Tasfia Tasneem Rafa
I scratch the pearls adorning the dress you gave me for my birthday. The books you gifted me returning from your New York trip haunts the corner of my bookshelf. I do not have the courage to turn their pages. When I open the doors of my wardrobe, a string of two shiny small plastic bears, dangle from the edge of my box of earrings. They had fallen off from your vanity bag; the one you used to carry to our coaching classes. I had carried them home with me as a joke and we had both laughed about it. Every time I clean my box of earrings, I almost throw them off... Almost. I gave away the perfume you had once gifted me, to my sister. I couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore. It cracks open a part of my heart I’d rather have closed. In ninth grade, I had asked you if we would remain friends forever by writing down the question on my hand using a ballpoint pen. I showed you my hand from under the bench in Maths class and I remember you answering that we would remain “best friends”. The possibility of that seems impossibly bleak. We don’t even talk anymore.
It’s not that I think of you often. I don’t. But sometimes when I’m online on facebook, I’d see the green dot beside your name illuminate and suddenly my mind would wander off to a time when reaching you didn’t seem so excruciatingly painful. I would call you up at 3am and you would magically turn my tears into laughter and melt my worries away. Are you even the same person anymore?
I see you hanging out with people and having loads of friends; courtesy of photos you post on your account. The question of whether or not you even feel my absence in your life seems kind of pointless. We have both moved on from the bounds of what we believed we needed. You seem happy. I hope you are. But it would be a lie if I said I didn’t wish to be a tiny part of whatever happiness you have carved for yourself.
I really loved you. I truly did. I found in you everything I felt my own self was devoid of. Your energy, your compassion, your beauty. But I loved you so much so that I turned a blind eye to your dark side. I did everything to appease you. I did everything to attain your favour. I did my best to be the perfect friend. Whatever you wanted, I did. I never dared to do anything that went against your opinion. I believed the whole world to be wrong and saw you and only you as my light. Is that what friendship is? To press your own desires and aspirations and views underneath completely in order to be wholly accepted by another? I tiptoed on egg shells ; afraid of doing anything that would attain your disapproval and displeasure. I held onto you like glue to paper. I accepted all your flaws, wiped your tears and was there for you during your worst heartbreaks and meltdowns. I put my life at pause only to fix yours. I didn’t even realize I was burning out inside. And what did you do? When I fell in love with a boy, insecurity and rage clawed the edges of your heart and poison filled your veins. Were you intimidated? Your fear of losing control over my life and my decisions turned you vicious. You found it convenient to tell strangers what you felt about me instead of sorting the tangled mess between ourselves. You spewed hatred and tainted my name. You turned people against me and you were as busy as a bee in spreading gossip and malicious rumours. I became lonely and stopped talking to anyone. I cried myself to bed every night and woke up crying every morning. My days were filled with horrendous thoughts and despair. I became a shell of who I used to be. The person I loved most in the world had turned my life a living hell.
I did forgive you of course when you came rushing to my house saying how sorry you were for everything you had done to me. You apologised, confiding in me of all the evil things you associated me with and how you regret it all so very much. I let you back in.
But it was evident that you hadn’t changed one bit. Even though you were apologetic for what you had done, your actions hadn’t changed in the least. You were so cautious to the fault of others that you remained evermore oblivious to your own. That’s when I realized that nothing would ever go back to the way it was. I slowly pulled away from you and started working on my own life. You tried for a while until eventually you filled the gaps in your life with people who filled the roles I had once played. Slowly your name disappeared from my call list and eventually so did you. February, the month of your birthday, which previously used to be a source of utter joy to me, became a cruel reminder of how things are no longer the way they used to be. Perhaps the echoes of my laughter and voice disappeared too from the corners of the rooms in your house; a place where we promised each other eternal friendship.
Maybe some sunny day we can give this another shot. We can let go of the clutter and try to be better people for each other. Even if the courses of our lives no longer interact, I hope you will treasure the little store of memories that we created together. Maybe we can grow up and forgive each others’ mistakes and start afresh. Until then, I will let the string of two bears that fell off from your bag, dangle from the edges of my box of earrings.
