Dearest LoUGaV,
I am scared.
Their fear is that we might grow to hate each other.
My fear is that we won’t care enough for all that hate.
On you I’ve cashed in my chips. I turned in every lucky penny and squeezed every charm tightly in my hands. I wished with all my heart for someone like you, someone so supportive, so independent, so adventurous. A writer. A best friend like you.
It’s amazing that we have become so close in such a short amount of time. I’ve known you name for 8 months, but I’ve only known your face for 2, and I found your soul somewhere in the middle.
We’re the lucky ones. People don’t always find a best friend in their roommate. Some people hate their roommates. Some people move out. Some people tough it out. Some just cohabitate the same breathing space. But we’re the lucky ones. You feel off kilter when we go all day without seeing each other. I tell you everything. You know more about me than anyone in the world.
I didn’t expect to find a best friend. But you were the one that stuck out. I got silly excited to see your MyIthaca messages pop up on the screen. You were so easy to talk to. You are still so easy to talk to. And to laugh with – we cackle like disgusting old witches into the dead of night, and still wake up smiling.
When I asked you to be my roommate I felt like I was proposing. I scripted it out, overthought, overanalyzed. I broached the subject and jumped. The worst thing you could have said was no.
Thank God you didn’t.
When love dies, the foul stench of decay cracks jaws and tears rib cages apart. Tears sting like vodka in open heart surgery. When love dies, you feel it in every part of your body when it leaves. Sometimes you don’t realize it’s gone until you’re on your hands and knees, shivering alone on the cold marble. That’s what scares me.
I’ve had best friends before. I’ve felt that kind of I’ll-kill-for-you-I’ll-die-for-you love, as fierce and wild as a flaming, untamed sunset. That’s what scares me, I’ve felt it before. But now, when I search those places in my heart where I thought the pillars were unshakeable, indestructible, infinite, I’m only coming up with fistfuls of loose sand.
I’ve said I love you before, and I meant it with every ounce of my body. That’s what scares me. I’m waiting for the day that I stop meaning it, the day when I no longer say it. When I no longer feel that savage protectiveness in my chest.
Can I possibly hope that we could be different – for whatever silly distinction there is between you and everyone I’ve loved before, that we can outlast the earth? I do think I have that hope. Maybe it is because I think I know how to be a good friend, now. How to be supportive and kind, and still set boundaries that keep us both sane and whole.
I know how to be my own person. I know how to love another person.
I won’t make the same mistakes. And I’ll be grateful for every day, just in case.
Pinky promise.
Yours most sincerely,
SHoPaG