What I wish

A short story, romance?

It started wrong. It was about me, when is should have been about letting go, about focusing on the vast beyond and not on my selfish little ego. 

I wanted you to remember me. I wanted my own aching memories to be yours. I wanted to tell the tiny scared girl that she was loved and missed. But that is all too much of a cliché to be real, I was a strange little girl who cried much too easily and you were a boy who grew into someone who didn't know me. 

It used to be so much simpler.  Something along the way snapped,  I'm not sure what. Life flows, and I had stopped trying to swim.

Then I saw you. 

It was an old picture, but my heart flipped… we looked happy. I was six, and you were five, all smiles and messy hair as we played in and out of the house. And I wished, with all my might, to cuddle on cold mornings on the couch with blanquettes, before school and rent and work and any responsibility even existed. I wished to think you were real, not just a happy picture. And that was my mistake, I started swimming again. 

You were surprised when I found you. So much time had gone by, such a long long time. And here I was, looking anxiously at the computer screen and waiting for a response, with a package of old pictures and a heart fluttering like a moth trapped in a window.

I had nothing to offer. Nothing but my outstretched hands, my outstretched soul ringing slightly with the possible maybe almost closeness of a friend. I was a dog, barking and winning and growling at times,  while looking longingly at my rubber ball, trembling excited at the possibility of being petted. You were nothing, just a promise made from me to myself, easily broken, less easily forgotten. 

And then you answered. The explosion was difficult to describe. There was an actual real person on the other side of somewhere, independent of my thoughts, reading my message and answering. A complete stranger, some living fossil of the boy I had loved with the simple warm love of a child. Curiosity burned through me to the tips of my fingers as I tried to force information out of you while I knew too well that there was only one bit of information I really cared about, do I still love what you are now? Do you still love what I am?

I ran my fingers over the wrinkles around my eyes, the scars from my teenage acne, my stretch marks. Time has gone by my dear, and I don’t regret any of it. 

The chatting goes on for a few weeks, you write back if I write, but never start a conversation on your own accord. My breath beats too hard as I try to leave you alone, but I’m such an irrational child, screaming to get attention. Speaking with you is a roller coaster, never having much to say but clinging to any possible theme to keep your attention long enough to peer into your mind. My child is irrational, and even as I consciously know you cannot possibly remember or understand anything, I savor the pleasure of the sudden joy of your virtual company.

Your influence on my life is involuntary, even to me. I left you as a little boy with dark hair, bluish eyes, a bad temper and an easy smile. The hole left by the lack of your daily company was filled in by an imaginary friend, who would change in appearance, but invariably smiled easily and reminded me to keep things simple.

I wrote letters, notes, stories. I wrote to you, but it was meant for anyone who would listen. I wrote to anyone, but deep inside it was you I was writing to. 

I stopped writing in high school, the endless pages were just a continuous reminder of the fact that I was still alone. I gave up, I thought I had let go, but that was proven a bit wrong. Even when I finally grew to a relative stability, grew up as they say, I wrote, to no one. Your influence in my life is beyond you, beyond me.

There were times I screamed quietly for days, little rip tides of anger still escape every now and then, mostly as bright colored collages brimming magic and safety and begging for God's sake someone listen, someone understand and tell me I'm not alone, that we are not all born alone and meant to live alone and misunderstood our whole life to learn to let go of everything,  please, somebody tell me I can hold on safely…

I wish I could blame it on someone. Say that it’s your fault, or mine, or God or society or history or anything, but I have no idea, not the slightest notion of why, why I need, why it gets so bad at times. Life can be flowing along smoothly when I suddenly feel the air cut and knotted in my throat, words rushing in and out of my brain like hungry birds. I write because I want someone to read, and tell me they have felt the same all along. 

When I finally stop feeling and start thinking it all comes down to one little piece of information: you are my invention. I am my invention, and my unexplainable solitude is just as real as the birds in my head. That is what seems to slip right over me, I know it’s true, but it doesn’t sink in. Love is transitory, for ever changing at every moment, and people are people. It’s impossible, improbable,  illogical. .. but, what if?....

What if we imagined, just for a moment, that you lived next door all along.  You walked with me to school, and played with me at recess. When the panic attacks started you helped through the rougher days, and when I finally collapsed and stopped going to high school you sticked around even if I wouldn’t see you, even when I was too embarrassed to call. You were there when I finally came back and slowly started leaving the house again, going to school, making friends. And we were pals, and went out camping, walked our dogs, learned to drive. What if you were the first boy to see me naked, and we’re the one running your fingers over the wrinkles around my eyes. Time has gone by my dear, and it’s left it’s marks on both of us.

The young man on the other side of the computer stopped writing, and I can’t blame him. The friend in my head slips back into its usual space, and I slip back into mine. Slowly I relax and let the current take me. I wish you the best, you may not remember, but I wish you all the summers and thrills and beauty life can offer, I know I have received more blessings than I can count, including the brief time of company and friendship of a lovely little boy, who just for a moment laughed with me and cuddled on cold winter mornings.

Author's Note

Don't usually write in english, let's see how this goes...

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A amazing story.
"I wrote letters, notes, stories. I wrote to you, but it was meant for anyone who would listen. I wrote to anyone, but deep inside it was you I was writing to. "
I enjoyed your thoughts and the description of life. You made the situation and thoughts come alive. Thank you for sharing the excellent story.
Coyote

[Evangeline]

This has an uncanny similarity to what's happened to me before, the childhood sweetheart that you ache for after so many years and feeling suddenly distant. Your writing is very relatable, and you should be proud of your English!

[May]

Thank you! Really nice to see I'm just starting and already someone read it! And yes, I think no one is completely free from these types of stories, childhood memories go in deep