Her
To someone I used to love so dearly in hopes you will get better.
“It feels like my fate, it doesn’t feel like this is something that I meticulously anticipated but rather like an event that will happen. That’s just it.”
I didn’t know what to tell her, maybe I should have an answer prepared, this is after all not the first time it has happened, but, alas I didn’t.
I picked up the phone at 4am, barely awake but I know her, something was wrong. I sat alone in the dark listening to the one person I believed when they said, don’t be afraid, the one person I trusted more than myself, my best friend of seven years. Words are no longer useful in describing what we are. I know her better than anyone else in this world, and she needed me like a fish needs water, I didn’t want to admit we were sick, but we are, sick to the bones. We don’t realise it of course, I mean who does, only when the fish dies from lack of water, does it finally realise that the water was what kept it alive.
”I won’t blame you, whatever you do”
In truth, I did believe in it, it wouldn’t be her fault but it would be mine. My fault for not being capable of resisting the urge to save you, my hubris, always wanting to be the saviour.
“No matter what happens, I will always be here for you”
I say, as I trail the scars down my arm, pondering the image of my body, distracting me from myself, because she needs me. She is ill, sick, twisted, she needs me. But I need her too, more than she will ever know. She saved me from myself, one too many times, she does not know, of course, I am too prideful to not be seen as the saviour, I will not let myself be seen as the damsel in distress, someone in need of saving. In my twisted sense of justice, I owe her, she has been there all along and it is now my turn to repay her.
“You are the only thing that keeps me on this earth, you know that right?”
My mind blanks, I am honoured but simultaneously I cannot help but think, what a selfish thing to say. Me, the girl who is very much human, who has bad days, who so desperately wants to escape her past, is the only thing keeping a person afloat in this life. What an immeasurably big responsibility.
”You know, I really miss the days before it all became so complicated, life, death and all the in betweens”
I am starting to understand, she does not mean “me”, as the person who is talking to her, she means “me”, the person I was five years ago, the version of myself, I, so precariously, am trying to get rid of. I must admit, I was not well, not who I was at least, I got out bruised but not yet scarred. I know what she wants now, she wants “me” back. If I fall back down the endless pit she is in, she will no longer be alone, she will once again have my company.
“I miss “us” too, but life is getting better, no? The complexity of adulthood, the almost-visible light at the end of the tunnel, I can see it, can’t you?”
I waver, I pull back, hoping, begging for her to see the light that I saw in her. It was useless, deep down I knew that, but for once, I thought, what if she sees it too? I was right, she doesn’t see it, I am always right, when it comes to her, I know every nook and cranny of her self-destruction, because it used to be mine.
“It’s all futile, there is so much evil in this world and there is only one you.”
That’s just it though, there is just one me, not enough of my tired husk to carry both you and the ghost of who I used to be. I want you to see that I am tired, broken, shattered into a million pieces.
”…”
The space between us, since when is it present? The silence so loud I can no longer fill with jokes. Although there is nothing left to say, there is more in the blank spaces between us, than there ever was in the words that filled them.
“Please say something, promise me that you won’t leave, like they all did.”
I promised myself that I wasn’t like them, I would not leave. But, we humans put all our souls into oath, we forget that they are just words and our bones are just as brittle as the cages I had to escape. Looking back, the cages that kept us together were only our minds’ desperation to latch on to everything and anything to keep us alive. I tried, I really did, to keep the promises. Every word spoken feels like a knife in my heart, keeping them, eternal suffering, removing them would release me of the pain but in return, an uncontrollable flood of blood would gush out.
“If I had to choose you or any of them, I would let them all burn”
Poetic, isn’t it? The sacrifice of the many to keep the few, the one? It’s a cruel reflection of what we let this “friendship” become. More than friends but never really lovers, more than lovers but barely even friends, if I were to have to find her in a filled Paris metro with a blindfold, there would be no doubt that I would succeed, her soul guides me, like a beacon of hope. She wouldn’t, she would fail, and the not-knowing of my soul would be blamed on any and all external factors, that’s just how she is, she knows every bit of me, with the exception of my soul, I know her better than anyone in this world, she knows what she wishes to know, she knows the pieces of her she sees in me. What scares me is that there is simply too much emotion put into one sentence, the rest of the world against me, what a desolate statement. Sadly, I would burn myself before she has the chance to get to any of them. The saviour, as I said, too prideful to put others in pain. Too ignorant to see that she is the one who needs saving, or maybe just too stubborn to surrender to the truth, I can’t save her.
”Please stay, just for me, stay, please”
I pleaded, I appealed, I wanted her to stay, if only to ease my guilt. I knew her answer. Quoting her, it is all futile. I didn’t want her to get worse. I didn’t want her to have to dig herself out like I had to.
“I will crumble if you leave. You are my everything”
But somehow the words came out differently.
…
I have memorised every detail of you, every move you made, I was there. It is unfair, but I can’t stay, I owe you my life, but I cannot let the lives of people around me be sacrificed like me. If it takes my soul to bring you back, not a single ounce of hesitation would slip from my mind, but it is not, you are an all-consuming vacuum, you take and you take and you take, I am not enough, I never will be, you’ve always wanted more, as if the sacrifice of my soul is no longer satisfactory.
I am no longer a person to you, I am an object, a memory, a tie you hold onto, a mirror image of yourself, that reminds you of the comfort in pain, despair, anger, and sadness. I cannot go on, I do not understand how you can watch your life go up in flames and do absolutely nothing. I do not understand how you can watch your ‘bestfriend’ go mad because you won’t choose to chase the light that waits for you. You were supposed to be my best friend, but who are you?
A stranger that I know all too well. There I said it, that’s all you are. We are no longer the people we were five years ago, maybe you don’t realise that, but I do, it hurts, seeing someone I love more than myself watch their life burn down in flames, while they choose not to act, but it hurts more knowing that I can’t save you.
The invisible string of life has entangled every single aspect of our lives, but failed to mention how hard it is to untangle the mess we made of ourselves along the way. I see you in every street we used to roam, in every little phrase I picked up from you, in every inside joke we shared, in truth, I miss you, more than I am able to admit. No one teaches you how to react when the world comes crashing down and your lifeline is the reason for it all.
And as my last act of love, I will let you go, and let myself be the villain in the story I will no longer be a part of, but a story that used to also be mine.