Journal Entry 21 – When you love someone but it goes to waste, could it be worse?

”Why are you giving me your car keys?” I asked.

“You’re driving, I’m beat” He replied.

“Okay, let’s go” I said and stood up, I stretched my hand in front of me to help him get up. He stood up on his two feet and fell back to the ground again after I had let go.

“FARIS!” I exclaimed. “What’s wrong 7abeebi?” I knelt at the ground beside him.

But he wouldn’t open his eyes. He started to flutter his eyelashes and 10 excruciatingly long seconds later he opened his eyes and finally spoke.

“Cramp, my leg” he murmured breathlessly.

“Whenever you’re ready” I said and sat beside him. He said it was a cramp in his leg, but I wasn’t convinced, a cramp would never cause you to fall to the ground and lose consciousness for 15 seconds.

“I’m good” he said around five minutes later.

So I drove us home as I watched my best friend lopsidedly sleep in the passenger seat and I couldn’t help but wonder what was wrong with him. As soon as we got to my home, my mother greeted us at the door.

“You two are a sight for sore eyes!” she exclaimed and hugged us both. “Are you eating here this morning? Or are you off to some restaurant?”

“No khalty, we’re eating here” he half smiled at her.

“Ok, then you go inside, get some food in you 7abeebi Faris, you look weak”

“7ather khalty” He obeyed.

“I’m leaving to work… You kids enjoy your day”

“Kids?!” Faris and I said in unison.

“You will always be kids to me” She said and smiled as she looked at the two of us.

We waved my mother goodbye and went into my home, I let Faris sleep in my bed and I went downstairs to prepare breakfast.

I stood up from the bed as soon as she left the room, I left my first letter in her favourite book, the poetry one that her Grandfather wrote. I then picked up a pad of paper and started writing another letter.

Dana,

I didn’t think this would be the way I would tell you this but I’m ill Dana, very, very ill. I don’t know how much longer I have to live, I wouldn’t want to ruin our last days together by telling you this because you wouldn’t be happy. I don’t ever want you to be sad Dana, I don’t want you to shed a single tear although I know you will; and as much as I know you need me, God knows I need you too. The times we spent together were the best days of my life, there hasn’t been a single second that I spent with you where I wasn’t happy. I’ve loved you for years and years Dana, I’ve loved you for every waking second of every single day; and when I’m gone, where ever I go after this, whether it’s heaven or hell or another life. Just know that I will love you, with all my heart and soul, and I will take care of you, I’ll be your guardian angel and your guiding light in the darkness. I love you more than words, just know this much is true.

Faris x

I went back to the room to wake him up a few hours later.

1 week, 4 days and 8 hours later

I lifted my head off my pillow for the very first time. With his scrunched up letter in my hand I got out of bed, I found his sweater on the floor, I didn’t even know it was there, I put it over my week old clothes. I paused to smell it, but didn’t shed a single tear. Walking out of my room, thoughts and flashbacks of him were running through my head as I made my way down the staircase of my home, memories of us when we were 9 or 10 years old sliding down the banister haunted me. I walked down the cream hallway and got to the living room, I saw our graduation photograph beside my family portrait on the living room table, I saw it and couldn’t hold my tears in any longer, they came streaming down my face and drenched his navy blue sweater. I took the large frame off the coffee table and lay on the living room couch in the fetal position, I cradled the photograph and the letter in my arms and bawled my eyes out.

I cried from my heart of hearts, from the very core of my soul. I cried for all the times I failed to see how in love with me he was, how I neglected his emotions all those years.

I cried because I wish he knew how deeply I was in love with him as well, how I thought things would never have worked out because of how close we were as friends.
I cried because all those years my soul mate was right in front of me but I was too blind to see it.

Photograph: An Goban Saor on Flickr

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