Rekindling the Bromance

They became best friends in kindergarten. It wasn’t a decision of theirs, but more that Martha and Maryanne got along so well, that naturally their sons would too, no matter how the boys really felt. They never got a say in the matter. Perhaps Ravi would have said no, the more defensive of the two, the overachieving adopted kid who had to defy everyone. Later, people would say Josh was the one to pull him back from the brink, got him sobered up and cleaned up, as the crisis hit the streets.

 Perhaps if they had gotten to pick, Maryanne often said, her son wouldn’t be here today.

 “It was one thing to save a childhood friend from ruin,” Josh would say, posturing to high school students as he paced in front of them, before the guy in the wheelchair who rode around the country talking of drinking and driving, “but to know that you were a hero, that was another thing altogether.”

Saving Ravi was what brought their friendship crumbling down. It didn’t happen immediately, but a gradual process in which Ravi stopped answering the phone, for fear of feeling like an anecdote, of being referred to as something needing to be saved, of being turned into one liners to spook teens into not trying drugs. He became Josh’s work, and the story that made his best friend’s living. It was the holier-than thou attitude Josh embodied that had ended nearly three decades of friendship and Martha and Maryanne’s perfect dream that their boys would truly have what they never did; best friends forever since childhood. When Josh spoke about a book deal that was looming, Ravi had enough.

But now, months after they had last spoken, Ravi had come all the way to their spacious three-bedroom to make things right. It was the damn doctor’s fault. Ravi sat on the pristine white couch, imagining the luxury to buy something so impermanent, disposable. It would take one glass of wine, and then the couch would be ruined. They would simply get another. Maybe it was insanity, or maybe it was the wealth. For all his talk of helping Ravi, Josh did little but throw money at the problem. Rehab, therapy, countless home-remedies, and holistic techniques. The thing that had really beat the dangerous habit was Suzanne. Ravi needed a friend. If Josh couldn’t be there, then he’d settle for Josh’s wife. 

“It’s not his story to tell though” Ravi shook his head, thanking Suzanne with a nod as she brought the tea into the room. 

“He’ll get that” Suzanne assured him, “In time. At least he- “she stopped herself from saying saved; that wasn’t the right word. Or it was, but Ravi wouldn’t hear it. “He cares about you,” she promised. Ravi shrugged, shaking his head with a laugh. He wouldn’t rehash the old arguments. She didn’t need to hear it, and he was too far away from telling it to the one person who did. 

“I haven’t got time” Ravi said ominously. There it was, that slight lean forward, her fingertips flying to his knee. She didn’t hold back now. They weren’t editing and adjusting their behaviour, their touch. Remnants of the affair they had ended nearly a year before still seeping through. Another reason it would be better if his friendship with Josh stayed dead. That way Josh would never know.

Perhaps, Ravi thought, it would be better to rekindle things with Suzanne. Ravi counted the seconds. If only he leaned forward… 

“What do you mean?” Suzanne asked, her gaze holding his. A shake of his head was all it took. Tears hot and sudden and unexpected raced down her cheeks.

“Shit” she said, wiping them away, moving away from him, from his effect on her. After all this time, it shouldn’t have been so immediate. “How long?” she asked, focusing on the fake eyelash that was coming undone, not the energy inside her, not the desire to scream or cry. That wouldn’t save him now. 

He shrugged as if talking about the weather, something inconsequential. She wouldn’t hear how long, for at that moment the lock clicked, Josh’s keys jangled as they found a home in the ceramic bowl on the oak table in the foyer, a ceramic they had made when she’d bought him ceramic classes to spend time together, to make up for the guilt gnawing in her. It was moot. He would find out now.

“Rav!” Josh beamed, bypassing the moment. She should’ve guessed. He always was oblivious, took him too long to notice recent hair cuts or painted nails, and fake eyelashes. The new breasts he had noticed. Still, Ravi had been first with that one too. 

