To the Stars and Back

The lights flicker and dance as our friends’ laughter mingles with the music. I laugh with them, but my gaze is on her. This is Azalea’s going away party, but she stands alone on the balcony outside. She got into her dream college, some university in London. She told me about it once. Her eyes lit up, brighter than the stars she loved so much, brighter than the city lights we promised to leave for good someday. At least one of us kept that promise. 

I give my girlfriend, Eden, a peck on the cheek and slip out onto the balcony. 

“Hey,” I lean on the railing beside Azalea. She gives me a sad smile.

“Hey yourself,” She says. “What are you doing out here?”

“I needed some air. Yourself?”

“You all looked so happy. I didn’t want to step on that. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be around much longer anyway. I may as well get used to it.” Azalea shakes her head. Her soft brown curls smack gently at my shoulder.

“You don’t have to isolate yourself,” I reply. “You’re my best friend, you deserve to be happy. You deserve to have fun on your last day in this dump.” 

She doesn’t say anything at first. I follow her gaze out to the forest just beyond her house. A thin fog covered the ground, rising from the pond we used to picnic by before I got swept up with Eden’s crew. When she looks back to me, her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “I was your best friend. Don’t lie to yourself. We’ve been drifting apart for nearly two years. I don’t know you anymore, nor you do you know me.” 

I hate to admit she has a point.Instead, I try to grab her hand. Azalea pulls away quickly, giving me a withering look. 

“Don’t.” She snaps. Her eyes are just like Eden’s, though maybe I did that on purpose. I love who I can’t have, so I may as well have the next best thing. I drag my gaze away with a sigh.

If I were any braver, I would ask to go with her. I’d say I wanted to start over, to make aments. I’d promise her a thousand lazy mornings in bed together, me playing with her hair as she dozes off against my chest. I’d promise her nights under the stars. I’d promise to stay by her side. 

“What now?” I ask instead.

Azalea chuckles. “Now I go to university to start my degree. When they graduate next year, Ingrid and Charlie are going to need a place to live while they preform in the West End. They’ll stay until I finish, then we’re going to New York: Broadway for them, Masters degree for me. Then… I don’t know.”

“Your Major?” I ask.

“Astronomy.” She hums. “Yourself?” 

“Archeology.” 

“So us, though. You always looked to the past while I looked to the future.” Azalea leans forward over the railing.”

I laugh. “Tell the universe I said hi.”

“Name a dinosaur after me.” She shoots back with practiced ease. We fall into companionable silence, simply breathing the night air. A firefly lands on the tip of her nose, illuminating the smattering of freckles.

“Is that it, then? We go on our separate ways?” I can’t resist asking.

“Seems so.” My former best friend sighs. She extends a hand. “Here’s to the last ten years, darling. Don’t forget me?”

“How could I ever?” An uncomfortable lump lodges in my throat. “Good luck, my dear. You deserve so much more this stupid city could ever offer you.” I shake her hand. When I go to pull it back, Azalea keeps a tight hold on it.

“Was that kindness, o treasure of my heart?”

“You have no evidence.” 

“Goodbye, Azalea Tendani.”

“Goodbye, Boston Prewitt.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It takes me three weeks to find the note. Azalea is long gone, now. Eden and I broke up three days after the event. She claimed I was ‘distracted’. She wasn’t wrong.

I find it in the pocket of the coat I wore that night. Azalea’s neat script and fancy stationary gave her away. How she managed to slip it into my pocket in the first place is beyond me. I tear open the envelope, gently easing out the folded letter inside.

B,

You are probably wondering why I wrote this. I just saw you, why not tell you to your face before we never see each other again. In truth, it’s because I like the fact that letters rarely talk back. Letters give the receiver a chance to get their immediate reactions out of the way so I don’t have to face it as it happens. If that makes me a coward, so be it. 

There were so many things I wanted to tell you. I missed you. I’ll continue you to miss you after I leave. I know, logically, there’s always a chance I’ll see you again, but you an I both know I won’t be going to the high school reunion. I will never voluntarily come back there. I used to wonder when you would realize how much you missed me, too. I thought your new friend group would prove to be the selfish and cruel people we used to make fun of. I stopped waiting a long time ago, but I still missed you anyway.

I mainly wrote this as closure. I wanted to clear the air so I could, someday, move on. I loved you, did you know that? God, I loved you to the stars and back. I thought for a while there that you did, too. I thought maybe I could get my hallmark ending. In those movies, the protagonist reunites with her lover after a tearful confession of requited love. I’m a bit older now, old enough to realize that life doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t give a fig if you break your heart. Life isn’t fair. Life doesn’t give happy endings.

I hope that you think of me, somewhere down the line. Maybe while you play with your future children. I want you to pause, if only for a moment, to think about our ten years as friends. I want you to remember: You will always be loved, no matter what happens with my life or yours. 

Cheers,

A

A hot tear tracks down my cheeks. She loved me. She loved me like I loved her. And now she’s gone. Because I couldn’t say anything, my Azalea Tendani is just another face in the crowd. 

I clutch the letter to my chest and begin to sob.