sometimes I do still miss having him in my life - being who we were together and mostly everything we couldn’t live and the person he never really grew into after all. but then I randomly see a picture of the same six people I used to go out with almost a decade ago - the same three straight couples still hanging out and still looking like nothing’s changed in them, same status quo - I look at him and who he seems to have become now and I get creepy goosebumps. That is not the same guy. I have no desire to be around the guy in the picture, around none of these people.
a year after we had what I now know was our last joy-ride, a big farewell getting absolutely pissing drunk and faded with his work buddies in the middle of the week, closing-out-the-bar might-piss-myself-on-public-transport levels, around four years ago, some six months after we’d seen each other last, I just unfollowed and softblocked them mostly everywhere for my own piece of mind specially after the heartfelt bday message I’d sent him went unanswered (it was kind of our thing, only saying things out loud on our birthdays, allowing each other to voice all that we’d usually compact into long hugs and hand-held silences).
I think I will forever miss the 20yo version of ourselves, tho. And all the other universes and stories we could have lived. I know in another timeline I could have fallen in love with him and maybe never realised I was a lesbian. I like to believe that there’s another where we’re non monogamous queer guys having a secret third thing together. Maybe somewhere we’re teachers and roommates, our most absolutely obnoxious version. this one I’m choosing to keep the memories and the songs and the football games and the sunrise we saw walking back home together that one cold saturday after almost no sleep. the long lost video of me tickling him until he cried and fell to the floor from laughing. the curaçao blue bottle we drank together and all the chelsea matches. I’m keeping all the ways we’ve changed and affected each other.
the blistering hot summer afternoon spent under my parent’s ceiling fan after a failed session of phantom menace with too many space cakes. all the walks on the beach sharing beers, blunts, secrets and cigarettes. all the warm bony hugs and how much and how natural it was for us to be touchy and caring with each other. getting tequila-obliterated together and the disgusting and delicious concoction we came up with mixing whisky and condensed milk. all the movie nights, all the songs, all the school projects and cheating on tests we did together. all the books and the stories and the tales we shared. all the drinks and the laughs and the fights and discussions we could get into. all the teasing and the poking and listening we gave to each other.
I’ll never stop telling people about how I met one of my best friends by going up to him while he read Eragon and point blank asking him if he knew that people wrote fanfiction about the main character fucking his cousin. it worked, once. and it was bright and loud and beautiful while it existed.
have yourself a glass of our own drink for me, man. blood of angry man, red comrade - I’ll be having one for you today as well. cheers.