I turned to her, a little bubble of half-hope rising in my gut. As if she might understand. As if after she plunged the figurative knife into my figurative back she would be willing to listen.


I could feel the tears behind my eyes, wetting the roots of my eyelashes, and I blinked them back. “The thing is,” I said, my voice cracking. I wiped at my eyes and sniffed. “The thing is, is that, this was my second chance.” I looked to her, hoping to see some sign recognition, of empathy. An electric tension built in my body. In my throat, burning my airways. At the base of my skull, at the nape of a my neck, a pressure formed, slicing through my head, to my tear ducts, splitting them open, and unleashing a torrent of emotion that flowed freely down my face.


I choked back a sob, my next words blubbering. “This was supposed to be the time I got everything right.” Her face was still hard. Her blue eyes stones. Cold. They were no deeper than I could see, just facades that ended under the surface. You couldn’t see into them, you couldn’t make them understand, or have sympathy. They say that eyes are the windows to the soul, and I hurled my words into them, hoping to breach the surface, to make them see.


“Everything was fine when we were at school, because I saw you every day, and I could gauge just how much I was wanted. I knew when to back off, but I could sense that you actually liked me. I thought that I was getting it right. I thought that after leaving everything behind, I’d be able to piece my life back together again, to start from scratch and make a life worth living. And I thought I’d made some really good friends.” I paused to look at her, to clear my throat, to see if I was making any impression. I didn’t know; her face was unreadable, but I delved forth.


“I knew that I would have to work at, to earn your friendship, but I was off to a good start. I also knew that not everything was working in my favour, due to…. conflicted interests, and how I knew that at least one of us would get jealous. But I thought I was doing all right.” I nodded along with my story, swallowing hard.
“When the holidays started everything started going perfectly,” I laughed a little and shook my head, “My only worry was that you guys would think I was there for only one of you. Which I wasn’t,” I added, hastenedly. “I truly wanted all of your friendships. But when it happened, I could feel you slipping away from me.

“I had been hanging on for my life, plastering a smile on my face when anyone looked at me, because I was this close to letting go of the rope that tied me to you all. I was so close to the edge of the cliff, and not intentionally, it was just where I was standing, and I could do nothing other than fight with my life to stay where I was, to gain ground on this side of the chasm.

“I was in a tight spot you see, teetering on a tightrope. Lean to far either way and I’d fall. If I cared too much, then I’d seem obsessed, and it’d seem like he was the only one I cared about.” I used my hands to embellish my words as I went along, when I came to this part, they dropped to my lap, limp and unmoving. My voice cracked at “he,” and I stared off into space, my eyes unfocused yet open wide. I continued, my voice in a whisper. “If I didn’t care enough, then I’d be a bad friend, to all of you. When my family went away on holiday, that’s when the real damage hit. I barely talked to any of you, and it cut a gaping hole into our already stretched thin connection. I came back, and nobody wanted to talk to me. Except you.” I glanced at her, my voice soft over my last words. “But soon you didn’t want to either. I hung onto the fact that I had other friends, but it wasn’t the same,” I said, hanging my head. I looked at her, my shoulders still hunched over. I didn’t know if it was pity, or anger, or condescension on her face, but it didn’t seem to matter. I was finally getting my feelings out.

“To hear you say that I wasn’t worth it, that we weren’t really friends, that all the hours and hours I had spent fretting over how to get in your good graces were futile, and that I might as well forget we ever met, it destroyed me. To think that I have wasted the past two months of my life on a group of people who don’t give a damn about me!” I jumped to feet to get in her face, waving my arms about me make emphasis. By now the tears are flooding my eyes, and I can’t see her through the watery curtain, but I couldn’t care less.

“I just saw one the best friends I’ve made here almost die! And then all of his friends come and say, ‘Oh, we’re not really friends any more.’ We’re not going to be there to support you anymore! We don’t care! It ruined me! You have no idea how much time I’ve spent balling my eyes out! You don’t know what it’s like to leave everything behind, to come to a totally new place, to have to make new friends, and to not be able to look back! To not be able to have your best friend’s arms to hold you.

“Imagine what it would be like if she was halfway around the world from you.” I look at her sincerely, begging her to listen, to understand, my words wavering with tears. “Imagine that. Imagine what I’m feeling. This was my do over.”

I look to the sky. I want it to be stormy and angry, to have lightning clouds threatening overhead. To feel the pressure and the buzzing in my ears before a devastation storm. I want it to look like me on the inside. But it doesn’t. It is clear and blue, with only a few wispy white clouds. I close my eyes and bite my lower lip. “I’m going to go now,” I whisper softly. I don’t look at her again. I just walk away, knowing that she’s still sitting there on the red train station bench, under the pale blue sky, with her pale blue eyes that don’t understand, and won’t ever.