the loss of a friend.

I've lost contact with friends before. Sometimes, you just slide away from each other without realising it, and that is that. I've broken up with friends before. And back then they we're my only friends, and it took me so long because I was scared shitless of being lonely. So much, that I would rather hurt than let it happen. 

But nothing has confused and hurt me quite exactly like losing you did. 

We meet at boarding school, but weeks after we've started. I haven't made any friends yet because everything is so overwhelming, but one late night in the music room we start talking, and my world shifts to colour and morphs into a place where I can finally see myself belong and you greet me with open arms. 

I don't remember the exact moment we become friends. Just that one day, I am a background character floating through life in a haze and then you show up and mess up my perception of friendship, love and human relations. And our friendship descends all of that. I've never loved anyone quite the same way I loved you. It wasn't romantic feelings between us, it was more than that. Our friendship is more than that. 

Later, you tell me how you remember really liking my pants the first time you saw me. I don't know why that is something that stuck with me, it just did. 

One day, we're sixteen and talking about growing old in the same nursery home together. Nobody likes us, majority of the people on school hate us, actually. We wear weird clothes and thick eyeliner and have home made piercings. While I was shy, you were never afraid to talk back if people called us names on the hallways or whispered behind our backs. They didn't bother me, though. We had each other and nothing else mattered to me but you. 

One day, we're sharing cigarettes and we tell each other things about ourselves and our family that we've never told anyone else. We tell each other "nobody understands me like you do," and "you're the most important person in my life."

You can be really mean sometimes but I never blame you for it, because I can take it. 

We're cuddling together while watching a movie, simply because we like being in each other's space. We don't need to speak, because when we're together, simply existing is enough. 

We also argue, but we can never stay mad at each other for too long. You try your best to make me feel comfortable because of my anxiety, even though you don't quite understand it. In turn, I hold your hair back when you've drunk too much and keep you company when the sad thoughts are too heavy.

You don't care when I am being embarrassing. You give me lots of gifts, and I try to keep up despite being too much of a perfectionist and wanting only the best one for you. 

The we drop out of boarding school together. It creates a physical distance between us, but mentally, we are practically glued together. You visit me a lot, but I mostly visit you. 

we save each others favourite songs to our playlists. You always say the right thing to make me double over in laughter. We talk while the moon is high and the rest of the world doesn't exist, about everything and nothing. Sixteen feels like it will last forever, at least I hope it will, because I get to spend it with you. 

Then you're not responding to my texts but it is fine, because I know that you get in your head sometimes. I try to be understanding, and I try to help you the best I can from where I am, because you always held me when I needed it, and I just want you to be okay. 

You apologise, but i tell you that it is okay, because you're my best friend. You don't answer. You just look to the floor. 

Then it is not sometimes you're mean. Then it is every time we talk. Then I'm wondering when we started seeing each other every five months instead of every month, and why it is always me texting first and reaching out. In the back of my head, a little voice is telling me that I am the only one who cares about us. But that can't be right, because I know you, don't I?

You're slipping through my fingers, and I realise that while we were glued together, safe and lovingly, glue is sometimes still not enough. Glue cracks and breaks, and I didn't realise we could, too. 

I wonder why you're telling me that I am overreacting and being stupid about this, when all I did was feel hurt that you didn't invite me to your birthday party. And then I feel a gaping hole in the pit of my stomach when I am spending new years at home, when we used to do it together every year since we met. 

And while all of this is happening, I am wondering what I did to make you push me away. The steady presence of you in my life, whom I knew would be there by my side forever, is glitching and malfunctioning. 

And then suddenly, life without you is normalcy. 

Suddenly, I don't see your kindness and love poured into every object of my room. The little recognition that you used to sleep closest to the door, because my paranoia was too extreme. The notes you wrote me, that used to hang on my wall but are now tucked away in a drawer. 

I don't get reminded of you when I watch a show or a funny video I know you'd love. I don't go to sleep thinking about you. Suddenly you're just not there anymore, and suddenly I am fine with that. 

Every once in a while, I think of you. I think of long hugs on ordinary days, my cheek pressed to your chest. And I think of how you brought me food when I was too exhausted to do so myself. I think of us ditching a school party to smoke and be ourselves. I think of your father, who remembered my name despite not remembering any of your other friends. I think about you finally taking a break from school after I explained how important it was. And I remember how something changed with you. There was still a weight on your shoulders, but not nearly as heavy and I remember feeling relieved because I did something that helped you. 

No matter what happened, or how hurt I felt and still sometimes feel, I hope you're happy. I hope you have friends who make you feel like you, and selfishly, I hope you're not as close with them as you were with me. 

I hope that everything goes well for you and that you're surrounded by love because you deserve it so fucking much. And sometimes, I will think of you, and a little smile will appear in the corner of my lips. 

And then the memory will pass within the blink of an eye, and my life will go on.