Harbinger: A Journal of Art & Literature | 2018-2019

She sighed and put her half-eaten taco down, glancing at me dejectedly. “I know; I get
it. I’m sorry. You went through a lot too during all those years, I just… I guess I just wish
that we could have gone through all of this together. But distance and time tore us apart.
We both made bad decisions. I’m sorry. About all of it.”
I smiled up at her weakly. “Me too.”
“God, you know how much I’ve missed you? You are the only person on this planet
who really gets me, I swear. I love you so much.”
I choked on a bite of quesarito, coughing lightly. Love. We had always told each other
we loved one another but my love was different than hers. When we would hold hands
in the hallways of our high school, she thought that it was a friendly comfort, but I
cherished those moments, the softness of her skin against mine, our fingers intertwined.
When people whispered rumors about us being together, she laughed them off, while
I wondered if those rumors could ever become truth. When I jokingly asked her if she
wanted to get married, she thought up a plan for us to wear fake wedding rings and drive
away unwanted guys. But I would have actually spent the rest of my life with her, raised a
family with her, and loved her for all eternity if she had just let me.
“I love you too. I’ve missed this just as much as you. We should definitely hang out
more.” I knew this was bad for me. I knew that I would just end up falling in love with
her all over again and that she would never return my feelings. But I couldn’t help it. She
was perfect, and she was my everything. No matter how much it hurt never to feel my
lips against hers, never to lay next to her at night, never to look into her eyes and tell her
honestly how much I loved her, I still wanted her by my side.
She looked radiant now, knowing that she had rekindled our friendship. She happily
picked up that taco and continued to take dainty bites out of it. I lifted my quesarito to
my mouth and carefully took another bite. I was afraid of this, afraid of our friendship.
Because as much as I wanted to be around her, there was only so long that I could last before
my broken heart got in the way again, before I couldn’t bear talking with her again,
before I remembered all those terrible things she said to me a year ago when I didn’t have
the time to come see her. I chewed slowly. How long could I last this time? Another year,
maybe two? I looked up from my food and stared into those beautiful, dark brown eyes of
hers. She would never know how I really felt, and I knew that this would always cause a rift in
our friendship that would never heal, because I loved her. And she would never know.
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