Almost

The english language is profoundly mesmerising but equally, confusing. It’s a jungle of grammar rules, a sea of etiquette, a never ending list of exceptions and we haven’t even mentioned the impact of accents. Nevertheless, it serves to account the stories of yesterday, the stories of today and the stories of tomorrow. Each word can be carefully scripted to have an explosive impact, it’s like crafting a ticking time bomb, sometimes. You can build up anything you ever wanted, you could do it as slowly and agonisingly as possible or you could be feverish and do it with such a pace that it leaves everyone gripping their seats with the excitement and suspense. 

You can make someone feel things they’ve never felt before and you can make someone feel things stronger than they ever have before. It’s funny, the way words work. I think, in our heads, each and every one of us are writing away, every minute, every second. It’s so easy to get lost in these minds of ours, these minds which act as a place of refuge, as a place of peace. But those minds can act as a place of iron bars and locked doors, of endless torture and war. That’s what it feels like in my mind, anyway.

You see, I spend all the time I have thinking. I do quite a lot, possibly even too much of it. I can create wonders inside of me that I am positive the world has never even thought of. I can take an idea and bring out a beauty that you would have no idea of it’s origin. I can see something and twist it into this devil in disguise, mould it into a macabre being and create a whole terror the world has never seen. 

I suppose that also makes me sound quite like a danger to society. I’ll try again.

While I do live in this fantasy world of mine where not a single day bores me, I do think about other things. I think about work, as does every adult although I have to admit, it’s a tedious and time-wasting thought. I think about what I’ll have for lunch and dinner, after all, you must feed your thoughts. I do tend to stray to the occasional thought of ‘settling down’ as my mother frequently calls it but, I’m not sure about you, but I have no interest in being tied down. My mind is an eagle and I want to let it soar over the broadest horizons. 

Aside from the thoughts that could put me into a mental institute and the thoughts of average daily life I have to ponder upon in order to increase my chances of survival in this tedious world of ours, I do have another kind, another branch of thoughts. I’ve ever so delicately called them my “almost”s. 

It sounds like a bit of a mockery and I must admit, I do have a habit of making a joke out of myself but the thing is, I can’t help it. You know, making an ‘almost’. They just happen. I wish they didn’t, I so fervently wish they didn’t. They’re horrible, most of the time. Some of the time, they’ve saved me from what could’ve been very awkward and distressing situations but most of the time? They leave me with regret. 

I think my first almost must’ve been first grade, maybe second. I remember those days so clearly, not a droplet of rain or a cloud of fog in sight: those were the days where my biggest worry was whether mother would give me seconds of dessert or whether I’d have to plan a dastardly mission into the top most cupboard. Still, this one day in particular, I remember being sat on the floor, in a room of colour and curiosity, surrounded by beings who I’d grow to learn, were not like me whatsoever. Call me gifted or special, if you wish. 

There was this one child though. She sat me every day at story time, without fail. For the first few weeks, she didn’t say anything, not a single word, not even a glance my way. You might be thinking “how do you even know she was sitting next to you and not just with the others?”. Thing is, I was an odd child, I won’t lie. I usually sat a good metre away from the other children, and they tried to keep their distance from me.

I wasn’t really equipped with friendship skills and I’m not entirely sure whether I have them now. I spent most of my days on the playground in a sad little corner with overgrown weeds growing through the cracks in the concrete and a flat football everyone had forgotten. Forgotten, yes that’s it. I was always forgotten. Still, I didn’t mind terribly, as I grew older I learned that my own company was as good as you would get but then again, it’s not as though I had other choices.

Making friends was hard in first grade: kids were brutal. I was a little swot, admittedly, I liked to read and watch the news (I had a soft spot for the weatherwoman) and draw about new worlds. The others just weren’t interested: they’d much rather discuss last night’s soccer trials or which new dress their aunty Sarah had bought them.

You can see why I was so perplexed at the girl who sat beside me. It was no longer twenty two children in a huddle and one say further away, an outcast. It was now twenty one children sat in a huddle and two sat away, outcasts. 

I let it pass for a few weeks but I’ll never forget the smile she gave me. I’d just put away my paint pot and was rubbing my wet hands onto my already-dirty jeans when she shuffled to the right, in a gesture that meant “here, sit down”. I crossed my legs and sat next to her and the minute I looked at her, she gave me a huge smile.

It built up from there. The next day she waved at me before I took my seat, a few days later she would say hello and then she even started saying goodbye at the end of the day. 

I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking I was in love with her. I wasn’t, honestly. I may not have been with the cool kids but I very much knew the sacred ideal of boys and girls having cooties and I followed them religiously as did the other children. What the girl made me feel like was normal: for once, I had a friend, even if we’d never said anything more than ‘hello’ to each other. She was the first friend I had and it was the happiest of moments.

