I missed my halfway mark because I was busy studying for a math test (I will surely fail). No regrets about the whole studying thing, but I hate counting techniques with a ferocity now. So there's that.
I am hoping, like fervently fervently hoping and praying, that the people who read this know that it's meant to be fiction. It's meant to be.
I.
You never said anything unless I asked you. But you let me run around and run from you and change the settings on your phone and go through your inbox and text you relentlessly, even when you were with your friends. And you let me be annoying and clingy and never said anything about it -- I guess on a certain level, that kind of made up for you never saying anything that explicitly stated your actual wanting me.
You were always hiding and never talking and so elusive. We could've been substantial if you'd said anything, maybe. In a span of three years, you managed to keep your mouth closed; and still you were funny and witty and living everywhere else. To everyone else, but me. It was the nerves, they said. You liked me too much, they said.
Maybe you letting me do whatever I wanted was your way of saying yes. And your not saying anything was your way of letting me down easy. And your continued silence during the period after was your way of saying sorry. For not wanting me the way I wanted you to want me. Which was more. And out loud.
II.
You were the best choice, but never the only one. And you should've been the only one. You were always so there and so good and so accommodating and maybe it was because of who you were that I forgot that you were temporary. I forgot to tell you how lucky I was to have you. You blended into the background noise so well, and you fought so hard to push yourself to the front. I was too busy being told by you, that I forgot to tell you. You are beautiful and important and one of the greatest things and I was wrong to have allowed that to leave.
To push that away.
To look past you and see less and want it more. That was stupid. But we were young and now we know better, and I know that you were better.
III.
You were the best friend, the completely on-purpose, i-will-be-your-friend, let's-hang-out-now-and-forever sort; though it was always my prompt. And you always said yes, out loud, smiling. Your math was quick and easy and painless, and mine was always riddled with words and conspiracies and so-help-me-God-please-i-can't-anymore's.
Your art was something else. When you would sketch equations on her cheeks and scratch out the lines in her jaw and rub under her eyes and the tiny little flecks of light in her hair and her smile that looked about exactly like mine, so they all said. Your ink was different from my ink, but somewhere in the middle, they met. And they decided that it would be.
We were so much fun. Never really knowing was so much fun.
I liked the way your bones edged and bent and the sharp turns and the gentle curves and the way the light would hit your face from the side and when you'd laugh at something I didn't mean to say. And how you didn't mind how much I talked because you barely talked at all.
IV.
I miss you. Thank you.
days 15 and 16: order and thanks
