Traveling Companion: A Short Story

Traveling Companion

Warning: This story contains strong language, sexual content and themes of suicidality.

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"Will we always be friends?" Keenan asked me with the eyes of a lost puppy, hoping his newfound owner would keep him.

I winced, my faith breached. "Of course, idiot."

"Even after we graduate?"

"Yes," I smiled, one arm slinging over his shoulder, and another over Brian's, his twin brother, "even after we graduate."

We graduated. We weren't together during the ceremony, and we weren't together after. There was a dinner party. Despite my love of foodstuff, I went home; Keenan possibly did too. We didn't have many friends apart from each other, and maybe we weren't friends ourselves anymore.

Brian went to the dinner party. Although we were in love once upon a time, I wasn't his date; Lily was. He was soft and sweet, like melting chocolate, but I wasn't.

Even after our innumerable arguments, Brian and I remained friends. In fact, we were the best of friends, and he asked for my advice whenever Lily was upset with him. He hung on to my every word, as if I had answers to all questions pondered by men ill-starred in love, as if Lily and I were the same simply because we were both women with a shared interest in long beards, deep voices, and French accents.

Yes, I wasn't soft and sweet, and neither was she. But we weren't the same. I didn't tell him to change his haircut when it didn't suit my taste. I didn't let my friends poke fun at him only because they were my friends and so he had no other choice but to bear with them. I didn't leave him with an ultimatum every time he did or said something infuriating. I didn't insult his singing-the only thing he found purpose in-whenever my mood shifted. We weren't the same, and I hoped Brian could see it in the advice I offered. Or at least in the good memories I'd left him with.

I hadn't left enough of them apparently, otherwise he'd have taken me instead to the dinner party. Keenan would have gone with us. The restaurant would have an open piano, because somehow, there was one wherever Keenan went. I'd have urged him to take the stage with Brian, until he became more annoyed with me than he was shy of performing in public. They'd have played songs, I'd have cheered from the table, and our friendship would have lasted.

The summer break following graduation, I became aware of what I was, and I wasn't sure I could be anything else. I was depressed, and no one knew. Neither Brian nor Keenan. They didn't message me until I messaged them, and a long delay squeezed itself between our texts. I invited them over once. Brian responded after a few days, and Keenan didn't. He had never replied since.

Brian came over, and we had lunch. We talked about the future, and nothing we said included each other, as if all we had told each other during high school was only of my own making. I knew then I would never hear from him either.

I asked him how Keenan had been doing lately.

"He doesn't play the piano anymore."

I gasped, though I wasn't too surprised: Keenan had told himself that he would never give up on playing the piano, but he had also told me that he would always be by my side. "Why not?" I asked.

"I don't know." But we both knew: If I'd been softer, if I'd been sweeter, our friendship would have survived the summer. Then, I still could have urged Keenan to play the piano; no one had the ability to irritate him toward fruitful action more than I.

"We should see each other more often," I said as Brian stood up to leave.

He stared at me with narrowed eyes, as if attempting to remember something he had long forgotten. "We should."