Met up with a dear friend last week.
It'd been two years since we'd seen eachother, and only just less than that since last we spoke.
Tesoro mio had to poke me in the ribs to get me to come around the long-away nervousness that always besets me just before getting back in touch with her.
(What if she's busy?
What if she's doesn't want to see me?
What if we get to the same place at the same time and we've both changed so much that we don't recognise eachother?
Will we still have things to talk about, things to laugh at or think over?
Will she still let me fingercomb her hair?)
These things don't run through my head when she e-mails me. If she's firing things my way, then the first and second worries are toast, and the third and fourth ones are probably on their way down. And the fifth one... well.
The fifth one's been one of those quiet points that I don't really press.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We met in college by sheer good luck. I was largely diurnal and she, largely nocturnal. Our days usually only overlapped for something like an hour, in the space between our classes. But in that hour, we'd sit in the grass in the sun and... and what? Sometimes chatter like magpies, sometimes play like kittens, sometimes just sit. Sometimes actually seriously talk.
Sit in the grass in the sun and get to know eachother.
And now and then, she'd lay back and put her head on my shins and let me fingercomb her hair.
Don't know which of us enjoyed it more.
Didn't know how much I'd miss it when school ended and I hared off to go make necessary mistakes.
How much I'd miss her.
But it's one of those quiet points you don't press when you've got a full plate dealing with a boy you're dead set on loving and she's got a full plate dealing with more college and her own boy-things. Particularly when you can still feel the cold space around the story of the last dear friend who was just passing through and passed her right on by.
No, a girl like that one deserves gold; I didn't have it to give her, so that's a point I didn't press very hard at all.
Once upon a time, she let me put fingers through her hair and secondhand-smoke her cigarettes.
It was good.
It will be enough.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You love her, don't you?" he asks, and I know the love he means by the vulnerable, scraped-off-bone tone of his voice.
"I do." I answer, because it's true and no new statement. This I've told her, this she knows.
"As a friend?" he presses, "Or...something else?"
And I wonder--what else is there?
I want her happy. I want her secure. I want there to be someone in her life for her to cherish who will cherish her. I want her to see just how godsdamned beautiful she is, soul and skin. I want her to feel safe in that soul and skin, safe enough be able to put her feet down and *live* without worry, without regret. I want her to have someone strong enough to let her go to pieces for a while. Someone grounded enough to give her a safe place to rebuild afterward. Someone secure enough in her warm, warm heart to love her without trying to edit her. I want her to know I'm here if she needs me.
The things I want for her have nothing to do with any opinion she may hold regarding me.
I want these things for her whether I can be a part of them or not.
And if putting me in the equation stands in between her and any of those things? Take me out of it and leave me there.
The well-wishes don't change. They just don't require me.
So my part in that?
I won't press it.
It goes in the box right beside wondering about kisses I never chanced to taste, fingernails that never left slender welts behind, the small sounds she might make.
It goes in the box right beside the way her hair shone in the sun and the scent of cloves.
And I treasure it.
But I don't press it.
How do you classify that?
"I don't know."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seeing her again was worth the effort, well worth putting a pin in shyness and speaking up. If I’d look at evidence, I’d remember that it always has been before.
She may’ve been busy, but she did have time—woke up early to make some time, even, which is an honoring thing.
We got to the same place at roughly the same time, and it was back to kittens and magpies.
I got to meet her beau, and she met mine. Methinks the general consensus there was something like “You’ll do. You wrack her out and I’ll be unhappy with you. But as long as she’s happy, you’ll do nicely.”
As we were all standing up to say our goodbyes at night’s end, though, I had to ask. “Do you mind if I…?” as I tentatively reached for her scalp.
“Certainly,” was her answer, or something equally affirmative.
“I’ve never known her to turn down affection,” her beau added.
Dim background noise.
Forehead to forehead, I put fingers through her hair again. Breathed deep.
It wasn’t exactly back to sunlight and grass.
But it was good.
And it can be enough.
