Frankly Told: Where Friends Come
His heartbeat sounded louder in his ears. The music he made with his breath had long become background noise and he could hear his footsteps patter on the sidewalk. The cold made the air slightly sharp and his lungs burned.
His windbreaker gripped to him like a second skin and with the combination of sweat, rain and wind it was not letting up. Still, he was glad for the trade-off of the second skin for warmth because it made it feel lighter. Around him, umbrellas hobbled around creating a path and he bounced along between them. Opting to get away from the crowds, he changed paths and turned down a road he had not turned down in a very long time.
Almost instantly, a familiar feeling snuck up on him and left him with butterflies in his stomach, making it uncomfortable to keep his core engaged and maintain the pace that he had stuck to. Being a residential area, he was glad that the number of cars was small and the threat of being showered in puddle water had reduced. As he drew nearer the gate, his heart slowly sunk and the memory flooded in. He shook his head and sprinted past.
He clenched his jaw at the thought of it but he couldn’t shake it and he completely lost the rhythm of his body. He tried to push through but the energy in his legs escaped him and he could feel the little aches here and there in his body. After a few dozen metres he was forced to stop by the awareness of his body. The raindrops pelted him with cold and the sound they made reminded him of the sound they made as they hit the roof of the car, that night.
He sat in silence, in the partial darkness only saved by the accents on his dashboard and the screen to his media system. His fingers wrapped themselves tightly around the steering wheel. Every piece of him screaming to follow her out into the rain but his heart held heavy to sitting still. His eyes followed his headlights to her back as she walked away, hands wrapped around herself.
He sighed to himself, trying to expel the feelings of sadness that facing a reality that was long overdue brought. Inside, everything he kept for the past six months churned, threatening to erupt out. She slightly stumbled and for a moment he forgot himself. His arm instinctively reached for the door handle but he stopped it through sheer resolve.
“This is the right thing,” he spoke to himself in words that sounded unlike him.
He watched her get to the gate, without moving an inch. She knocked on the gate and stepped back before she turned back to look at him through the windshield. The sadness oozed from her eyes and he couldn’t tell if they were tears streaming down her face or raindrops but he knew. The gate opened and she walked through before it was closed behind her.
He pushed down on the parking brake pedal to release it and shifting the gear into drive, he released the brake and tapped the accelerator lightly, almost mechanically. As he drove past the gate, in his mind he kept telling himself it was the right thing until he convinced himself not to stop and rush in after her. As the car gathered speed he couldn’t help but go over all the moments he cherished. The further he got away, the more the cherished memories became tainted in the memories of insecurity, feeling locked in himself, lack of validation and all the times he bit his tongue around her.
He cussed softly at how weak it made him feel. The sadness slowly faded and only anger remained within him. It wasn’t anger for her but frustration with himself. He knew he couldn’t blame her for not giving him what he felt he needed still, he couldn’t shake the feeling and that night, the streets knew his tires for more hours than they needed to. By the time he drove back to the house, all that was left was doubt once the anger subsided.
The feelings sat in his belly, just as heavy as they did that day. His body heaved up and down in deep breaths and he stood, arms akimbo, looking up to the clouds as they imitated the night that played in his mind. For the few minutes he stood there, he let himself feel the longing but at the same time hoped to high heaven there would not be a fateful meeting. Breathing in, he exhaled sharply and brought his face down releasing all the drops that held on to his beards.
Grabbing the hood of his windbreaker, he flung it over his head and turned to continue his run. Barely had he gotten back into the running groove when a car with a familiar number plate turned the corner into the street in front of him. His heart faltered a little but he kept a straight face as he jogged on, passing it without so much as a sideways glance.
His arm reflexively reached for the controls on his earphones but their presence was just a phantom feeling. As if the gods were against him, the silence that played held the words to everything that he felt even a year later, even though it had no lyrics. He nodded to himself as if accepting it through and through.
Truly, this is where friends come, an ending that may be bittersweet but one where you both come to terms with an ending that never deserves a sequel.
