Inky's Collection of Shorts

Sincerely, Me

I'm not quite sure what happened.

We were always so close. I loved talking to you. You were fun, with this way of speech that seemed like you were having a good time. Gentle. I liked gentle. It was an inviting change of pace from what I was used to.

Words traded daily. We spent those first couple months making up for every breath that we'd missed, every thought that had been lost before it could make it to your ears. You were so different, and I thought I'd known.

I watched the two of you grow distant, and suddenly I was stranded in the middle of a boat, the cold water lapping at my ankles as the land we'd come from slowly vanished into the distance.

You never once acknowledged it.

You still haven't. I wonder why. I wonder why you didn't listen when we told you that we had planned something that day, to make sure you were free, because I had spent so long devising a surprise for you. I wonder why you apologized, making sure it didn't bother me, when you didn't care enough to make sure it didn't bother me.

It was for you, you know.

You don't respond to me now. I watch you disappear the second I open my mouth. Is it really so tiring to humor me?

It's easy to read people when you recognize patterns. In literature, it's often referred to as being an empath, but I don't like that name. That name makes it seem like a power, an ability to be used. Something better than what it truly is, because I can feel the change. I sense the way you talk to me now, like I'm nothing more than a child you have to keep content for the brief while I turn my eyes to you, before you can move on with your life again.

I really loved you once. It hurts to see the our past messages. That way of speech feels foreign now. Once those words were true. Once you really meant them, and now they're just words.

It took a while to forget. I have a rule of cutting things that don't bring me joy out of my life, because life's too short to be unhappy. But every time I think of you now, it simply makes me sad. I think about the response I sent, and then I think about it again and again and again and again just to make sure it was right, because I care about your opinion.

I've always cared. But I guess you don't remember.

But it's all different now. Everything's different, and suddenly I'm standing at the edge of a cliff, watching as the boat quietly sinks into the ocean.

I ask if you're happy. You don't reply.

I hope you are. I hope you don't feel the teeth that gnaw on me from the inside, the yearning for one of the best friends I've had in a long while. The person I loved.

You promised never to forget. I promised not to let go.

In the end, you did.