I legit had fantasies like this: we would read together. Shakespeare for me (the uninitiated), a textbook for you. This would be the most mundane and most exciting thing I’d ever done in my life. Never have I wanted to read with someone so badly, and with such clarity. (I find this hilarious now because of the PG nature.)
In my mind this works out nicely, but of course it doesn’t in real life. Like telling me how you tried to build a bridge made of rocks to get across a river. It was a shortcut while hiking. But it failed because the river was too wide and there weren’t enough rocks. You and your friends decided to take the long way around instead.
Walking and talking seems to suit us best. Not sitting down at dinner like normal people do. No. Five years ago it started with us walking together when we had no reason to, and talking about subjects no one else would have been interested in, because it was the age of ‘LAN and DOTA’, and really I was just smitten with you. Five years later your awkwardness has been skimmed off like the last vestiges of foam and you are still nerdy, but now you are also good at people. You still have a turn of words like constellations which catches me off guard and makes me laugh, but now I can give as good as I get. I am cosmos and galaxies more confident, so are you. This is what happens when we grow up.
Our dreams have changed too. Well, at least you’re studying in London, like we discussed before. Though now you mention investment banking, and I cringe on the inside. We both studied science but obviously we’re not going to end up in that industry. Some 10,800km from where we first met, some 1460 days later, hello. Hello light drizzle, fairy lights and winter coats. Goodbye a whole notebook full of you, some emails, one fairly succinct note, a birthday gift, and a whole lot of disappointment (all forgiven by now).
After dinner we walk for close to three hours and–”Are you hungry?”–end up at your place for ice cream and chill. Minus the chill. You need help with depleting your ice cream collection, as you call it, culled from various parties and door gifts from the guests. I still like how you talk. This is the longest and best conversation we’ve had. I want you to say something about my appearance, but you don’t. I want to say something about how I was always insecure as to the status of our friendship, that now I feel like I wasn’t that crazy after all.
I miss the last train home, and you call me an Uber. You tell me I can return the favour by buying you a (non-alcoholic) drink next time I’m in the area. I like the quality of the offer: in the air, uncertain, with the promise of thumping to the ground in some unforeseeable future. I think that is our friendship: in the clouds, in the icloud, so many conversations that don’t really exist, but thump and we’re walking together and the mist from our breaths are… real. As are shady alleys and restaurants tucked in said alleys, and our discussions on which building hired the best lighting designers in London. You exist. We don’t take pictures, but I don’t mind. This is a snapshot of us.682Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUyDZag0Er9
