Ashes

Wasted youth

''Where you looking for these?'' is what he says, it's not much but enough for me to understand-- we're too near, I can't see him but I can feel his presence, his warm breath on my ear, the tension in his voice mixed with fear of rejection, or maybe just pure fear.

I want to turn but my legs won't move, wanna see if it's really him after three whole years of absolute nothingness, if it's not me dreaming, imagining things once again.

When I don't move, he takes a few steps back and for some reason I'm upset, that he's just reappeared but already backing away-- it doesn't make sense though, there are so many things I want to ask, I want to know, so many answers he owns me and I don't know where to start.

When I turn, my eyes instantly lock with his, they're the same old colour-- pale blue mixed to grey but they seem to be emptier, sadder maybe and just two meters separate us.

Pink soft lips, his dark golden curls perfectly tamed, surrounding his face and enhancing his features, those sharp cheekbones that cut like daggers. He was exactly as I remembered him but he had grown taller, more muscular, looked more like a man.

''Hey'' he opens his mouth just enough for the words to slip through, lifts one corner in a wry smirk.

''Hey'' I find myself mouthing back lowly, hope he hasn't heard me though because his presence pains me.

One would think I'd be thrilled to see my best friend again, after so long, to hug him, feel his arms around me-- but I've been working so hard to forget him, to forgive him.

Forgiving him didn't take long-- my brother says I forgive too quickly, that I can't hold grudges, but I think it's only partially true, because when I was in elementary school Anthony Lawford pushed me off the slide, making me fall in a muddy puddle.
I was drenched from head to toe, couldn't see a thing because my eyes were covered in filth and I felt so disgusting.

When I tried to walk I fell again, and that time I didn't get up- let the deafening laughs fill my ears until I became too boring and silence was the only thing that kept me company.

That was why when he came to me in high school, asking if we could meet up because he needed help in Maths problems, I refused, even though years had passed by and everything seemed so childish.

Or maybe it was because I had seen it, the way he looked at Ash with venom in his eyes and his mind full of lies, had seen it when he took him by the collar of his white shirt one day after school, carried him in the lonely parking lot and beat him up for good, three against one because cowardice is the second name of this agonising town.

And I remember cursing myself for being a coward as well, for not having tried to stop them, to help Ash fight back and then he said ''It's okay, I'm fine'', spitting blood on the ground, smiling weakly.

In the end, maybe, I'm an easily forgiving type only when they don't interfere with my life too much, not even with the people I care about.

But forgetting, that can take years, it can take a life, and that may even not be enough.

''It's been a while" he says, clasps the keys in his hand and I don't know what to answer.

I want to tell him that 3 years is not just 'a while' but I'm sure if I opened my mouth to talk, the only thing that'd come out of it would be 'I've missed you', and he doesn't necessarily need to know.

''That it has'' I say instead, swallow the lump that has formed in my throat-- I look at something on the floor, don't want to acknowledge him, know what kind of effect he will have on me if I do.

'''S that all you have to say?" He gives me that sufficient look, the same kind of look that used to be reserved to random assholes, people that didn't know him but still had the face to talk. And it hurts, because I feel distant, feels like there's a deep hole in front of us that we digged ourselves, feels like we've missed too much and it's too late.