A PLACE TO SIGH

Sunday:

Have you ever seen colorful butterflies? Or, let’s keep it singular—ever seen a particularly beautiful one land on your hand?

You might have guessed my reaction—I was supposed to be ecstatic, right?

After all, a lot of children get lost in the woods while chasing after a butterfly.

Since the day I realized I was in this world, I wanted all of this to be an imagination; just like the cartoons I’ve enjoyed watching. Tom and Jerry, Oggy and the Cockroaches, Mr. Bean—you name it.

You could have guessed me as a regular kid—like the kids who get lost in the woods chasing after a butterfly.

But unfortunately, it wasn’t me.

Yes, I watched cartoons like any other kid. I watched cartoons that were annoying, and my mother struggled to get rid of this habit.

But I wasn’t the kid who got lost in the woods chasing after a butterfly. I was the kid who tried to kill the butterfly the moment it landed on my hand—beautiful or not.

It wasn’t easy for me. It wasn’t easy to get along with those butterfly lovers.

I, as I’ve said, don’t like butterflies. I never ran into the woods, afraid that I might get lost.

For many years, just like a butterfly, friendship was a thing that only existed in the cartoons.

Let’s take…. Um… Tom and Jerry, for example (I can’t remember if they were friends). No, they were boring. After all, they were enemies. How about Harry Potter?

Yes, now we’ve come to friendship.

Which house would you like to choose in Hogwarts?

Would it be the brave Gryffindor, loyal Hufflepuff, or intelligent Ravenclaw?

I’m so sorry. I don’t even fit with that.

You see, I’m a classic Slytherin—ambitious, horribly cruel, and determined in my own way.

It was my first day at yet another new school.

I was the scared little 8-year-old. And then those girls who pretended to be my friend became my greatest bullies (frankly speaking).

There it was—friendship coming to reality.

We started as a pair.

“They are literal twins!” teachers used to remark.

We looked the same, lived in the same town, read in the same school, read in the same class, read in the same section, and sat at the same seat.

People used to remark that they are one soul trapped in two bodies.

Little did they know about the differences.

I would describe us as the burning sun on a cloudy evening---insane, right?

How about this?

We were like a football stadium. While I was in the pit, she was the player—crumbling me beneath her feet.

We were not just friends. We were best friends. Not only that—Best Friends Forever (by the way, I actually knew about the full form a few years ago).

I was happy being her personal punching bag. By punching bag, I mean literally a human punching bag.

I never minded it. I was happy. I finally got a friend like the guys in the movies. And it wasn’t just a friend; it was the best friend.

We laughed at jokes that I never understood. I gave her my phone number.

And she only talked when she needed the homework.

It was okay, my naïveté had always said. And still now, I always mark it okay. After all, I have a friend.

And then a couple of years passed. From the naïve 8 year old self, I transformed into a 10 year old girl---Still naïve, but a little harder to follow.

I never minded being a punching bag.

But it started when she turned me into her personal subject for insults.

And it started to hit deeper than the bruises I achieved from her punches. It punched me in my gut—a place where I harbor sensitivity.

I tried to prevent one of her punches, and that was when we happened.

We crumbled into pieces.

Best Friends Forever—this term began to mock me.

When your patience doesn’t work like it used to work, these people forget the taste of your presence. As days turned, I began to realize how different we were.

And she suddenly turned mysterious, then distant, and then—I never saw her again.