The Space Between Us

Growing up, me and my friend, Kira, always played together during school hours and almost every day to be honest. Kira was my first ever friend and she was like the world to me. We also joked around a lot about how our names rhyme with one another, and it was all year round. She played the piano, I played the guitar, and we both listened contentedly to each other’s songs together, the music pouring through the soft atmospheric in a melodic rhythm, the notes and strings of the two instruments surging in the air like relaxing bath water flooding a hot bathtub. It was almost like we were unbreakable together.

One afternoon, on a school day, Kira and I were having a conversation about schoolwork and suddenly, Rory showed up and slammed the table, almost like he was trying to scare us. He was always trying to jump-scare us like that, but we never really paid him any attention whatsoever. Until, the next day, Kira ran to Rory, with a small pair of mittens for the cold breezing winter. He had said, “Thank you, Kira.” He smiled, and Kira nodded, then she turned away from him and walked away. Since that moment me and Kira have been talking to Rory, and we always referred him to as a clown because he was silly and funny like a clown. We sat at a cafeteria table near the far corner to the right, and we monotonously sat there every lunch period. When we finally got bored of it, we began sitting at the front row and watched as the assistant principal gave us instructions. I’ve realized after a few long weeks of school, Kira and I were slowly drifting away like shadows being cast away from the light. So when I started to get that feeling, I asked Kira, “Do you enjoy Rory being your friend?” And Kira said she liked both of us as her friends. I believed her and moved on with life, as usual, we met up at the gateway entrance and we walked to our lockers and go to our typical classes. Day like this, were continuous like a never-ending cycle of life.

One time, Rory asked if I was okay, and I was feeling guilty about it when he asked me that. But I still said yes to him and he started to ask me that day after day. And things were getting stranger each day now…

Kira began looking droopier than usual and Rory went to the bathrooms more often now. It was almost like they were hiding something from me, but they wouldn’t tell me… and one day, I accidentally bumped into Kira, streaming tears down her face like a flowing ocean. She didn’t tell me anything but instead bumped my shoulder lightly but felt intense pressure to it somehow, Kira was getting awkward each day…

I shook the thought away, and then, on a strange evening with my two friends. We were at my house playing board games together and laughing like crazy, but Rory didn’t seem like himself anymore, he was not the silly and funny person who I used to know, think about that made me enjoy the good moments of us three together. Still feeling uncertain, I asked both of them what was going on and Silence ran into the room, hushing it like a mother to a baby. Rory scratched his dark brown hair clearly uncomfortably and Kira looked down, her dark eyes staring at the floor as if it did have a hidden meaning to it. They both looked fragile. Traumatized, but keeping the hurtful guilt inside.

I’ve never seen the two of them so sorrowful together, they were always cheerful and bright. Now there’s something between them… almost like an invisible barrier blocking all of us from being together. I yelled at Rory and Kira, by accident, and I was too afraid and concerned for my two friends that have changed ever since…

I thought to myself, if they’re not going to tell me, I’m gonna have to do something at least. Then, when they finally spoke, but it came out a raspy and a cracked voice that sounded like an old man’s voice from living his life long enough. The atmosphere unexpectedly grew hot, and the tension between all of us grew. Rory explained about his foster parents not wanting me to be friends with him and the orphanage he had been to was poorly built, the foster parents Rory had, were the only customers who actually cared for a child and if Rory didn’t obey his step parents… what would he do? There was no other places, plus the daycare was not suitable for him if he wanted to wait for new foster parents. Kira also did had an argument with her parents as well, but she mainly argued with her father because her father was the one to tell her not to be with me. I felt like I was contagious for a second and I told myself I was still human and pressed my feet against the hard structured floor. “I’m truly, very, deeply sorry for hiding this Mira… Please. forgive me.” She whimpered, and she took out a letter from her father, saying she has to travel to a different country and find a better school, because of their company failures and finance problems. I knew that it had to be done, Kira didn’t want to make her parent’s lives worse and she wasn’t like that. I looked right into Kira’s unfamiliar eyes and wondered the thoughts she was having right now. It must’ve been really hard for her to make the decision, maybe that’s why she’s been acting really hurt… and I had a sensing that it might have been my fault for it. I couldn’t believe my true friend was leaving me, leaving me for good. I thought.

”I’m sorry.” She kept retelling me but it didn’t fix anything at all, but made the burning sensation of my eyes and nose get worse and worse. My eyes only kept watering just like how Kira’s eyes were watering like streams. Rory sat there and relaxed his chest, he stuttered for a moment and told me that he had also had been told to move too, and his tone suggests that he was also scared to tell me it. Despite that, I felt the end of the world near. “B-but Why?!” I sobbed, letting the anger, fear, and pain let go out of me. “We have to…” they both united at the same time, and I understood what needed to be done. I know that trying new things will be scary but it’s valuable in the end. So, I let Kira and Rory go, a part of me breaking inside wanting to be letted out. I watched the two of them go separating in my imaginative mind, Kira going to the right, Rory going to the left. Friends don’t always have to keep you company, sometimes you have to do things alone. It’s better to endure it, because it’s for the sake of their parents. Bitterness overcame me but I didn’t let it overtake. My heart aches for the need of company and comfort of friends but I knew I had to make my own friends now. And remember what Kira and Rory had said to me before they left, “True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in the heart.” As the two go their own separate ways, hope in their enthusiastic hearts that in the future, that they may meet soon someday.

***

After that, I never saw them again. It was almost like they vanished out of my life and stopped caring about me. But I knew that I could not give up hope, and I have to keep going on about life. This is really what happens if you care too much about your friends and not yourself, it’s really what it feels like when you’re alone without your childhood friend. Rory was funny, full of humor himself, I’ve always admired his personality and talents, he was actually smarter than us in terms of knowledge. He had memorized every element from the Periodic Table and was far away from our grade with his reading and mathematic skills. I was always jealous of that but proud of him too.

I knew I couldn’t cry, it would probably worry my parents and yeah… it was like I was giving up life. But, I moved on later then, learning at school, homework at home. Everything changes at some point right? My parents have decided to move schools, I was nervous, sad, and also a bit scared about it. Because I was worried about the people there, and the kids. It turned out better than expected because nobody bothered me and I always have my routine on time, every day felt the same, the same felt every day. The space between us was getting farther and farther away until it might as well be the size of Mount Everest, and each time, each day, and each breath, I always wondered where my friends went, how far were they, and what had happened to them. But then a bird startled me during Chemistry class, and I almost freaked out and started screaming but I didn’t. It chirped back at me and I said, “get away from me, you stupid clump of feathers.” In bird language, and it listened carefully, then, ascended to the pastel blue skies in the morning day.

Fast forward in the day, my parents embraced me and told me that I had to go to another school so they could save more money, and so they can save their company. I understood immediately and I knew we had no choice. After moving, we had more space and the new home was an advantage to us, which made me glad for my parents. Days have passed. Weeks. Then months. Hope was hanging in the distance only by a thread, the space between us became more distant ever before, and I started losing interest of my old friends, believing my friends would never come back and they have left me in the pits of despair. How great…

(To be continued.)