Twenty: Rapid Breakdown.
“You can love someone so much... But you can never love people as much as you can miss them.”
-John Green
I don't know how friendship happens, exactly; how a relationship can go from strangers to acquaintances to friends without your even realizing it. I didn't know how, since that day in the teashop when I first saw you, we had become so inseparable.
Sometimes, when I thought about it, it all seemed too good to be true. Sometimes, I wondered where I would be if I hadn't seen you on that day in the teashop; if there had been an empty seat on the day you sat next to me. I couldn't imagine it, but I guess that was strange, because I couldn't grasp the idea of you not being in my life and I couldn't get my head around the fact that you were.
I didn't want you to ever leave. Every time I saw you I wanted to grab your hand and meld it with mine so that you'd stay, because people were always leaving me and I hated feeling sorry for myself but I just needed someone to prove to me that there was such thing as forever.
As I watched you scribble into your notebook on Thursday afternoon, I wondered if that's why you wrote. Because words are eternal, and even when you're gone they'll be there, and maybe that's the reason why they meant so much to you. Through them, you could be immortal.
Maybe that's why all writers write: because their words and sentences and phrases make them everlasting. That's how Shakespeare and Jules Verne and so many past figures are still here, even though they're not, because when you crack open their books or read the letters they combined, they come back to life.
And I wondered if that's why sometimes writers are angst-filled and tragic and the slightest bit out of touch with reality. It must be hard, always trying to outsmart time. I thought that must be the reason why, when you wrote, you didn't show the joy on your face that you say you feel. Your lips were a thin white line and there were creases on your forehead as you frowned at your pen. Every word had to be torn from your mind and cocooned the the folds of paper, and it wasn't pretty or easy but somehow it helped. It was just the price you had to pay for trying to last forever.
But you were lucky, really, in a strange kind of way. Writing drove you crazy, but it immortalized you. I knew very well that not everyone could be eternal.
“Sam?” Your concerned voice dove into my head and grabbed my thoughts, pulling them back to the surface of consciousness. I turned to you, your hand on my arm and your eyes were worried.
“What?” I mumbled.
You shifted your hand away, leaning over to pick something up off the floor. It was my book, lying open on the ground, the page lost.
“Here.” You handed it to me, pressing a hand against your notebook so that it wouldn't fall. I thanked you, softly, and tried to trace my thoughts back to where I'd gotten lost. As I did, I heard you say, “Wait, here's something else. Is this yours?”
I looked up, and you were reaching for the familiar slice of a photograph that served as my bookmark. No, no, no! My stomach twisted, and I tried to grab it before you but you were closer and your fingers had closed around it by the time I'd lifted my arm.
I watched you pick it up, your features knotted in confusion, and set it on the notebook on your lap. You were silent for a moment, and I was dying to know what you were seeing and what you were thinking and praying to God that you wouldn't ask the question—
