I stroked the photograph gently, trying to go back to the happy time it was taken. The recent breakup echoed in my head, the last words remaining in my mind as if they were held there, bounded by steel manacles. I crushed the picture into my chest, clinging to it. Trying to get some comfort from simple memories, memories that would never be lived again. The tears I’d just barely been able to contain—some still lingering there, fighting to escape my control—were being replaced, the stinging water falling down my cheeks and absorbing into my hair.
I curled as tight as my muscles and joints would allow, suddenly feeling cold without the warming love of my former best friend. I wasn’t going to allow any of the things that were said to come naturally with the feelings of post breakups—denial, guilt, etc.—but somehow the blame for others got through the barrier, needling at my emotions till the sadness I felt was fading, replaced by the burning, raw edge of fury. If my mom and step dad didn’t start this idiotic divorce drama, we’d still be living at home, not with another maddening little sibling, adding on to the distress by poking at every abused nerve I had, causing mental bruises to the point where I had to get away, even though it was to a friends who my best friend has never really liked. Otherwise, I’d have lost every bit of self preservation that I’d survived on over the summer, as my mother made us move back and forth because she couldn’t get along with anyone! Not her grandmother, not her own mother, not her soon-to-be ex-husband!
Then I couldn’t feel the pain anymore, and I was briefly numb, but the only reason for the lack of emotion was the abrupt reorganization as my tattered mind processed the new energy I felt. And when it understood, I gripped at my stomach, attempting to push away the new-found nausea, the sickening feeling that could only be felt, there was no way to put, no way to describe it as potent as it was. The tearing and ripping as my self preservation evaporated, leaving only ragged shreds of agonizing, burning, flabbergasting truth, bringing, yet again, more tears. But the difference was these weren’t tears from being hurt. They were tears of frustration, tears that felt like acid streaking in long red lines from my reddened eyes.
This would end.
They would decide that, even after this fight, after his family and he himself lied—no, maybe not lied, but the things that they told the court were never true. Either way, after cheating for the custody of the kids that I was positive he only wanted to get child support from my mom, they would, in the end, kiss and make up. It always happened, somehow, someway. That’s why their fighting never concerned me.
But, even when the drama was over, my friendship wouldn’t be saved. The friendship that meant more to me than the world’s riches one hundred times over was gone, and it was their entire fault. I’d never talk to her again, causing me agony, while the reasons for my troubles were happily married, fighting every other month as usual, reminding me of the day that, even over the months I’d tried to prepare myself, knowing that for some unknown reason it was coming, has made me writhe for forgiveness.
Then, after coming to realization, after all of my anger had been explained…the tears stopped. There were more to be shed, but somehow, they wouldn’t.
I only knew why I was so aggravated, and that I had been. I knew they were true emotions, not just going on off of self pity, because I could still feel the flames of the moment, dull but still there, licking the pit of my stomach.
Unsuccessfully trying to push away the regret and grieve.
But they weren’t potent anymore. Only passing thoughts, suddenly unimportant.
I pulled the I was in full consciousness of the pain. My mind still churned trying to get over it. picture away from my chest, looking upon the crumpled paper with only a slight shake of pain, my breath becoming less ragged, my once blurred sight drying free of the tears…my forgotten memory of the last happy day I’d seen her reeling through my mind, with perfect clarity.
My thirteenth birthday.
“Do you have a Mexican hat?” she asked the Guadalahonkie's waiter. “I’ll just take the picture myself.” She began fishing around in her bag for the camera I’d forgotten she had.
“Sure,” he said with a smile. “I’ll be right back with her ice cream.”
“Mm,” she mumbled after he walked away.
“Ice creams good,” I allowed. “But deep fried?”—cringe—“That sounds horrible.”
“No, it’s delicious! They drizzle it in chocolate and put it in a waffle cone!”
“Then you’ll have to eat it with me.”
“Alright!” She seemed more than happy to.
The waiter came back with a bowl and an old sombrero that looked like it had been mounted on a wall for years. He put the bowl on the table in front of me and handed the hat to me directly.
I dusted it gently for a moment and when he walked away, tapped it to get off any dust that may be on it, but it was clean.
I shrugged and put the hat on my head. She beamed and snapped the picture. Then she half hugged me with one arm and held the camera with the other. I hugged her back and the camera clicked, indicating that the picture was taken.
I grinned and hugged the picture again, this time only out of love, not out of need.
I felt immediately tired, and let my head fall to the cushion on the couch, thankful I was home alone, with no noise to disrupt my rest.
I looked over at the clock next to the DVD player and the TV. It was only eight thirty, but I’d wake up whenever I felt like it, why would that concern anybody?
I was reminded that I wasn’t alone tonight; there was one other person here. The boy that lived in the house walked through the living room where I lay. He was practically a brother to me now, we were good friends, and he secretly had a crush on me, so I knew he’d realize if I’d been crying or not.
I buried my head in the side of the couch and waited for him to leave. If he saw the tears and the redness, he’d ask about them and then I’d have to tell him the whole story, and I probably wouldn’t remember it by tomorrow. I felt his hand press into the couch and I knew he was looking at me. He’d seen how weird the positions I sleep in are but this probably took the cake.
After a few seconds, the couch expanded from being let out of under the pressure of his palm and I heard him walk into the kitchen. The bottles in the fridge rattled and clanged together as he yanked the door open, rummaged through the things with a rustling, and then closed it with a bang of glass and plastic hitting the shelve holders.
I heard him shuffle down stairs, slowly as if he had a drink in his hand.
When he’d gone, I turned my head from the uncomfortable position, but I let my eyes rest under their lids, not planning to open them to the air that stung and caused them to water in protest.
I could still see the picture perfectly in my head. The contrast with her and her summer glazed, always-out-in-the-sun tan, and me with my always-inside, too-much-sunscreen pale. Her white sweatshirt and my blue tank top, her black hair mixing with my summer bleached brown. Her black eyes against my grey-blue. The hat balancing on our heads, its breaking strands of bent wood coming undone from age…
I was still in full awareness of the pain, but that was it. Only the knowledge of its presence. I told myself it wasn’t the end; I might be able to save it, it doesn’t have to close here. The thought was comforting and the tension in my stomach, the dreaded knot ceased. I no longer felt the excruciating pain of heartbreak.
I wouldn’t be able to be her best friend again, but maybe I could save the friendship, and maybe that would grow and spring to what it used to be.
My mind continued to reel. Not about what had ended, but ways to get it back, to get my apology through to her.
That only lasted for about three minutes.
Soon I was taken by my exhaustion to the dark, cold claws of slumber.
