We used to lie down on the same mattress, it felt bigger back then. We’d play games on my brother’s console, share stories of our beach trips over and over again, laugh loud enough for your mom to get mad. We didn't know how good we had it, we didn't need to. It almost seemed too simple, but we just understood each other. I knew every part of you, from your favorite flavor of ice cream, to your fears and beliefs, to your complicated relationship with your dad. We took each other as we were. We held each other together, tenderly and tightly. We were so in tune that, the first time I cried in front of you, you cried right back. Through all the play and pretend, in moments like those, I felt it. Something soft, something real. Perhaps too big of a feeling for a kid to understand, but with a presence strong enough to sense it. I couldn’t let it go if I forced it.
It took me almost ten years to make peace with losing you, and I can only blame the depth of what we had for that. I never knew how to grieve something that faded without reason. It was even harder knowing that neither you nor I ever did anything wrong. There was nothing to hold against you, no hatred to fill the loving void you left. We just went our own ways. So far apart that, eventually, we didn’t need each other anymore. But still, there are times I blame you. When I claim I’m the same I’ve always been, that you’re the one who changed. That you’re the one who chose this. But even if that were true, you owe me nothing. You grew and I just didn’t get to see it.
Still, when I see you, I can’t help thinking of the way that it was. How we will never be those kids once more. I can only hold on to what time cannot take, my rainbow-colored memories. They remind me you were true and it was all very real. I struggle to find a friend like you again. Maybe I won’t. I can’t seem to figure out if what made it so special was you or just the fact that we were kids together.
Nowadays, I’ve learned to live with the thought that coming apart was for the better. But every now and then the sunlight will hit my face just right — in the same warm and familiar way it did when we’d sway together on your back porch swing. Or I’ll stumble upon an old photo in a scrapbook, covered in pink glitter and torn-apart stickers. Sometimes it will be just me, having a careless laughter, the kind you feel in your stomach. That’s when I know you are still here. Though you never stay for long, linger for hardly a moment, it’s enough to make me remember. You are still, truly, the best part of me.
Autoria: Nina Neves
Revisão: Isabelle Moreira e André Rhinow
Foto da capa: Pinterest
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