l'étranger

Well, tomorrow is the last day of my school life. I cannot believe it. Nah, just kidding. I can believe it very well, because I have yearned for this day to come for a very long time. 

I know what's going to happen tomorrow. I can make a 90% accurate prediction. 

I'll look around and see sadness. Everyone will miss each other. How can they not? They've known each other for six years now. Everyone will write on each other's T-shirts. They'll be laughing. Some might cry a little. They will be going down memory lane, reliving their best memories with each other. I'll be a part of it, but not really. It will be my last day feeling like the outsider. My trip down memory will not even be one sixth of theirs. So tomorrow, I'll be trying to feel what my classmates are feeling. I will step in their shoes and feel their joy of fulfillment of their school lives, their reluctance to part ways. I'll listen to their fun stories with each other. 

And then I'll go home and sleep. That is just how it will be. And I know a few months or years later, I'll look back in retrospect and think it couldn't have been better than this, given the way things were. 

That marks the end of one big part of my life. 

What if

I once knew a girl very well. I could talk to her about anything. We would always be together, even when we had nothing to say. We would sit in the bus, sometimes holding hands, sometimes resting our heads on each other's shoulders, sometimes giggling about guys, sometimes talking, sometimes not. She was small and petite, I was tall(er) and lean. She studied life, I studied money. Her hair was long and curly, mine was short and wavy. She was vegetarian, I was not. Yet, somehow, we cancelled each other out and tethered to one another like two strong magnets. 

Over the years, I wouldn't say it was a smooth ride. We had our fair share of fights. I think that’s what made our relationship so genuine I could call her my sister. 

But sisters don’t stop talking because of physical distance. They never grow apart. So why did we? It makes me question how strong our bond was. 

Could we have survived changing countries? I think so. If we tried. Is it too late to mend what we broke? Not if we both wanted to fix it. But do we want to? I want to. Does she? I think not. Every time we talk about our friendship, it sounds like a chapter that’s been closed. But if she’s at peace with it, I should be too. 

Now I’m sitting here, bathing in regret, thinking “what if...?”