“Oh man, I haven’t seen you in ages,” Josh beamed, pulling Ravi into an uncomfortable hug.

“Hello Josh” Ravi managed. “I was waiting for you, I have something to tell you.”

Good news Josh expected, he often guessed, felt like a prophet. When Celia had gone away to Spain and come back pregnant, he’d known before she’d even said anything to Mom, months before Dad found out. When Jerry was up for the promotion and had said ominously on the phone, I’ve got news, Josh knew exactly what it was. It was the bad news that caught you off guard. A 3:00pm phone call in the middle of the day, on a cold November Wednesday. A detached voice he still remembered that asked, “Mr Fringley? You’re listed as an emergency contact for a Ravi Smith?” Now this. 

Why couldn’t the news be something else? Anything else. If they’d finally told him about the affair, or Ravi had finally applied to go back to school to follow that long time dream of a life in libraries and archives. A career Josh couldn’t understand, but if it was what made Ravi happy, Josh would support it. Josh had stepped aside as he watched Suzanne fall for Ravi, after all. He had played the part of lumbering husband perfectly, hoping it would be the thing to fix Ravi. Ravi had to get better. There wasn’t a question that he wouldn’t. Cosmically, that he would have cancer to contend with after battling heroin was royally fucked up. One of them must have pissed off the universe. 

“You need to come to the school” was all Josh said. He wasn’t good with this stuff. He had the money, and Suzanne had the nurturing care that Ravi needed. Josh thought they had fixed him, together. 

**

It was an ordinary high school. The insides an identical layout to every other public school in America Ravi had seen on television growing up. He had imagined public schools to be filled with promiscuous girls, surly jocks, picked on geeks, and band members. Nothing like the all boys Catholic school he and Josh had attended. If drugs hadn’t been so far out of his reach, if drugs and their damn effects had been right in his face at a public school, would he have sampled them? Would he have gone down this road?

“It is one thing to save your best friend from ruin” Josh started, eyes on Ravi at the back of the crowd. It was high time they said everything that was between them. He would step aside and let Ravi and Suzanne be together. They both loved Ravi, and he needed her in these last months. That, he would sacrifice too. Ravi could have anything if it made him better. 

“But to know you are a hero is another thing. I’ll never know that. I’m not the hero in this story. The hero is the one that gets back up and fights against addiction, oppression, whatever. Just keeps fighting. I was saved from ruin,” he starts the pacing, as he usually does when he’s getting to the crux of his talk. “I was about to commit suicide. Do you know how cosmically frustrating it is to have to be there for someone you love when you are on the brink of a vast chasm of darkness?” he asked the crowd. They were engaged now. Ravi swallowed his gum. Suzanne started to cry beside him.

“It was a boring Wednesday in November. I had spent months deciding how to do it. I had picked the perfect day. Far enough away from my birthday, from a major holiday. I had written the notes and rewritten them - “his voice broke as he met Ravi’s gaze.

“One to my wife Suzanne, one to Ravi, my best friend in the entire world, my sisters, my parents. I was ready. I was about to do it - ” he always paused for dramatic effect. They never expected what was coming next, just as he hadn’t. 

“And then, I got a call from the hospital. Ravi was dying. I had to get there. I was his emergency contact. Turns out he was mine too. Being there for someone else, being selfless truly saves you. Ravi was fighting; he was strong. And even though it was hard, I had to fight too. I had to be there for him. Helping someone else through something like this makes you realize what’s important. Even when you can’t say what you feel, when you can’t even verbalize it, when you think it would be best left in a letter saying goodbye, friendship saves you. Love wins, in the end.”

The next year inched along, with things too memorable to be squished into one year; a divorce, chemotherapy, the book deal, which now they wrote together. They spent more time together than they had in years, Josh at Ravi’s bedside as they argued about grammar. Then, just months after they published it, there was the remission. Ravi had fought for Josh. They had saved each other and then, once they had, they never let go again.