Cold

Imagine…it’s winter. We haven’t seen each other for ages, and I miss you dreadfully. I’m more excited than I thought, almost nervous. How funny isn’t that? I don’t really know why I am either. I’m just happy that I get to see you again, I guess.

And then we meet. You’re there to pick me up when I arrive and it’s like we haven’t seen each other for years. You hug me like I’ve been lost at sea and finally found, and I’m so moved I could cling to you in that warm embrace for hours.
I’m overwhelmed. You’re so sweet and caring I feel lost. It’s as if you’d bring me warm blankets and make me hot cocoa in the middle of winter – that kind of nice. It’s not like us. Not like our friendship, always so deep and meaningful in writing, but constantly bickering in the flesh. It’s stupid I know, but I grow nervous. Almost twitching with the oddness of it all. As if I’m missing something. Are you perhaps confusing me with someone else? I fidget, not knowing what to say.

Now picture… we are out for a walk in the snow. And in your kindness, you lend me your mittens, and hold my hand should I slip. But the only thing I fear to slip on is the awkwardness of my own confusion. I’m like a sailor stepping out on dry land for the first time in years. Unsteady, slightly dazed. The feeling drains me, so I respond. Poorly. I regress into old patterns. Foolishly, unknowing of the consequences. Oh, I am truly the fool.
I let go of your hand, and when you’re just a few steps ahead, I throw a snowball right at you. Like a child in search of old common ground. Teasing - like we’ve always done. You shrug it of. A slight surprised look shadows your face. I grow more worried, you don’t look pleasantly surprised. But I try again, pushing it out of plain silliness. I’m practically smiling. I mean, this is what we do right? This is who we are. I aim harder this time. Don’t even notice it until the snowball’s in the air, a snide remark slightly too harsh. You look unhappy. It stabs me in the chest just to see the look in your eyes. By now, you should have tripped me over and shoved snow down my collar. That’s how things would go. But there’s no retaliation. You just give me this look, this god-awful look, square your shoulders, and walk away.

The shock runs right through me. I don’t understand at all, none of it. Instead of asking (oh why didn’t I just ask?) I do the only thing I can think of. I push even harder. You’re quite some distance ahead by now, and I have to throw the snowball hard to make it reach you. I regret it the second it flies out of my hand. I feel right then and there, that I’ve gone too far. That I’m doing everything all wrong. But it’s too late. The snowball flies fast and hard and hits you in the head. Like an unintentional knife in the back.
And it’s all suddenly so clear. This was why you were being so nice. Because we had talked about it. I had said it myself: “The teasing is fun for a while, but sooner or later I can’t help but feeling hurt”. And you had agreed. You’d agreed. How could I not see, that you were just as hurt as I, even though you never said it? And now, you had tried your utmost to break away from our stupid ways, and I had messed it all up. It was as good as any promise, and I forgot out of pure nervousness from being on unfamiliar ground.

There’s this quiet sort of panic creeping up on me as you walk away. I want nothing more than to run, just run all the way up the slope to where you are, throw myself around your neck and say “Sorry! I’m so sorry. I was stupid. I’m a bad friend, forgive me. Forgive me.” But I can’t. There’s ice radiating of you, from your square shoulders as you put distance between us. I’m too much a coward to run to you. So I walk, slowly, carefully, dragging my feet behind me. In hope that by the time I get to you, you’ve calmed down enough to listen to my apology.
But the distance just grows. You don’t seem to be hurrying off. Actually, you don’t even seem to notice me anymore. Or care, for that matter. The distance keeps growing. It’s filled with snow. I see now, this is your revenge. Instead of hurling a snowball back at me, you’re pushing loose snow down the hillside, watching it grow and gather until it’s a snowdrift, mercilessly working its way towards me. I’m too shocked to get out of the way. I’m still desperately trying to reach you when I’m buried by the impact. Buried beneath the landslide of snow you’ve been pushing down.

At first, I’m still dazed. It’s cold here. Lonely. Dark. It takes a while. Then the panic kicks in again, worse this time, full of realization. I’m buried in the cold and dark and you’re leaving me here to suffocate.
I don’t know how much of the time I spend crying. Just waiting, hoping that things will work out. At first, even through the angst, I can understand you. After all, I was in the wrong first. I treated you badly, regressing to former ways. It was instinct, it was habit. It is the same for you. When hurt, you turn away and shut the other one out. It’s the instinct of self-preservation. I don’t begrudge you that. Yet still, it eats away at me. You should know, you of all people, that this is wrong. That it’s hurtful. Yet you don’t look back.
I keep crying. No one can see me in the snow anyways, so I continue to cry over the things gone wrong, over the mistake, over my own stupidness. I cry from the pain. It’s lonely in the dark. The snow is crushing me; it’s constantly hard to breath. Sometimes, I hear you pass by. Your voice is everywhere, only never directed to me. It cuts right through to the strings of my heart. When I hear you, and know that you’re there yet still unwilling to reach out to me, the pain is almost unbearable. I can’t tell anymore if you’re trying to increase the torture, or if you’re tying to find a way to reach me again. Maybe you think things have gone to far as well, just don't know how to go about it. I can’t tell anymore. I don’t know you anymore.

I wish the dark would take me.

Slowly, I stop hoping. You won’t be coming back. Even if you do, it’s too late. Things have changed. I can no longer hope that you’ll dig me out, give me a hug and say that we both were stupid. I cannot forget. I was in the wrong, but you were inhuman. I just wish the pain would go away.
I start digging myself out eventually. I think it's pride that makes me do it. I can’t continue to believe that my mistakes deserve what you’re putting me through. I don’t think anyone deserves this. Sometimes, in that cold, I get angry. Furious at you and your cruelness. That’s when I try to break free. It helps. I’m too proud of being fucking proud. I can’t swallow all that hurt, break free and say I’m sorry anymore. That means I’d have to pretend what you’ve done hasn’t happened. Or that what you did was acceptable and OK. It'll never be OK.
Sooner or later though, I’ll forgive. It pains me slightly to know that I love you so much I’d forgive you almost anything. Even the breaking of me. In my own way, I know you just reacted, the way I reacted. That’s why I can’t stay mad at you for too long. That’s why I repeatedly cry over what I’ve lost: a friend who's held me together for years, instead of feeling at ease after being rid of someone who’d put me through Hell.
I can't even picture my life without you. I've never wanted to and truly I still don't. The alternative never existed up until now, you are so rooted in my heart, that it feels torn by your absence.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I took the first step towards ruining us. I’m sorry I said the wrong things, and never dared to ask the right questions. I’m sorry I didn’t see that I hurt you sooner. And I’m sorry that my mistake was so great to you, that you could not forgive. I’m sorry to think that I might never stop fearing you. Terrified by the thought that you will once again use the secrets we shared against me, should it suit your mood. I’m sorry that things can never be the same again.
But... you just left me there. In the dark, in the cold. In my nightmares. You knew, and you still left me. Even though you’d said that you wouldn’t. That you’d stay with me; stand by me, when I felt lost and alone. That you’d be there for me even when I felt broken and unmendable. When I did stupid things. That's what you said. And I believed you.

Liar.