We were never officially together, but that didn’t mean I never had you. I had you in your moments of true abandon, losing control of that tongue which usually struck like a blunt force. I had you softly, roughly, and all the ways in between. I first had you as your fingers glided along the piano keys, eliciting a melody familiar--yet unfamiliar in your hands.
We met in a student hostel. It was my first time living away from my parents and I’d wandered into the common lounge; a node of possible connections. You are a tall, skinny man sitting at the piano. Immediately I think you have a face shaped by angels, angular yet soft around the edges. You notice me and there is a flash of recognition in your eyes. It is not unusual. Our hostel is small. Eventually I would know everyone and map them like blueprints as I learned my way around this new building.
“Come sit,” you say, and I take my perch next to you. I want to say something, but you start to play. The song winds around us like a river, and I feel a surge of immense possibility. This song is the soundtrack to my conviction to open up to new people, to get out of my comfort zone. A new school is a new beginning. We are both staying here for two years and I want to be unrecognizable by the end of it.
We don’t hang out for two years, although we text on and off. I get a boyfriend along the way, you get a girlfriend. A few months later, by the time I get to India on a school trip, my relationship is headed downhill. Which is why I am conflicted when I see your name above mine in the list. You’re on this trip with me and you look exactly the same as before. We’re on a coach with other drowsy students, seated shoulder to shoulder, talking about cows on the road. How did you avoid the frantic aging caused by college, what have you been up to, do you still play the piano, do you like spicy food--somehow, irrationally, even though I have a boyfriend, I want you to hold my hand.
I want to ask if you remember one night long ago when a bird perched beside you and trilled to your presence. Your absence has meant that I did the work for you. I built you up in my mind into someone with a personality to match your face--caring, soft, perfect.
But I know your tongue is hard and blunt when your girlfriend dumped you two years into your relationship. The one who'd said “I love you” on the first date.
“How do you feel, do you love her too?” I’d asked.
You said, “Of course not, but I don’t know how to say no.”
“How do you feel now?” I ask two years later after your break up.
Your answer is truncated now, just: “I don’t know.”
I think I know, though, when one week after your relationship ended with a girl who had said “I love you” (did you ever say it back?), you ask me if i want to be friends with benefits.
Honestly… I had thought about the benefits. We had talked about sex (you travel a lot, you get around) and friendship separately, but not in the same package. I google it as I always do before agreeing to anything. I read that 99% of such friendships do not end well and it is a ticking time bomb. By any stretch of logic it is not a good idea. But I don't know how to say no when it comes to you. I’d become impatient with time and wanting you, and I would give anything, anything. I had been waiting for so long and maybe a tiny part of you would want me back too. We could be that improbable 1%, the ones who made it out of the muck of sex intertwined with friendship, happy and intact.
It’s only when I look back now that I see who really was the puppet. I was using you, at first, just as much as you were using me. I had gotten what I wanted but it was like eating candy, sweet and empty. I was starving and I thought you were the answer.
Which alchemist thought throwing sex and friendship into the same pot wouldn’t result in an explosion blowing up in your face?755Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW8BeX5L1RQ
Back to before. I see you in hallways for brief moments, always charming. “Howdy, mate,” you say to me one morning with a smile, and I want to tell I love you, but I already know what you're going to say.
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