“STOP!” I yelled, the sea breeze whipping my hair across my face. I could just make out his tattered flannel shirt flapping wetly against his chest. The darkness swept around us, threatening to aid gravity in throwing me off the rock I clutched onto.
He turned back; his wild eyes stark against his pale face. “WHY?” He screamed, “WHO CALLED YOU? YOU DON’T BELONG IN MY LIFE!”
I shook my head, saltwater dripping into my eyes. He was right. Of course, he was right. I was from a childhood memory, a character out of a teenage novel. I had let him go, I had told him I couldn’t do it. We were from different worlds, different outlooks. I didn’t love him that way.
That was nearly fifteen years ago.
He watched me battle with my inner demons for a few more moments before turning away and climb up across the wall.
“WAIT!” I yelled, “YOUR FRIEND CALLED ME – HE SAID YOU WOULDN’T LISTEN TO ANYONE.”
He turned back to look at me, his eyes narrowed, “and you thought,” he said back, cruel laughter glittering in his tone, “that you could stop me? Congratulations! My ex-best friend read my diary, found my suicide note and in it some poems I wrote for you. Those child feelings are long gone.”
As he talked I climbed, digging my sneakers into the rocky sandbank. We were meters above the beach, one miss-step and I’d go tumbling down into the spray far below.
“WHY DO YOU CARE ANYWAY?!” He screamed, tipping his head back, “YOU’RE MARRIED NOW. YOU HAVE BEEN FOR ALMOST EIGHT YEARS NOW!”
I reached him and he scuttled out of my reach, his brown eyes speckled with utter despair.
“And what have I accomplished?” He crowed, “a useless university degree, broken relationships,” he barked out a laugh, “30 and still living with my parents.”
“Your family loves you.” I whispered and he looked at me sharply, “then why is it that it’s you chasing me? I haven’t seen you since… since we were what? Seventeen?”
I nodded, “and I have missed you ever since. You were my best friend.”
“You were my first love.” He whispered harshly, each word rasping through clenched teeth.
I felt my own tears fall as his dripped onto the sand at his feet, “and you were mine.” I whispered.
“Times change.” He said.
I nodded, crawling up to him. My jeans were soaked through from clambering up the side of the sandbank. He watched me the way startled kangaroos watch tourists. Ready to bounce the moment I made some unseen mistake.
“Where’s he now?”
I frowned, “who?”
“Your husband.”
I turned and pointed far to the west where the carpark was. “Waiting.”
“He knows about me?”
I nodded.
“And he still let you come find me?”
I smiled then, gripping one of his sleeves, “he knows you are important to me. Even after you stopped contacting me. When you returned my wedding invitation. When you were determined to stay in the early pages of my diary. When you disappeared.”
He sat then, letting me crawl up to sit by his side. We were meters from the small craggy peak that hovered over the rocks far below.
“Why are you here Hannah?” He asked, “we are no longer friends.”
I pretended his words didn’t slide into and burn my heart. “I remember a boy who loved to write. Who was full of ideas and wonders and creativity. Who could draw and talk smiles onto people’s faces. He gave the best hugs. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”
“I was going to marry you.” He whispered.
“That wasn’t our path.”
“It could have been.”
“This isn’t about me.” I said, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms around them.
“No,” he sighed, “I guess not.”
“Why are we here?” I asked, looking out at the black waves, “it’s freezing.”
He pressed his forehead against his knees, “I just… I don’t think I have a future.”
“What’d you mean?”
“Well look at you – married to a man who loves you, a teacher, part of a community, big family.”
I shrugged, “sure – that’s my life. But you have a different one, and that’s okay. You don't have to live to other people's ideas of success. Every-time I go into bookstores I check for your name.”
He looked at me with disbelief and I squeezed his arm, “no joke.”
He made a noncommittal sound and I smiled, “I miss you; you know.” I whispered.
He looked up then, looking into my eyes, “I miss you too.”
I rested my head on his shoulder, breathing in his old-man cologne. He had always been a 30yr old in a young body. And now he fit his own character. His bright blue eyes scanned the horizon, black hair cut short and jagered around his ears. He was small but stocky, comfortable with his body the way old men are.
As soon as I placed my head on his shoulder, for a single moment we were sixteen again. We talked about everything and nothing. We remembered walking through the city park holding ice-cream, laughing when one of us fell in the pond trying to feed our cones to the ducks.
Then he shuffled away and replaced the unspoken barrier between us, and I respected it.
He stood and I scrambled to my feet after him. He calmly walked up to the edge and sat there, looking down below.
“What would you do if I jumped?” he asked calmly, “what would anyone do?”
I breathed through my nose a couple times, calming my heart before walking out and sitting beside him.
I looked at him, stared at him, until he stared back. And then I wrapped my arms around one of his and looked away from the churning water below us.
“I suppose I would follow you.” I said through chattering teeth, “but just so you feel a little guilty. I am terrified of heights, I have a class to teach on Monday, and my little boy will probably miss his mama.”
“You would do that?” He asked, half-heartedly trying to shake me off, “I could just come back later.” But we both heard the resignation in his voice.
“Listen,” I said, “I know we can never be seventeen again. And what you wanted won’t happen – it simply can’t. But thankfully we’re not seventeen anymore, and I’m here right now. Walk back with me, tell me what happened after Uni? Why are we here?”
And so, he told me as I gently pulled him to his feet and together we climbed down to the beach below. He talked and talked and talked. He cried and laughed and smiled. And I cried and laughed and smiled right along with him.
I walked him to his car, ignoring the buzzing in my pocket.
“Do you want a ride to your car or…?”
“No.”
He frowned and I shook my head, “I know, but give me this one. I don’t want you meeting him this way. Not like this.”
He nodded and I reached into his car, finding a felt pen.
He looked at me carefully as I took his arm and gently pulled back his sleeve.
Slowly I wrote my number on his arm, capping the pen and sticking the pen in the messy bun at the back of my head. It had come undone, but I wanted something from him. A reminder of him. The boy who wrote me poetry to make me feel better. Short stories to make me laugh, clever emails and beautifully handmade birthday cards with hand-drawn cartoon covers.
“Here’s my number. Ring or text it. Don’t ring or text. I respect your right to choose. But I will always be hopeful you’ll decide to find me.”
I ushered him into his car, and he frowned up at me, winding down the window.
“Why?”
I smiled sadly, meeting his eyes again, “because well, I love you. I have always loved you. Perhaps not the way you wanted or could have been. But love all the same. And if that means we cannot know each other then that is how it will be. But if not…” I pointed at his arm and shrugged, “our worlds could maybe meet again. I will always come if you call. I will always respond if you need me. Time will not change that. So, next time you want to leave all of this –" I gestured around us, “remember that there will always be someone out there willing to hold onto you before you go. And I don’t even hang out with you – imagine the people who do.”
I turned and walked down the beach, lifting a hand in farewell, “Love and be loved my friend!”
I turned my head to see his determined face reflected by the inside car light and smiled, catching his familiar smirk stretch across his face.
I heard the engine splutter to life before his voice yelled out against the waves, “AND YOU AS WELL!”
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