It’s 2 A.M Sunday morning, and I am sitting across the room with my friends on the cold floor of my apartment. It seems that time is passing right between us. One of them has her eyes gently closed, her head resting on my lap as she whines about her hangover. The other glances expectantly at her phone, and my heart nearly breaks for her. The tomatoes on the fruit stand are rotting, and I think that I should have made them dinner. I have been thinking about it for a while but the plates seem to break day after day. I misplace the knives and think that I should go get lost in the grocery store.
It’s 3 A.M and I wonder how we all got here, to this exact moment.
In my search for romantic love, I stumbled across them, and I didn’t even realize how their laughter filled a hole in my heart. I did not know then how important they would become in my story. I never imagined they would be there for my first performance and still be by my side planning for my twentieth. I didn't anticipate being there for their checkups or standing by their bed before their surgery. I never thought I'd celebrate their twenty-fifth birthday, and now here we are, planning a wedding together.
How silly that I overlooked their importance in my life. How foolish not to cherish our conversations enough, to let their calls go unanswered. That I had almost forgotten them with the seasons but they would return for so many reasons. How did I not see, that they didn’t want anything but to be there? They didn’t ask for anything, I just had to pick up the phone and laugh with them.
Here I sit in the cold satin dress, wondering if they were right. The dress highlights the color of my eyes—it was perfect for the night. But now the zipper pokes at my skins and their hands fumble to help me pull it down. It breaks and they laugh, I should get it replaced. I skim through the notes on my phone, adding to the list of things to do. My fingers hover over pages filled with their names. One note says ‘Go hunting,’ and I remember the time we got lost in the woods camping. I think I should probably delete that.
You know how fast time passes, tomorrow will come, and their faces will become ghosts, they will fade into memories until we see each other again. If I had powers, I would carve out homes for them next to mine, to see them every day, but they remind me life isn't a fairytale—I've always been a dreamer. “But it's good to dream,” they tell me, “you see things differently.”
We are weary, yet our hearts and minds are captured by this singular moment. It's fleeting. It’s running away from us. We know how fate tosses us in the air from time to time, it teases us. Tomorrow, one of us might be gone. But for now, we are here.
I'll make pasta next weekend and call them. They'll bring wine and my favorite chips. We'll laugh and cry over a romance movie, opening up about how messy our lives are. We will think of how the pain of growing is so universal and hug each other until morning breaks. But for now, we sit here in this silence. One will promise never to drink again, the other will finally stop checking her phone.
“Isn't this love enough?” we'll laugh, knowing tomorrow some of us will wonder if we'll ever find someone, as we walk our friend down the aisle. We'll cry together, hoping our children will be friends. And though I ponder having kids of my own, I smile at the fantasy.
The flower will be tossed in the air, and it will be cinematic. But in this life, I will think that maybe, just maybe, this is what I needed all along.
We've been there for each other through every phase of our lives. One moves across the world to pursue her dream while the other loses track of time and moves back home. We catch curve balls out of the air as time passes. One falls in love while the other swears off finding it. Our memories fade into the ether, but time continues its march. We cut the wedding cake for one and grieve the breakup of another. It feels like the phases alternate, the cycles changing.
But we'll always be there for each other, even if we don't always say it aloud. We'll cry together, but eventually, we'll laugh together again. Through their heartbreaks, my own heart will break, and through their joy, my soul will be content. In their tears, I will cry, and in their laughter, I will lose myself.
Even in the final chapters, when our paths wander into the unknown, my heart will carry them always. In life and beyond, in joy and sorrow, our souls are forever intertwined, undiminished by time or distance.
If this isn't love, then I'm at a loss to define it.
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