Strawberry Hearts -7-

Since I haven't posted on here  in ages here's a recap:

*Written in letters. Ida and Evelyn were once best friends, and now they haven't spoken in two years. Ida is writing a letter every day.

*Their 'den' of sorts, was a café in Glasgow City Centre. Ida is still a regular.

*'Yesterday' Ida found a photo from Christmas Day 1968, in which is a girl who looks identical to Evelyn, and is a similar photo to one of Ida and Evelyn taken in 2008.

This was my nanowrimo story, so it's very rough - please point out anything!!

---

Dear Evelyn,

Do you ever get that feeling, where you're going about your daily life, with silly preoccupations and errands keeping you busy, when all of a sudden, you hear the whisper of a half-forgotten song playing in a shop you walk past, or catch a whiff of a familiar scent; where the stranger sitting next to you on the train is wearing a perfume you wore once, or when you find an old dress hidden at the back of your wardrobe, long since worn?

One small little cue enters your immediacy and suddenly your whole soul is broken by a memory that, in the slightest gust of wind, comes rushing back to you. I don't know about you, but when it happens I find myself overcome by sudden grief. Not for the people, nor for the place, but simply for a whole sphere of time in my life that once was.

You see, I think about you and I a lot, Evie. Mainly because, I don't understand what happened between us. The more and more I think about it, I don't see where we fell apart, because it just kind of happened one day. That's the worst part, I think. That I can't attribute our friendship's demise to one thing, one event, or one person. We just weren't meant to be best friends I suppose.

Then again, when I see photos of us growing up -my mum still has one on the mantle- we look so happy, Evie. I've never been as happy as I was then.

I & E, Christmas Day, 2008.

***
"Merry Christmas Ida!"

"Eve! Where have you been?"

"Merry Christmas to you too Evie! oh my gosh is that for me!?"

"Girls! Smile!"
***

I wanted to be mad at you, for showing up an hour late, before you tossed me a little box, wrapped in paper adorned with unicorns, and I couldn't help but smile. Inside was something so incredibly you.

A mix tape.

It took us ages to find the cassette player Freya swore she had through the back, and when we did I plugged in the tape as quickly as my fingers could move.

And I pressed play.

And rewind.

And repeat.

That day, I must've listened to that tape a dozen times. Mainly because it was us, and the music we loved. Our favourite songs, ranging from Nirvana to Disney Classics, and even songs we had never heard before. It was everything we were, and everything we were about to become.

Can you believe it's been almost six years since that day, Evie? Six years of arguably the most concentrated levels of change and development I have ever experienced, so much so that looking back upon that time in my life -our life- it's almost laughable how different everything is now, how much things have changed.

The funny thing is Evie, despite having what would most likely be regarded as 'a better life' now...

...Am I truly happier?

Every time I come back to the café, without you, I'm forced to blink back tears of sorrow and loss for that beautiful, innocent time of my life. For all the people, now lost, that it contained. The question looms over me like a dark cloud, growing ever so gradually with every second that passes in which I'm unable to answer it.

Yet there is a moral, an underlying truth which I know I am aware of, that glistens like a gem beneath the layers of muddied anguish that I feel at how much I miss that part of my life.

The beauty lies in how fleeting it was.

The fateful way in which we ended up becoming such great friends, even for so little a time, and the lasting impact we've had on the rest of the other's lives, simply by having met.

The most painful part of the situation was also what made it all so beautiful: The mystery, the never knowing why we stopped talking, trying to figure out what exactly it was we might have said to change things, the time-stamp, the expiration date we had on our glorious, exciting days - that was what made it.

Despite how exasperatingly overused the age-old adage is, I can see it weaving it's way to the front of my mind and I'm reminded:

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

Despite the sadness now, there's no good in looking back and crying because I used to be so happy - I should be standing up and thanking the stars above that I was ever blessed with that chance opportunity which allowed me to have such an era of pure, innocent and intense joy, which is usually so hard to keep. The ambiguity around how suddenly and inexplicably it all ended is a blessing in disguise too - now my imagination can fill in the gaps of all that I did not know, instead of having to face an honest truth of something perhaps I'd rather not have known.

Sometimes ignorance really can be bliss.

Then again, ignorance can be painful too.

I & E, Christmas Day, 1968.

Love,

  Ida.

AN: Thanks for reading! Xx

If  you want to read on (http://www.wattpad.com/story/10280732-strawberry-hearts)