Preeti

We were just friends.

She’d hold her arms out for me, her comfortable chest to lay on, her comfortable aroma to feel at home in, and she’d have another one of her alternative eyeliners drawn on and have her short hair straightened and wear a striped black and white shirt and carry around a cute tiny black backpack. I’m always transported to the first time we’d met, with me stoned and her holding her boyfriend’s arm. Our eyes had met and I was dull and fazed, but I’d noticed her beautiful, round eyes adorned by her eyeliner. Where had I messed up?

I miss her. Her laughter, her everything. Her –

She had a pull to her persona which somehow got everyone so attached, so madly in love with her. And somehow she pushed them away, so violently, so heart-breakingly. She looked angry and feminine and beautiful when she did that.

I miss her and her stupid little work tales.

And then we met each other because I was friends with her boyfriend, and then we exchanged numbers because I was friends with her boyfriend. And for her I’d move mountains, watch every word I said and talk to her in her sleepless three A.Ms, for I was somehow coincidentally friends with her boyfriend.

I miss her humour.

Her voice was so soothing, so native to where I grew up. She was older than me, and sometimes she’d spoil me with things and food. Sometimes she’d... I don’t remember. What happened the previous year?

I don’t know in what way I loved her, but I did. And I told her everyday.

“If we’d met differently, Maya, we could’ve. I would have.” No, don’t hurt me that way.

Whatever I was last year, she loved me too. I wonder if she still has love to give.

Maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing. Did you also move on from me in a jiffy, Preeti? Was I another memory that you shoved in between your grand folders of secrets to avoid forever? Was I also one of the silly people who was obsessed with you just because I wanted to understand and stand by you? Preeti, you can’t cut me out of your life and call it a day.

Turns out that you can do that and emerge perfectly unscathed. Maybe I’m too young, too naive to not differentiate between my scars.

For once, I’m the one she left violently. I’m kneeling on the ground, wailing.