It should have been easy

I thought it would be easy. I thought that I would never have to think about them again, that once they were out of my life they would be gone and I wouldn’t have to be thinking about them in the middle of the night.

    It’s not like they were bad people. The opposite, actually, they were my best friends. We shared laughs and food and heartbreak and homework answers. All through middle school, they would save a seat for me in the cafeteria and sat beside me. They talked to me, as friends do, and I opened myself up to them, and they to me. They had unknowingly pulled me back from the edge many times.

    But that was all five years ago. A quarter decade away. I’m a freshman at Yale now, a whole nother continent. I had long ago gotten rid of the dorky bangs and wire-framed glasses. I study late and wake up early. I have a tinge of an accent that my friends make fun of me for. I have a good life here, now. But then how come I can’t let them go?

    It all started eight years ago. I was as nervous as any sixth-grader was on their first day. I was shy then, but not as much as I would be later. On the bus ride there I sat next to Annabelle. She had gone to my elementary school and I didn’t know her well, but I didn’t want to sit alone. I slid into the old seat and absentmindedly picked at the duct tape holding part of it together. I smiled at her and said hi, but the rest of the ride was in silence.

    When we got put into the same English class, I was relieved. She grinned at me like we were old friends. We sat at the same table and got to talking. I think what drew me to her was her loud personality, which perfectly contrasted my quiet one. We sat together at lunch and she introduced me to her other friends. I noticed The Twins walk by our table and they sat with us too. I was relieved that two of my friends from fifth grade were here with me. 

    We were not a Hollywood friend group. That’s the first thing that came to my mind just now when I thought of them. Li from dorm 208 says that journaling is putting whatever it is on your mind onto paper. Although she didn’t recommend doing it at 2 am in the morning in bed with a pot of coffee. My roommate would be mad, but she’s out late partying, so I have the whole place to myself. I opened the curtains so I could see the city skyline. It’s so beautiful right now, but it’s so devoid of stars. The lights from the movie theater next door are making everything in my room blue. I like it. It sets the mood.

    We were not a Hollywood friend group because we weren’t all super close. I had play dates (or “hangouts” as I would insist to my parents) with only one girl, and only a few times. The main place we all hung out was in the lunchroom. It also doubled as the gym, so the floor was wood and there were always basketball hoops looming over our heads. Our friend group was large and loud. We talked about everything and anything. We arm wrestled, spun coins, and frantically finished homework that was due next period. The Twins taught me chess and we always raced to our classrooms after lunch. I never won, but in my defense, they cheated.

    Seven years ago. One of the main things I remember about seventh grade was being very sad or very happy. The Twins, two of my best friends, had moved away the year before. Back then we didn’t have phones, so we couldn’t keep in touch. They left me with memories and nothing else. I never saw them again. That might be what started it. I began to get even more shy and withdrawn. I got good grades but never talked in class. The only time I would really talk outside of class was in the lunchroom, one of the best parts of my day. 

    My friends didn’t think I wanted to hang out with them after school. I was too nervous to ever ask, even if they were my friends. So they didn’t think I would care if they hung out without me. Or if they made plans in front of me. Which they did, all the time. I told myself that I didn’t care, that I was too cool for that. You ever notice how the most convincing lies are the ones you tell yourself?

    I feel like a mess. I mean, who stays up this late at night not partying? Yi is blasting music from next door but I don’t care enough to tell her to turn it down. The theater’s lights are flickering, and it’s making my eyes hurt. I wish I could go back to sleep, but I can’t. Call me a drama queen, I truly can’t hold all of this in anymore.

    Six years ago. In eighth grade, I struggled. They split the advanced math class in half. I was placed in class two and hated it because class one said that our class was dumber. It sounds stupid now, but my confidence was already failing then, so I took it really seriously. To make matters worse, I didn’t have a class with any of my friends, so the lunch room was the only place we would talk. The thing is, our conversations were based around class. We didn’t have anything to talk about anymore.

    I had one friend that loved science. Yes, we were kind of geeks. You have to understand first that by eighth grade our friend group got too big for one table. We split into two. Most of my friends were at the “main table”, while I went with my science friend to the other one. I spent the whole period eating lunch in silence while she talked with her other other friends that I didn’t know and only spoke if she talked to me. I think at that point I was just done with the school, with the memories. Like every other middle-schooler, I just wanted to be a big kid. So when graduation rolled around, I was relieved. I hugged my friends that I had already become slightly estranged from and we promised to keep in touch. We promised to hang out in high school. We didn’t know that we were lying.

