Broken Bond
“I thought you were not going to come.” Gabriel greeted me when he saw me walking into the place he had texted me earlier. He had texted me multiple times when I was at Natalie’s, and I figured that maybe we needed to see each other to sort out problems so we could fully move forward from the past that had been haunting me the whole time. Maybe, I need to hear his lame excuses even when some part of me doesn’t want to see him.
“Ce sera la dernière fois.”
Today’s the first time I saw him, and probably will be the last. Some people were meant to be in the past, not the present or future. We might have been friends for years, but what’s the point of trying to make it all up if one wasn’t feeling comfortable throughout the friendship? I didn’t know how he felt uncomfortable throughout the years, and how I wish I had known how he felt, and maybe we wouldn’t be where we are now. But, even if I know how he felt, would it change things between us now? Would he give me a chance to help?
“Tu veux du vin?”
“If you don’t say anything, I’ll head home. I have somewhere else to be.” I said, not wanting to entertain whatever he was planning now.
“Natalie’s birthday?” He asked.
My jaw tightened when he called her name.
“Isn’t that what everyone has been talking about?” He walked closer to me now, giving me a glass of wine, even when I said no.
I pushed back the glass he put back into his. “I wasn’t in the mood doing some day drinking with you.”
“Depins quand?” He asked. His voice doesn’t sound friendly in my ear — like I’ve been taking some precious things in his life.
“Toi dis moi, pourquoi ça t’intéresse?” I asked back. After all this time, why did he care?
“Because I deserve to know.” His voice was firm.
I chuckled. Quoi? J’ai dû mal entendre. What did he say again?
“You deserve to know?” I said, still unable to believe what I heard coming from his mouth. “After what you’ve done to us?” I added.
He nodded. He nodded like he had done something good.
“Redis moi?”
And then I heard laughter coming from Gabriel’s mouth like there was something funny. He was laughing for a moment as his head shook from side to side, and he clapped his hands and filled his place — the place I had helped him buy right after his graduation, but it had changed in a matter of only a few years. We are strangers now, and I could feel there was no warmth in this place like it used to be. His place was now all covered with a white cloth, and as Natalie had told me, he was moving for good this time.
As his laughter subsided and his clapping hands gradually stilled, a silence settled, and the cold air started to crawl back to our bones. It was awkward, and I felt how everything had changed. I hadn’t seen him for some time, and we weren’t on a good term when he left.
“Oh… how I miss teasing you.” He said after a brief silence. “You should have looked up at your face.” He pointed his fingers at my face and shook his head multiple times. He tried not to make things between us awkward, but it didn’t work the way it used to.
“I don’t have time for this.” I started to walk away from Gabriel, but then something caught my eye on my way out from his place.
Our pictures when we were ten were still hanging near his front door. We spent our summer break at my grandparents’ houses in the UK. My grandpa wanted me to stay the summer there, so I asked Gabriel to come with me as his parents canceled their vacation plans (again).
“That was my first time spending the summer with you.” He said, reminiscing about the old time when everything was fine — all we knew about was how will we spend weeks without our parents. We were having so much fun that year as my grandparents let us sit and play throughout the holidays — no homework or school-related things.
There was a brief silence between us. We both realized how far things have changed, especially in our friendship.
Get Amara’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
“I miss those old days.” He said again.
“I’m leaving,” I told him. I don’t have time to talk about the old times.
“I’m sorry.”
I stopped. I tried to loosen up but failed. Gabriel’s apology and explanation were the words I wanted him to say to me years ago, but now as I hear it, it just doesn’t sound sincere to me — he got caught, he got what he wanted, and he came back because he wanted to have an entirely fresh start with his life in the states.
“Sorry doesn’t change anything.”
Maybe if he had said it back then, I could’ve forgive him. But I heard nothing of it. I heard nothing, and it took him a few years to get back to us and say sorry. There are many ways that he could’ve done to me, yet he did nothing during those years.
“I know it doesn’t change anything. But I just wanted you to know I wished I didn’t have to put you in the middle of my problems. I shouldn’t have thrown you under so I could easily exit with Natalie. I didn’t mean it.”
I laughed at his excuses. He didn’t mean it, he said.
“We’ve known each other since we were kids, and I know you well enough to know that you meant it. That thing you pulled out at the hotel gave you an easy exit from Natalie, your parents, and everyone who cared about you, including me. You wanted a way out; that’s why you pulled that shit out.”
He stayed still. Silent. I caught him. Because I always knew he wanted to unfold the way it was — to get away from everyone. He was using me as a tool to get out of the life he has been wanted to leave behind so he could have a fresh start somewhere else. People won’t question what had happened between him because no one knew about this — the NDA helped him to get out from his life.
I know how his parents always force things for him. They were terrible— they treated Gabriel like an asset that they could throw and pick whenever they wanted. I know how it must have been hard, but there were things he left out from me; how they compared both of us or when they urged him to ask Natalie’s hands for marriage. That is one of the few things I never knew.
“You know how miserable I was.”
“I don’t. You never talked to me about it.” He never talked to me about his feelings, and when I tried to reach out about his behavior, he shut me down completely. He shut down everyone who cared for him and acted like he was fine the next time.
“It was hard for me.”
C’était dur pour moi aussi.
“It was hard for everyone, too, Gab.” I calmed myself down before I told him how hard it was for everyone.
“Maybe that’s how you cope, but that is an awful way to treat people around you. I got it. Maybe you didn’t let us know because we were the ones who caused you the pain.”
“I… I just… lost. But I’m genuinely sorry for the way I treated you. You are — “
“Were.” I corrected.
“Right. You were my best friend. But I’m sorry, Dan, that’s the only way I could run from my parents. I had enough of them.”
People come and go, but I never thought it would happen to us. Like a relationship, friendship is a two-way street — I can’t be the only one who kept driving to his side, and if one is the only one driving, it’s time to let it go. There’s no point in trying when one isn’t going to put the same effort into our friendship.
I walked away from where we built memories, from the day I had helped him move out from his parents until today. Things have changed between us, and there’s still an anger inside me that built up whenever the conversation moved onto things that linked to him. Because no matter how hard I tried to understand, the pain remained there.
“Just remember the next time you’re about to pull some foolish shit, there are people who care for you, Gab,” I said before I closed the door.
This is not how I wanted to part ways with someone who has been my friend throughout the years but letting each other go was maybe what we both needed. He didn’t come here to mend our friendship but to move on from the mistake that probably fully haunts him. He might have made a terrible mistake, but he was once one of my best friends — the one I shared most of my childhood memories with. Maybe we were never meant to walk side by side forever, and maybe years later, when everyone’s healed, we could smile at each other where we were passing by the street. Being strangers with memories may sound better than being friends with things to hide where we hurt each other.
I just wish it ended differently between us.
