summertimephonecalls

[summertimephonecalls]

a meeting with the past

She was late, around fifteen minutes late. I nervously shifted on the wooden bench, not trying to seem uncomfortable on the cushions that were placed on there. My heart was beating fast as I felt the thumps against the insides of my ribcage. I fumble with my phone for a bit as I try to restrain myself from clicking on our conversation while I was waiting for her. Turning to my left, I see a familiar silhouette on a bike stopping to lock it, I took a deep breath and pretended like I didn’t see her; it only lasted for so long though as soon after she knocks on the glass partition I’m sitting next to and waves. I wave back.

She makes her way around the fence and I awkwardly turn around and argue how I should greet her in my head. She walks up to me with a slight smile which I was able to return as she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and squeezes them, firmly but carefully. I accidently take in her scent, something which was more familiar than I thought it would be after four years. Which of course is also a joke because just as I thought, the moment I saw her I remembered everything about her.

She decides to sit next to me as the bench was too hard to get over. We look at each other. I start the conversation, a little bit of small talk, a little bit of banter and just as I thought I broke the ice, she starts laughing, “This is weird, isn’t it?”. I nod and laugh with her. It is weird. Eventually, she broke the ice.

It was strange to ‘update’ each other about our lives, as if we were strangers meeting for the first time, not knowing what the other was up to at all. Then again, as we shared small stories and reminisce on some moments the ‘that’s not unlike you’, ‘of course you did that’ and ‘I expected nothing less from you’ started to come up. We knew each other to the bone, yet we didn’t. There is so much that had happened when we were in a relationship, me being today years old finally learning about these. I wonder if we were always going to be like this, no matter how much time is between our meetings.

We discussed our relationship, or at least an extent of it. It hurt me to hear that she did not remember what happened at the end though when I told her what I remembered I think it hurt her too. She did not know that she was hurting me and I did not know that she was unaware of this. This fact hurt us both, though I had more time to forgive her. She apologized for her actions, I told her I had long forgiven her, she tells me that it is still inexcusable. I smile and want to put my hand on hers but refrain from doing so.

We discuss some more things, old mutual friends,  people we still were hanging out with and people who had contacted us recently. She tells me she does not see anyone from high school anymore. She is surprised when I tell her I still have the same friends. This saddened me as well, feeling the same type of guilt I felt when we were still in a relationship. I was so obsessed with her that I had never realized that she did not have the support from her peers like I did.

Three glasses of wine and two cocktails later, we were laughing and talking about all kinds of things from our past and present. She tells me about her boyfriend, I secretly hope that she tells me something bad. I wave the thought away and ask her another question about him.

She vividly tells me about him, claiming that I should not ask more as she would not be able to stop. I nod. I didn’t want to ask more.

We were there for three hours already and I did not know where to end the night. I didn’t feel the alcohol in my bloodstream, only finding the effects when I run to the toilet to pee after every drink. A part of me wanted to keep talking with her until the sun came up, however another part of me was screaming that this was it. You got what you wanted and you should keep it at that. I end up biking her home before continuining my night.

As the cold air hits my sobered face, I smile to myself and the thought of her. She looked like she was doing a lot better than when I last saw her, she looked genuinely happy to some extent and she looked healthy. That’s all I wanted.

[summertimephonecalls]

a visit from past thoughts

I used to love this one girl when I was in high school. She was my first love and we had an okay run, though we broke up for the last time a bit after a year.

After we broke up, some things got weird. On both sides. We were still in the same school, we had some mutual friends and we hung out at the same spots during recess. This didn’t happen immedietely though it felt like it was fast at the time. I didn’t really get over her until two years after we broke up.

It was especially hard as she was my first in a lot of things. Everything kept reminding me of her, I kept wondering how she was doing and how she felt about her new boyfriends and whether she was keeping it together. This might have discomforted her at times where I felt like I had to look out for her, no matter what happens. Going into my fifth year, she was held back as her academics were shakey at some points. I keep remembering that she stopped going in the middle of the year, somewhere after the calendaryear ended. It was cold, it got dark early in the day and she left because she felt unhappy and was unstable. It was, however, a time when I already realized that I could not be the person for her that she needed at the moment. I had equal parts of peace and jealousy with this. It is now years after we broke up and sometimes I still think of her, though less than when we were in high school. I always think that I am completely over what happened however there are some things about myself as well that bother me from that period of time.

A few hours ago, I was at a party the father of my best friend was throwing for his birthday. I gladly came as my friend invited a lot of other friends and we got talking after dinner. One of them is still friends with my ex today, and the curiousity towards how she was doing nagged in my head. So I asked this friend about it and with some kind of theatrical relief she starts telling me about her. She was doing well. She was moving back in town. Her boyfriend and her are going strong however he is leaving for six months again. She has a new kitten. She sometimes asks me about you.

I take a puff of my joint and let out a small smile as I blow the air out. I see. My friend keeps talking. Maybe you should ask her out for some coffee or something like that, just to catch up. I think that if you met her now without knowing her back then you would’ve been friends. I smile at that, perhaps with a hint of condescension while I keep my thoughts to myself as she rambles on. She likes talking. Perhaps I would’ve liked her again if I knew her now, but that’s not the point. She hurt me back then and betrayed my trust. She never earned it back though I have long forgiven her for that. My friend stops talking and stares at me, waiting for me to reply and give her more information if she managed to pique my interest. I think she would definitely say yes, she adds.

I take a sip of my beer and another puff, looking at our other friend who was sitting there.

I just loved her so much, I had so many feelings for her and I had never felt those feelings for someone else to this day. And I’m over that, I’m sure we’re both over that, but I hope that you see that the reason why this is not the case is because it went wrong in the past. Others do not trust her and neither could I. I’m sure she is a really good friend to you know but I don’t know what I would do if it would be just the two of us. She has a boyfriend and we haven’t seen nor spoken with each other in all those years.

She nods at me and takes the joint that I was holding out for her. She does think highly of you. She had a lot of bad things to say about that one girl but she barely talks bad to you.

I nod and smile. It’s different for me, I think. Everyone around me has been telling me that she was not right for me, and that she was kind of insane in some way. I could agree with them all. I could say a lot of good things and bad things about her— I would just be able to talk a lot about her.

I really wonder what leftover feeling might kick me in the gut if I see her. I really wonder if I would be brave or strong enough to even ask her to get some coffee some time.

She was the one who installed a lot of confidence in how I carry myself however she was also the one who made me insecure. I used to think I was not enough for her, that she needed me to be better or more than I was however now I realize that at that moment I was never going to be enough for her.

[summertimephonecalls]

And I wonder what the sound of a heart breaking might be. And I think it might be quiet, unperceptively so, and not dramatic at all. Like the sound of an exhausted swallow falling gently to earth.

Sarah Winman, Tin Man