Borderline

do you hate me?

I text you to hang out. 

...you never text me first

But I am here in an instant.

...as soon as you allow me. when you realize you need me.

We lay in the vibrant grass, too green to believe it's past summer, and look up to the day. It is cold, but the sun warms me. Apricity, is the word. The rays of the sun during a freezing winter. You taught me this word last month, after reading it in a book. Normally, a person would skip past it to find something they know, to avoid feeling stupid for even a split second. But, you are not like that, you searched for it and now flaunt with your beautiful vocabulary. 

I feel at peace for the first time this winter. Since the holidays have taken over my soul, the pains of family that dragged me down until this point. I only feel like myself when I am around you, I feel free like the children we once were.

But, still you have the nerve to ask me "do you hate me?"

You sit up, the imprint of you still in the grass. I cannot look away from it, as the field looks incomplete without you in it. I mourn the emptiness of the earth because it could not possibly know what it has lost.

I replay everything inside of my mind. The times I called frantic to say something shocking before you hung up. The nights I spent listening to you and caring for you when you needed support.  The days when you were my only friend in the world. The hours together when you were my best friend. And the minutes when I thought we would never be friends. 

How could you think I hate you?

Was it my face? My ugly face that I'll spend eternity wonder what it looks like every waking moment. The expressions that I let slip when I disagree with you. Or is it the ones that I forget to show? When my face goes blank in order to process the words that you push out before anyone can lose interest, thinking that those words are not worth listening to. Maybe, it's the emotions that I do not let out. That I must trap inside of me so that you do not hate me.

Was it my hands? The fiddling with the strings of my hoodie. When, I shove them in my pockets to conceal them? The way I have to hide them when I lie to you.

Was it my eyes? The way they twitch when I become stressed. But, you could never see because my hand flings up to cover it before you can tell.

Or, perhaps, it was nothing. Something to fill the space where we lacked words to speak. Where the silence was too uncomfortable to not disturb. But, I do not believe in fillers. Everything has a space in my mind and I feel it weighing on me.

Your face, the weight of your smile when it dropped when you heard me say the wrong thing. I recall exactly what I said. "No," it was as simple as that. But, it was the cause of your long melancholy and it made my heart heavy for days.

The memory of your hands, they made me feel weightless as you lifted me out of a tight spot. A time where I was wedged between two choices and I needed to make a decision. But, you chose before me and I was unwilling to get my hands dirty. 

The weight of your eyes as they followed me around. Watching intently as I make a poor choice, but only choosing to tell me after the damage had been done. Those eyes that waited more patiently for me to fall than for her to forgive.

I could loathe you. I could remember every time you ignored me. When I was too much trouble to even acknowledge with a single glance. Remembering the friends I pushed away because you found their flaws. I prioritize you because you were my lifeline. Because I needed something to stand by when I had lost so much for you. I glorified you, but despite my worship, it was never enough.

I could love you. Not a romantic love, but a familiar one. Something permanent, a bond like sisters. I needed a sister. Someone to explain my emotions, to tell me what to say to make it feel better. To teach me to braid my hair when I was crying at the bathroom sink. I would pledge my life to you, but you would find some way to end it.

But I couldn't hate you. I couldn't hate the way you talk. The light inside of you when you find a  passion. And you talk about it for days, so excited to find love and enjoyment in something. I couldn't hate on your attempts for a moral compass. Defying your nature to try to be humane to me. After all, it's the efforts we put in that counts, not the hurt that follows it. Because you cannot control or feel the hurt I have, so what's the point?

All of these thought scurry around until my head feels like it's splitting. I cannot bear it anymore. I cannot bear it anymore. Because saying "do you hate me?" says everything else. Because everything else is supposed to stay in my head. Because a couple words spoken for a second have wandered in my head for months.