ONE .⊹" just being friendly
As the camera was rolling, the man behind it started speaking out. "How have friends been for you during these four years?" He's the alumnus of this school that I'm about to get out of in 2 weeks.
I, the current subject of his lens, scoffed. "Well, I have a lot of friends." Ensuring that I wouldn't fuck the yearbook or any memoir again, I softened up my sneer. "I have many types of friends. Which of these do you want to hear the most?"
"How about those who are the most important to you?"
And there I went back. It was the closure of summer when I first met her.
In that moment, she was merely a figure in the middle of the campus' court. I remember the silhouettes of people who were clustered into different groups as they varied with the assigned tour leaders. The entire space was filled with noises of people chatting as they tiptoed into their first interrogations and first showcase of their unique giggles. Regardless of who waved back first to initiate an approach-her or me-I remembered when our distance grew closer and closer. And there, she not only became a figure but also an individual to me. An entity with striking details of her brunette hair that perfectly curled into her hairpins and amber eyes that wonderfully formed moons as she talks.
As time went by, she did not only become my friend but also one that gave me a lot of happiness.
Okay. Okay... I'll say it.
"The one I had some friends with benefits with," I spoke up. Then, another silence came again, and the four people behind my senior slowly started shifting their attention to me instead of whatever they were arguing about in that document stuff.
Are you all happy, huh?
"My name's Nettie." She held out her hand for a shake, to which I reciprocated.
"I'm Yasmine."
"Are you living here in Osmund?"
"Nah, I live in the uppers." She emphasized it through her large tote bag. "And I'll go for groceries after this 'cause food, you know," and she chuckled with the confidence that I can relate to that statement.
I laughed along with her and threw some words here and there to ensure that I got what she was referring to and how I was the same as her. And I became like that to her for the whole two semesters. It all started with us wanting to have someone to take to the movies. Every other week, a new movie has just been assigned to a local theater, and-for some reason-we both have the same tastes, so we have no other choice but to go together.
Well, it was actually because we were both single and particularly friendless. Also, I was actually scammed in a way that I thought she was an extrovert, but the truth is that people are just being friendly when it comes to first days and weeks. And with me, I think she became too friendly to me exclusively. She did not leave me for a bit.
She was that miracle I had in my social life. I was always the one to leave people's messages for days without trying to read those. Not knowing what I would answer back to them, I found that forgetting that they even sent me messages is the easy way out. However, with her, it was something else. She did not stop there, as she would send me missed calls. Probably she remembered when I blurted out such a tactic of mine when we were talking for an hour on the phone.
Maybe that was a Freudian slip, but it was a wonderful slip. In those months, we never stopped talking, unlike the majority of the people I met and my friends who would easily get bored waiting for me. We'd even go on spontaneous hangouts whenever we come across each other on campus. I love her company, just like any other lonely people would be.
At first, they were random lunches, then dinners. Eventually, they turned into crashing parties. There, on that night of the party to celebrate the end of the classes, came that moment when everything about us changed.
"Yeah~! "I was drunkenly minding someone else's business around the corner of the staircase when she hovered over me. "Let's go get those chips from Manny's room!"
I could smell the combination of vodka cranberry and whiskey in her mouth. Nonetheless, I didn't pay that much attention to what she was blabbering as I was too focused on the business: those two women adjacent to me who were vigorously making out.
I was not supposed to witness this, but oh well...
"Looking good down there, huh?~" She teasingly tapped my shoulders. "I was also like that to my girlfriend."
I snapped back into that trance I was having and began spewing so many words at the same time: "You have a girlfriend? You're gay? Why didn't you tell me? Do I look homophobic for you to hide this crucial fact? You said you were such a 'loser friendless scum,' but how come you even bagged a girlfriend? And you have a girlfriend??" I caught my breath at the perfect time, but I still feel sluggish due to the abundance of alcohol in my system.
"Chillax~ I didn't know it could be crucial to you. And no, 'ex-girlfriend'!~"
I snatched her bottle as I put such mysterious chemistry of needles and ink in my throat. I was maybe doing that in a horrific manner that she had to snatch it away from me again as she said, "Don't kill yourself yet!"
"But you had friends..."
The camera stopped rolling when the murmurs of the four people behind the senior began accelerating. "Guys, you're too damn near to the camera. We don't have a great mic to capture her voice, so please tone it down."
He gestured to the one in charge of taking care of the microphone above my head. "You can now continue."
"She had friends enough to get a girlfriend-" I stopped there for a moment and tried to swiftly wipe my eyes that had toppling tears.
I am more of a happy and jumpy person when I become too drunk, but at that time, it was different. Tears flew down my face-a thing that startled her too.
"You don't need that many friends to get one, though!~" Her body grew closer to me. "And being friends is unnecessary to get someone to like you." She was caressing me as if she had hurt me and was trying to compromise.
Liar.
"So you just met her at the bar, and then you two hit it off, and then you grew feelings for her, and then-" I rattled off as she interrupted me with her laugh.
"You thought a lot, huh?~ It was something like that."
I used a gallic shrug as if it were her in those camera lenses. "She lied too many times to me in that moment."
"But what about us?" Something in me has shifted since I uttered those words to her. It was like the alcohol let me float in between consciousness and unconsciousness, so I didn't have anything repressed to say about. Everything had been out of control in that moment.
As if the caress wasn't enough closeness in between us, she sealed the gap by making me turn to her side completely. Amidst that, she put again those eyes and lips that I saw months ago in that dreaded campus court.
I felt those warm lips. And they made me dizzy.
Those were the only things I could grasp after the empty years I've spent alone. No one's lips that I had felt but mine. And there, in that moment, somebody finally kissed me. Not only a 'somebody,' but a 'someone.' She was my best friend-the only one who stayed with me during those desperate first months in an unfamiliar town.
"The most important lie was that that girlfriend was once her best friend."
[ yasmine's pov ]
