life. We watched the sun set while we talked about everything and nothing.
It got colder so you asked if we should walk somewhere I said okay, we walked past the pond, where I once ran away from the ducks and you shooed them away, we walked to the great big climbing frame, where kids climbed during the day.
We had been there before, sometime this winter, trying to set our friends up, it didn’t work out. You had almost kissed me then, you had your arm around me, your face inches from mine when one of our friends interrupted.
We stayed in the climbing frame for about an hour, you smoked 5 cigarettes, the smoke curling around your nostrils. You said what a terrible habit smoking was and said you would quit if I wanted you to, I said I wanted you around for as long as possible.
It was getting really late and both our parents kept calling us but we ignored them. We walked and talked, I stopped to pet a cat, you laughed and said how sweet and innocent I was, you leaned your face into mine just a little bit, I leaned in a little waiting for a kiss at last but your phone rang you jumped back bewildered and answered it, it was your father asking if you needed a lift home, I said I could walk home but you said I was crazy to think you’d let me walk home alone in the middle of the night, you said you wouldn’t ever let be face a risk like that.
Your father dropped me off and we said goodbye, formally, no hugs, nothing.
We haven’t spoken since that night we are both in new relationships, we never speak. You still smoke, more if anything, I’ve started smoking I don’t think you know. I talk to your friends you talk to mine, but we don´t speak.
I will never get to kiss you, never know how you taste or how you feel, I hope you’re good.
We are not friends. We were never friends. We were something different, we were something that could have been, should have been. We were a dream, an illusion, a wish. Clouded in fairydust and sparkles. We will never be.
-Megan Auður Grímsdóttir.
