the subject matter is completely invalid now, since i'm dating the guy i wrote it about...hehehe...but anyway.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. I thought it was impossible; I thought I was safe. I thought you were safe. I thought nothing could shake the rock of our pure, simple friendship. You were my constant. Steady. Solid. As unchanging as mountains and stars and time. There was nothing complicated or confusing about us. When you leaned close and murmured softly in my ear it was with the voice of a beloved brother. Your touch was as innocent as a child’s. Your embrace was warm and secure and comfortable like the rough wool blankets we used to make tents out of when we were kids.
But suddenly I’m not safe anymore. My heart is now a wild thing, smashing through every carefully-constructed boundary I set for my emotions. Suddenly our friendship is not so simple, and your touch is not so childlike, and your warm breath against my ear sends goosebumps shivering down my spine. When we walk the halls together I am conscious of exactly how many millimeters separate my body from yours. The heat from your skin envelopes me, smothers me; it makes me clumsy and disoriented so that I accidentally bump into your shoulder and stumble over your toes. But of course you just laugh it off and ask me how long I’ve been walking. Your green eyes light up, and I am fascinated by the way your gaze seems to refract the light, scattering color and emotion and energy every time you blink. It’s hard to look at you but I want to look at you, to watch all those fireworks going off inside your head.
I am there at your game, because the dance is right afterwards and I need to take pictures for the yearbook. This is what I tell myself, because I am desperately trying to retain a sense of normalcy, a sense of control. But my blood is on a rampage, roaring like wildfire through my veins, and my mind has shut out everything but the image of you. Though my brain is in denial, I know that this camera clenched in my white-knuckled hands is just an excuse to be here. Close to you. So close I can feel the breeze as you charge past me down the court, like there’s lightning trapped in your bones and blood.
Your face is etched with deep furrows of intensity; your eyes are hard and dark like polished jade. Sun-bleached hair the color of a cornfield is shoved back on your forehead, windblown and sweat-streaked except for a few defiant strands that refuse to lie flat. You’re favoring your left ankle again, running with a slight a limp – so slight that only someone who’s played tag with you since third grade would even notice it. Worry punches into my gut as I see the lines on your brow deepen, a mask of wrinkles and creases that reveals just how much it hurts. Silently I beg you to sit down and rest, as much for my pain as for yours. But I know you better than that. You won’t sit down. You’ll play until you drop, until the lightning dies and the fire burns itself out.
There is something different about you now, something that was not there when we were younger. You have just discovered this disconcerting ability to captivate me.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. And for a few breathless moments after you ask me to dance I think maybe it isn’t happening – maybe my sanity has finally snapped and I am imagining you standing before me, all your light and color contrasting starkly with the black shirt and dress pants. My camera falls from numbed fingers and I stand, smoothing my black skirt and stammering a reply that makes no sense to my brain, mushy like lukewarm oatmeal. Then I lift my head and our eyes lock. For a few heavy, silent seconds I stare at you and you stare at me while the music throbs through our flesh, beckoning us to lend the movement of our bodies to the pulsing rhythm of the song. But for those few seconds we are rooted to the spot, and understanding dawns on us. I know and you know the instant you touch me our pure, simple friendship will quietly give up the ghost to make way for something that is not simple or familiar. It is a sober moment. Sad and moving and terrifying. Like standing on the edge of a cliff and knowing that you must jump off or suffocate on the land.
Then your hands slide around my waist, and I lean into you. Your embrace is secure and comfortable as it always was, but now I am trembling and tingly and you are tense under the palms of my hands. The warmth from your body and the warmth from mine mingle and meld, fusing into one blaze of energy. We dance.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Because if these things hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be standing here now, watching the two of you through tear-blurry eyes. I wouldn’t feel grief stab my chest as she leans over and takes your hand, lacing her fingers with yours. Your snapping bright eyes flicker over her face and I see tenderness and loyalty shining there. I feel out of breath. I feel like crawling into a cave and never, never coming out again. I feel weak and stupid and selfish because I know you deserve her, but I wish to goodness that it was me instead.
Then you look up and your gaze scans the crowd and locks with mine, finding me in the sea of backpacks and makeup and basketball shorts and nose piercings. My face is blank, emotionless, stone-cold, but you know my pain despite my indifferent façade. You feel my throbbing sorrow because you know me better than I know myself. And for an instant I see my pain translate to you, flashing over your face in a look of sudden wistfulness, a longing for what could have been after that thick, dreamlike dance. I see the unspoken apology in your ocean-deep eyes, followed swiftly by the warm assurance that you still love me – no, not in the way my heart longs to be loved, but as a friend who knows you better than you know yourself. A fellow adventurer who climbed trees and skipped rocks by your side. A buddy who chased you around the playground. A fifth-grade companion who guided you through your first crush. Someone who will always be there for you, even when her heart bleeds because you are with someone else.
Friendship is strong. Our friendship is steel, forged from memories and long years and laughter. And for right now, that is enough for me.
