Sketches in Memorandum | "To an Old Friend"
Do
you know what happens when two sheets of paper are glued together and torn
apart? If the bond was good and true, the sudden separation will leave one page
intact, but with little pieces of its former counterpart forever attached to
it, while the other will bear long, great scars from the loss of those pieces.
I
have often found that people can be the same way.
I
had a friend, once—a best friend—and
then, one day, I…didn’t. I cannot say
the exact moment the rip happened, save that it was during the wintertime. I
also do not know if she kept the pieces of me, in spite of my foolish yearning
to reach out to her; all I know for sure is that I have the scars to prove
she’s gone.
It
wasn’t romantic. Not really. I like to think it went beyond the strata of infatuation
and courtship into a melding of the souls that only siblings can really enjoy.
So why, I wonder, does this whole catastrophe feel like a messy breakup?
Despite
what she did to me, I still think highly of her. She was truly special—my first
real friend in years. My childhood best friend had been several years younger
than me, and eventually he made many friends his own age and we sort of just…it
wasn’t a rip. It was more like an old poster peeling off a wall. The glue’s
gone, and even though I still see him from time to time, it hasn’t been the
same ever since.
I
don’t think it ever will be.
Her,
though…
Some
context might be needed.
After
my family had moved away from Texas when I was very young, I had never really
fit in at my new school—not even after a decade with the same classmates. In
middle school, I became a psychological punching bag—not a difficult feat by
any means. Imagine being a stuttering, easily annoyed, socially inept sixth-grade
boy who takes everything far too seriously—even “your mom” jokes. By the time I
reached ninth grade, I just didn’t exist. If you’ve never been invisible, all I
can say is that being teased day and night is much more preferable. Humans,
blessedly and unfortunately, are social animals, so attention—even negative
attention—will always be preferable
to the loneliness of cool and unwavering indifference.
Why
didn’t I just leave? Well, until recently, the uncertainty of change terrified
me. That school and those classmates were all I had known since the first
grade. But I left anyway. Started going to a sort of community homeschool.
Apparently, homeschool was where all the other nerds, outcasts, and weirdoes
like me went. I had found my people.
I
had found her.
I
wouldn’t say we became fast friends. Glue takes a while to dry. Once it did,
though, it seemed we were inseparable. It was like we had been cast from the
same mold. We were readers, writers, artists, actors. We shaped each other. She
made me, and I made her. She got me into Sherlock.
I got her into Discworld (an
unimaginably important recommendation, but that’s a story for another time). It
was concert. It was harmony. It was delightful. We could talk endlessly about
anything. Whenever we got to see each other, it was never long
enough—especially when we both started going to different schools after our
sophomore year. We became increasingly important to each other. I took her to
our senior prom. She called me the Sam to her Frodo, which remains one of the
nicest things anyone has ever said to me. She confided in me things I still
have not told anyone. Secrets. Stories. Gripes. I still foolishly treasure many
of them in my heart.
Even
now, I am not sure if things are truly over. As friends, I mean. Come to find
out, it was far from personal—in a sense, this is worse to me. The Sam to her
Frodo was just an afterthought, now. She’d shut everyone out, stopped writing, stopped drawing, gone steady with some
guy—something she’d always expressed complete disinterest about. That was years
ago, too. If I were to see her again, I doubt I would even recognize her. She’s a completely different person, now.
She
doesn’t even answer to the same name I knew her by.
I
think the climax of our friendship was the decision to write together. Serpent’s Star, we called it. It was to
be a crossover, of sorts. Set in a world of her imagining, host to a few
characters of my own. It never actually happened, but there were plans. Well,
to those who have read my excerpt, I mean to say it never happened like it was
supposed to.
“To an old friend,” the dedication
now reads, “Good luck and goodbye.”
I
like to think some of my best work is on those pages. Whether I did it for her,
the memory of her, as a therapeutic act, or for the sake of not letting the
story die, I am unsure. As the years pass, I find myself unable to finish it.
It’s just not the same without her, and writing it won’t bring her back.
Whether I wish it to or not, the story is dying. The memory is dying. Pages
upon pages of some of my finest existing work, all wasted on someone who’s
never coming back.
It’s
the way the rip happened that angers and saddens me most. She couldn’t even
tell me herself. It just came as a text one day in February or March saying she
needed some space for a while. She’d delivered these same words to all her
other friends, as well, but I wouldn’t know for some time. If I’d known things
would end this way, I don’t know if I would have ever approached her. Was all
the good she did me worth this heartbreak? All the kind words and solemn
declarations of everlasting friendship turned to lies? All the waiting as of
the faithful dog Hachiko for her to come back, only to learn months later from
a third party why she never would?
I
don’t know if I’ve forgiven her. I don’t know if I actually mean the words in Serpent’s Star’s dedication. A wounded
heart is a bitter thing. I’ve managed, built new bridges—burned some, even—but sometimes
I can’t stop thinking about her. I kept the drawing she made for me—the one
mentioned in “My Old Desk” of Benedict and Mako. It sits on my dresser, now. Sometimes
it feels like I should destroy it or hide it—like a fondly-worded card she wrote
to me which I couldn’t bear to keep—but I’m no iconoclast. A work of art is an
innocent child, and this one stands as a memorial to a happier time when I had
a best friend. I will shelter it, and display it proudly as I always have.
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