It was always difficult to get her to talk about death. Or loss, even. It never made a difference what kind of aspect it was in for her. Friends leaving. Family dying. Entire villages on the other side of the globe that were destroyed in a single moment. I remember there were times when I would want to scream at her and slap her across the face to see if she would react to anything of such magnitude.
Whenever a friend of ours would move away, she would treat it as if their entire existence had been wiped from the record. She had this beautiful way of becoming indifferent to any changes and just jump into the here and now as if there was no other way to live. It always made me think of a Fury, for whatever reason. Calm. Collected. So very controlled, and even when it was no longer in her control it didn’t phase her. She was the Ice Queen.
There was a night, beginning of summer, when it was just so humid we both decided that we could not just stay in, and there was a bottle of honey whiskey between us. We joked about going down to the viewing platform under the Monroe Street Bridge and sharing the bottle with the kids that were living under there at the time. I thought it was a great idea, and she laughed at it, deep and loud. We kept walking around downtown, passing that bottle in the brown bag between us as we snapped pictures with an old Polaroid camera by Luigi’s, debating how long we could lay in the middle of Main Street before a car would come by.
She always lived in the moment. I remember just watching her make friends as we walked that night, both of us getting whistled at by the other mischievous boys that were prowling, and I had this green serpent start coiling in my belly. I tried to attribute it to the whiskey, but it would not release. She always made it look so fucking easy, the changes never made her sway. It looked so easy for her, and in that moment I hated her for it. Then she turned and smiled at me, and for a brief moment I saw this flash of absolute regret in her eyes. She pressed that bottle to her lips, and the demons were gone from that hazel gaze.
It stopped me in my steps. I didn’t know what to do with the vision that she had just shown me. The only thing I wanted to do, I did. And I can’t say whether it was the liquor or my friend, but as soon as my arms were around her, she started crying. Nails dug into my back, and tears sprung up into my eyes as I tried to fully engulf her in my energy.
“It hurts so much.”
It was barely a whisper, and it cut to the quick. I thought I had imagined her saying it, but then she started screaming.
“Let’s go find Jaimeson!”
She tore away from my embrace, and ran. It took all my strenght to keep up with her, screaming demon that she had become. And with every stride, she became less of the controlled woman that I knew and more of a soul plagued by the Erinyes.She ran until she fell, panting out of breath. When I caught up, my legs collapsed so we were both laying on a field of green, staring up at the full moon.
“Do you think it makes me a bad person if I lost him?” Her voice was so full of bitterness, of regret. For a moment I had no idea how to answer this question. She was always the one that never reflected on the past; at least not out loud. She was the person that always listened to the problems of the masses, gave advice, told others how to work through their own issues. She was never the one with issues. I assured her, as best I could, that there was no point in living in the past mistakes and misconceptions that may have brought her to this point.
She nodded, a silent smile illuminate on her face by the moonlight. We lay there, two souls bound by the hauntings of our own imaginings, intertwined by the spirits in our belly, in the longings of our hearts that only best friends can share, just content to laugh at the absurdity of the world and help the other stand up under whatever pressure our souls may be containing.
It’s been years since that night, and it was the last time I ever saw that vulnerability and she let me see that part of her soul. Now, whenever I offer her a bottle enclosed in a discreet brown bag, she will wink at me and ask it has a honeyed bitterness to it. We smile at the memory, but a part of me longs for my friend to share that spirit with me again, to show me that broken part of her soul that I fear is still mending.
