Raconteuse // Halsey

4

"You'll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things."

-Jamie Tworkowski

Admiring from afar is what my best friend liked to do most at the local coffee shop. Admiring her while she admired from afar was what I liked to do most at the local coffee shop.

Writing about her is the easiest yet hardest thing to do. Easy because I know her so well. Hard because I want to describe her in such a way that makes you, the reader, know her just as well as I do.

She was always at the coffee shop before me, for she admired the few minutes of solitude. I would enter through the door and be welcomed by her benevolent smile and secure embrace.
Introvert at heart, she made me go up to the counter and order our drinks. As cliché best friends, we had the same taste in coffee: lots of sugar, although it was me more so than her.

Depending on the day, we would occupy our hours with different activities. Most of the time we did our homework. Other times, we would read, write, draw. Conversing about the universe was a common topic as well.

As I mentioned earlier, she enjoyed admiring from afar, which is something that I've invariably questioned, yet never judged. Her insight into everything going on around her never ceased to amaze me. I wondered how one could be so spatially aware without being a smartass about it. I don't think I ever thanked her enough for her intelligence.

She had a hobby of collecting boarding passes. I liked to think it was because of her love for travel, yet I could always be wrong. Maybe it was because of her need to get away from home.

Music was her answer for everything. It was usually her inspiration for many things in her life. Whether it be at home, at school, on a walk, she unfailingly tuned out the world around her with the resonance of what truly made her happy.

If there was one thing that I wish I could answer, it would be if she was ever sincerely okay. Sure, I'd ask her how her day was, and she'd reply with a simple 'fine'. I didn't want to exasperate her with my concern, so I failed to ask her to elaborate more. I'll eternally repent that decision, and I guess I'll never know the answer to that haunting question.