    It’s dark now. People always say that the night is blackest before dawn. That’s why they call it the witching hour. I would be scared, but my dreams scare me more. Maybe if I write it all down, if I get it all out of my head they’ll stop. I have to keep writing. I have to, even though my silent tears are splattering the pages and all the memories that I’m dredging up don’t want to see the light. Or rather, the darkness. Even the movie theater’s lights are out.

            The worst part is, I knew it would happen. I prepared myself for it. I talked to them less and we stopped texting. By the time we all hugged at graduation, I no longer felt like one of them. I was ready to start being a grown up. A high schooler.

    Five years ago. The summer between eight grade and freshman year. It was the summer it all changed. My parents discovered some great business opportunity in San Francisco. 2,922 miles away from my home. They told me the news gently, but they didn’t expect me to be happy. They didn’t expect that the news would reassure me, didn’t know that a fresh start was all I had wanted and more. 

    Jersey Heights was a big high school. There was a very small chance that I would have had any classes with my old middle school friends. And they were all far more social than me. I had images in my head of eating lunch in the library alone, surrounded by all the other lonely people. I had images of running into them in the hallway as we awkwardly fumbled for conversation. I imagined four long years of never making friends, of pushing everyone away because “I was fine being alone”. 

    Which might have been why I didn’t tell them.

    I told absolutely no one that I was moving. I had no one to text, anyway. I thought about it a lot but only after we had packed all of our things and gotten onto the plane and then it was too late. The first day at my new school was everything I had hoped. I made new friends with new hobbies and new stories. My classes were harder than middle school, but I hadn’t felt the dim hopeless of last year and the darkness that had surrounded me. 

    I thought it would be easy to let them all go. And for the first few weeks, it was. I was happy in my life in a way I hadn’t been for a long time. It was like a boulder had been lifted off my back. I was free.

    Then the dreams started. I seemed to get them every week. It was always the same: seeing my old friends in whatever strange scenario my mind had cooked up- the playground, grocery store, Sephora counter turned haunted house. We would greet each other as if time had passed since we last saw each other yet we remembered like it was yesterday. We would laugh and talk and tease. Every time, I would tell them I was sorry for leaving and not telling them. And they would forgive me, every time. We would play like we were 13 again. Then I would wake up with a start and a sadness would dawn on me, so profound and deep that it would leave me with a sorrow I couldn’t shake all day. Sometimes the dreams would stop for weeks or months, then suddenly I would wake up with my face wet with tears because I had seen them again.

    Maybe it’s a closure thing. I never said goodbye to them, not really. They only found out because one, only one person texted me and said she was worried because I wasn’t at school. I was momentarily stunned by a wave of guilt before I explained what happened. An awkward conversation commenced, and by the end of it I was trying hard not to cry. I was trying hard not to cry because I realized then that I would never see any of them again. 

I would see them having fun on social media and pretend I didn’t care. I never unfollowed them because I held a stupid string of hope that they would reach out to me. That I would be able to see, from far away, what they turned out to be. I saw Annabelle get into that art school she’s wanted to go to ever since I knew her and my science friend go off to college with a boyfriend I had never met. They saw me fly to England and get into Yale. I wonder if they’re happy for me. I wonder if they remember me.

    Because somewhere down in my proud heart, I miss them. I miss them every day. I miss the times we had together and the times we could have had. I miss them when I see our old photos. I miss them in my dreams, where they appeared tonight. But I can’t do this anymore. It’s been five years. I can’t hold out hope that I will see them again. I mean, we’re totally different people now. I doubt they would even recognize me.

    The sun is coming up now. My God, it’s beautiful. My coffee pot is empty. I want to sob from relief. For five years, I’ve held all of it in because I didn’t want to forget. I couldn’t forget, not when my brain has burned their names into my head and I can still remember the shade of green on Annabelle’s favorite sweatshirt. People call them growing pains. I call it the curse of memory.   

    I’m going to sleep now, even though my pillow is wet with tears. I was scared for so many years that I would forget my old friends, but I’m ready now.

    I’m ready to let them go.