Everything Will Be Okay

I find I am most contemplative at night. The stillness of the house, which is so rarely present in the noise of my family life, finally stops by at night. So it feels like I'm walking through a dream every time I get out of the shower in the dark, and am met with such quiet surroundings. But I was jerked out of that dream by your knocking at my window.

You know, I don't answer the door at night, that isn't my job. I don't let things into the house at times they shouldn't be near the house at all. Every time I hear a knocking past 9pm, it might as well not have happened at all, I will ignore it, I tell myself that I will drive it away by sheer force of will. But doors aren't made of glass, so they lend themselves to a mystery your knocking at the window wouldn't have invoked. I'm getting poetic. I get poetic at night. I'm sorry, I'll stop.

I remember it was snowing, and I remember my hair was damp, because when I opened my window I was sure it was going to crystalize and freeze in minutes... I remember wondering how the tears weren't cracked against your skin. Although, now that I'm in a reflective mood, I know that you could have wiped them away. It was like you wanted me to see how much pain you were in. Well I wasn't going to let you stand there, I did tell you that you could always crawl in through my window, I was insistent that before you went to that bridge you would come to me. And we would watch a movie, and you could sneak out of the window and force yourself home before your parents ever noticed you were gone. And everything would be okay.

You told me you left a note. I was picturing a tear-stained Post-It, but it seems more likely it was just a text. Why did you leave a text? You romanticize everything about life, you romanticize death, you romanticize love beyond anything I believe love could possibly be. But you went with the simplest, blandest thing you could think of. We write letters to each other from six blocks away, and you chose a text message to explain to your parents why they shouldn't report you missing in the dead of night.

There was still snow on your jacket when you hugged me, and you didn't take it off until I insisted. You cried, I had never seen you cry before, I don't think you ever wanted me to. You told me you were done with the fucked up world and everything in it, and for a second I couldn't blame you. Oh my god, I really refuse to answer the door at night and act like I'm any less blatantly dramatic than you? I take everything that happens and turn it over in my mind until it makes me sick. I dissect and replay and internalize. I have no right to feign superiority. I'm sorry again.

Is it bad that I had fun with you that night? I feel ashamed to admit that part of me wanted it to happen again. I got to live in the eerie quiet of the darkness with you. Your knocking snapped me out my dream long enough to crave sharing it with you. There were no problems for me, because you were there, and everything melted away around us so fast. The tears didn't even last long. Somehow even in the bleakest of situations, our conversations still devolve into jokes. Both of us use humor as a coping mechanism, you know. I've found that out. It's so much easier to let humor take the place of everything else, in theory. In practice, I never told you this, but I felt like a fraud. I never comforted you, I never told you it was going to be okay. I just made you laugh, until the phone rang.

You started to explain yourself, but I knew what was coming. When you got shy at the restaurant, I was the one offering to give the order. I hardly even minded taking the phone. Your Dad yelled at me for a long time. You might not have connected these dots, but your Dad is the reason I started using the word sir. I didn't understand everything he said through the same accent you're always trying to downplay, but I understood why he was angry. I was seized up with panic the entire time, I can tell you that now. It worried me that we're both so lost outside of school. I think I'm okay with it now, I won't be agonizing about it too much more.

I remember I tried to make hot cocoa, but my mother had used it all on those bitter, crumbly brownies that she loves so much. Mum likes you. I think she likes you more than all our other friends put together. She calls you my "work husband," whatever that means. She knows you're someone I can count on though, and I don't have a lot of people like that. It feels like I'm the only sane person in the universe, right now.

It's a little late for this, I know that now. But it's been on my mind since I saw you, when we couldn't stop laughing between your sudden bouts of crushing sadness. Why were we laughing? Was it really so much easier? I'm non-confrontational, I tried so hard to be your person, I promise I did... But that doesn't really matter, I know we're still friends, and I know you appreciated my seemingly callous deflection where others would have hated me for it. Still, I just wanted to tell you now that it's going to be okay. I'm going to meet you at that bridge you told me about every so often, and I can quietly enjoy your company again. And you can come to my window any time you'd like.