One evening before school, I stayed up, reading through all of my books all over again. I had a notepad and pen beside me and as I sifted through the pages of each one, I wrote down detailed notes on what my favourite characters said to their friends the first time they met them. There were rather boring exchanges, like their names, and there were rather exciting introductions, like saving them from a collapsing tower. I was up late into the night trying to decide on how to make my new friend formally my friend. 

The next day, storytime arrived as per usual. The others sat in their huddle and I sat down beside her. We listened eagerly, for interrupting storytime was a crime like no other and my advance into friendship would have to wait. So I waited, eagerly, impatient, itching with excitement. 

Story time always marked the end of the day. As soon as the book closed, everyone leapt up, chattering away at the new plot twist. I took in a deep breath, and followed her out to the cloakroom. 

“Hello,” I said, tentatively. She looked mildly surprised but smiled. 

“Hi,” She replied, rather coy. We stood near the door, staring at each other. 

My mind was whirring like it had never whirred before. I could see all of the words from my notepad floating around in my mind. I was picturing the conversation I’d had with my mirror, how this was supposed to go. I was going to tell her a knock-knock joke, and then we were going to laugh and then I was going to ask her whether she’d play with me at lunch tomorrow and-

“Is there something you’d like to say?” She asked, politely. It was then it happened. My first ever ‘almost’. 

I shook my head and walked past her, my face burning. I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t. I’d almost asked her to be my friend, but I hadn’t. 

I was even more miserable when my mother reminded me that it was now Easter break, that I had two weeks until school again. But never fear, I thought to myself, I would practise my joke until it was clean and hilarious, I would time the punchline to the most accurate degree, I would even create a game that we would play. I had it sorted. I’d had an almost but next time, it would be a definite. 

Only, there was no next time. First day back, story time came as usual but she wasn’t there. Not next to me nor with the huddle. She wasn’t there the second day or the third or the fourth. I plucked up the courage to ask the teacher where she was. 

“Oh love, she moved away! She’s moved to sunny Philadelphia, isn’t that exciting?”

No. It really wasn’t.

Now here I am, into adulthood. The ‘almosts’ only grew from there. I almost auditioned for the lead in the school play, I almost offered to become the captain of my form, I almost asked him whether he wanted to be my partner, I almost signed up for that job, I almost told them how I felt. I almost, I almost, I almost. 

The thing that upsets the most is that I always planned out my words. I wanted to make sure they were perfect, that I would get what I want, that the almost would turn into an “I did”. But I never did, I was never able to. I don’t know what it was that stopped me every single time, but I never got the words out. It was as if they’d spent so long in my head they couldn’t be spoken, they were too delicate too spoken lest their meaning became fractured or impaired. I was stuck and I still am stuck with my almosts. 

I’ve been trying to push myself recently, I’ve been trying to force past the almost. It’s happened, almost, a few times. I’ve gotten so close to it, I’ve felt the thump-thump of my heart in my temples, I’ve felt the nails in my palm as I push myself to say it. I haven’t done it yet but maybe this time...

I walked up to him slowly, not a pace too fast, I didn’t want to come across as overbearing. I relaxed my hands, one in my pocket, the other clutched around the warm coffee cup in an attempt to warm my burning fingers from the icy November wind. I checked my reflection in a window as I got closer, my hair was alright and my face looked relaxed. I was almost there, almost... almost. 

He was still there. As he always was, waiting for the quarter past five train. He was reading the paper today, flicking past the pages to get the sports section presumably. He was different, very different. I think we could be polar opposites. He listened to rock music blasting through his headphone whilst I poured over a book, he sat coolly and confident while I was cowered and small. He walked with an air of grace while I stumbled amongst the others. But there was something about him that drew me to him. 

Here goes, I thought. 

I stopped at a comfortable distance and stood beside him. 

Come on, you’ve planned this. Talk about the weather, bring in the mention of Christmas then a cheeky joke about alcohol and before you know it, you’ll be-

My eyes locked with his bag slung over his shoulder. No, could that be his? Could it really? 

I looked at him, he was unaware that a stranger was staring at him so profoundly. Could there be something we had in common? 

I haven’t planned this, I thought panicky. Not at all, I need to go through my words and decide what I have to say and-

No. No more almosts. 

“Hey, is that a copy of The Renaissance?” I asked, my voice shaking with a tremor. He looked at me before folding the newspaper in half. He followed my finger’s direction and looked at his bag. 

“Oh this?” He asked and I realised the sudden possibility that the book might not be his but a gift for someone else and that I’d got it all wrong.

I nodded with my heart in my mouth. 

He smiled. “Yeah, it is. You read it?”

“Mhm, it’s a favourite,” I said, trying not to appear as though I was on the verge of something but really, my insides were quite literally shaking. 

He raised his eyebrows. “Seriously? I’ve never met someone else, all my friends think I’m a total swot,”

I grinned. “Being a swot isn’t such a bad thing you know?”

He regarded me carefully before holding out his hand. “I’m Xavier,” He said.

I raised my own palm, thinking about how every almost had led to this point. “I’m Nico,” I said, and thought, simultaneously, that I would never make an almost ever again.