Häagen-Dazs ice cream FTW
That was one of the best hours I’ve ever had with him.
You know how, when you feel something (like, physically) for a long time, even when the thing’s gone, you still kind of feel it lingering? For example, I went to a mall wearing my fingerless gloves, and I walked around for so long that even when I got home and took them off, I still felt like I was wearing my gloves.
Well, I can still feel a large, warm hand on my waist. It feels nice.
Today, I went to write an exam. I was worried for my friend, because he told me he’d make his formula sheet last night, but he was copying down the formulas when I got there. I was a little mad and a lot worried.
Well, I guess I needn’t have worried. I did all the multiple choice questions confidently, but when I was on the third longhand question, I started to get scared. I didn’t get it. What the heck? I left half the questions blank, writing only the formula in an attempt to get a mark for it.
When the exam was over, I was unusually quiet. My best friend said to me, “That was so easy.” Well, then, I guess that praying and worrying worked. On the other hand, I failed.
When I got my bags and stuff and was waiting for him, he finally asked, “Is something wrong?” I told him, my voice quiet and nearly cracking, that I thought I failed the exam. I didn’t want to talk about it, to hear how easy the exam was, or to hear the answers to the questions. They would undoubtedly be easy, simple, and I would feel embarrassed and frustrated.
He asked me where I wanted to go, since I’d told him I wanted to hang out. I realized that it was one, so I said, “Hey, it’s lunchtime. Wanna have lunch with me?” So he called his mom and got the answering machine.
We went to Taco Bell.
He ordered, after a long while I ordered. We started talking about the usual - the female friend he’s still hung up on, depressing things that make me want to hug him and dig my nails into him at the same time. Because today he’s going to a school banquet, and he’s going to talk to her again to see if “things have changed”. I asked him what would happen if she was happy with the way things were right now. He said then she’d be happy and he’d be dying on the inside. I distinctly remember biting into a heart attack-inducing piece of fried chicken while telling him that I would want the person to be happy. And it would make me happy. Because I love him the way he loves her-platonically, but immensely so.
He insists that I don’t understand but I know that I mostly do.
Afterwards, we decided to go to a park after finding out that my mom was home. I dropped off my annoying backpack and we set off for one of the two playgrounds near his house. The other one is where his sister’s school is, so that was no good.
We arrived at a garishly coloured playground, full of bright-blues and greyish red-purples. There was a giant top-shaped spinning structure that had a metal circumference with ropes making up the rest of it. He convinced me to climb on.
After a pathetically large amount of effort, I managed to get on. Then I proceeded to stutter and stumble my way through an explanation of what I felt he was doing to himself and how it really wasn’t fair. To himself or me. He told me that the girl had actually been through a tough spot like him for a while, and he tried to help her through it and make her happier. He was glad she feels better now.
I may be biased, but I think it also hurts to see your best friend go through depression for two years, first hung up over a girl he liked in the romantic sense and then over one he loved in a platonic sense. I was there for him the whole time, not as much in the beginning, but I was there. And maybe it’s just me, but I think I hurt almost as much. I clutched at his elbow and he rested his temple on my hand.
“No one should have to go through that pain,” he said softly.
We heard the school bell announce the impending “infestation” of kids (as he so nicely put it - I agree). I exerted even more effort getting off the damn thing than I did getting on, and we walked behind a row of trees and stood on top of a small hill overlooking a...crater, for lack of a better word, filled with yellowing wild grasses and trees. It was nice.
I hugged him, and he hugged back tightly. There went my breathing. I tried to make it a little more comfortable by leaning my head against his shoulder, where he says my head fits perfectly. It was a little better, and he rested his head on mine a bit.
Then I heard wailing. Then we realized that the wailing was changing pitches. Oh. It was singing. It was singing...
No offense to the girl. When she stopped vocalizing, we started to hear words. We crept closer to the bush to get shade. We tried not to disturb the girl so we wouldn’t embarrass her. I was hugging him again, and I nearly laughed when he started to move from side to side slightly. He always does that. Even at Taco Bell, waiting for his food. So it was almost like we were swaying to the slightly off-pitch singing. XD
He told me we should probably leave in the other direction so we don’t embarrass the girl. I agreed wholeheartedly, because I would never want to do that. See, he’s so sweet. How can someone not like him?
I caught him looking at the ground and trying to lie down. I decided not to suggest he put his head in my lap like in Tsuki no Shippo XD. He finally lay down. I said that I would, but there’s no way I was putting my hair on the loose, cut grass. That would be hell to try to get out of my hair. I would only put my head on his stomach, and he said his now signature line - “Go for it.” So I did.
It wasn’t that bad, but I asked him a few times if he was comfortable. He said it was fine. I was a little surprised when his arm slid around and he placed his hand on my waist, but it was okay. It was nice.
It was a kind of close friendship I’d only ever read about before. And I love it. We lay there and talked quietly for a while. Something we mentioned brought up the topic of self-consciousness.
“Anyone who cares about you will not care about what you look like,” he fiddles with my fingers a bit, “Remember that.”
I know. I know, but I try to explain to him that some girls will always be illogically insecure. Yes, we know it’s stupid. I still feel like that.
I also randomly mentioned that I hate it when people have voices more annoying than me.
“Cause my voice is all-“
“Whiny, I know, I know.”
I pouted.
“It’s whiny, but it’s okay.” Oh. Well, that’s better.
The sun got to be too much so we got up and tried to find a slightly more shaded area. “The shade moved. It ran away,” he said, in a silly voice I usually only expect from my female bestie. He had grass over the back of his shirt. It was amusing.
The next place was too open, so we finally found a decent spot. His face was underneath a coniferous tree slightly, so...And I was hesitant to lie on the grass, ‘cause it’s...the grass. I knelt next to him and he kind of rolled his eyes and pulled me down.
It was really nice. There were trees above us and I found out it was a lot more comfy when I had my head just below the shoulder of the arm that was wrapped around me. He reassured me that it was fine because his little sister does that a lot.
He put his other arm around me as well, and shifted on his side a bit.
“I may not be able to say it now, but you mean a lot to me too.”
“I know. It’s okay. It’s just that, when you get depressed...”
“I’m sorry.”
In the end, I counted an hour from the time we left my house to when we got up, walked along a winding path and around the outside of the park, all the way until we said goodbye.
It was really fun, and I made him promise to do it again.
He’ll be gone the whole summer, a fact I reminded him of when we were still on the hill, just before we left to take the short walk.
But his response was to hug me harder-and then to lift me up while doing it =.= I couldn’t breathe, and he said if I could still talk, I could still breathe. Well, yeah, breathe out, that is. I hate it when he does that.