THE AFTERTASTE

I still miss her, a lot. I know this is crazy but somehow I have no control over it. I think of her when I’m happy, when I’m sad, when I’m going through tough times and even when I have nothing to think about.

See, she was my kind of naughty. She understood me more than anyone ever had in the entire universe. I knew her, about her and all there was to know about her. I was her mind banger, she was mine too. It was like we were complete around each other. She always knew what to say, when to say it and how to say it. She was a smart woman, the kind who knew exactly what to tell you to get whatever she wanted. She was selfless, full of love to give but she was a broken woman. Maybe that’s why she understood me.

We had a lot in common, me and her. We had the same taste in alcohol, same idea in fashion; or maybe slightly different, crazy about having fun, we loved pain but mostly we loved to follow our hearts. I would tell you we were in love with each other if I hadn’t known better. No human knew me better than her, she never judged me and talking to her on the phone felt like heaven.

I knew her inside out; her good and her bad, her soft and her tough, her weaknesses and her strengths, her achievements and failures, her joy and sorrows too. She had let me in completely, perhaps the same way I had let her in too. I knew every part of her being. I lived with her for a long time; with me she was at peace with who she was and who she wanted to be. She never had a façade when she was around me, she was comfortable in her own skin. We had a unique type of friendship, I would say that if society would allow a girl to be married to both a man and a woman, she would be my woman. She was the one person that made me forget the rest of the world; it would all be about us. Even in a crowd, we’d find each other.

Those who know me probably know that I’m a person who lives on her own terms; but me and her together, was a beautiful disaster. I had my struggles; real tough struggles but in the turmoil she was the only other person I could relate to. When I was around her I felt easy. I never had to pretend to be someone I’m not. She never judged me, maybe it was because I never judged her too.

The four years we lived together was one of the best times of my life. Unfolding the mysteries of life with her was an amazing adventure. During these years, we lived each second we got. We were not intimidated by anyone or anything. We enjoyed each other’s company we would find time and go to a different town and just have some fun. She was a charmer, very sociable, beautiful and very cheerful. I don’t remember a time in my life when I looked forward to seeing someone as I did back then. She had a very special place in my big heart, a place that would never be filled by anyone else.

She was a woman who fit in big shoes. She had the balls to face life. Her idea of life was to live in the moment, capture every moment and make it special. She had gone through a rough childhood, a confusing youthful life and she had managed to come out on the other side. She had a fair share of skeletons in her closet but she had memories that haunted her, that taunted her whenever she was alone. She is the one person who avoided being away from me. It’s like every time she was on her own she was tortured by some memories she had not got over.

Whatever it is that was taunting her was something I could relate to. I had memories, memories of events that changed my life; memories of moments that scared me for a long time. Those memories haunted me silently. They were memories from my childhood. Memories that shaped how I related to people. I was not a very social individual, maybe it was because of my upbringing; I’m not sure but I know it resulted to a lot of these memories. I had been away from home from about 8 years of age, so I had not really known how to build relationships and maintain them. Being in a new environment, far away from your parents and siblings, with new people could damage any eight year old. I don’t know for sure why I grew up being cautious of people around me, but I did.

By the time I was grown and mature, I was still shy and quite silent. I only opened up to the people I was comfortable with. I was a deviant child. Maybe I was just craving for attention from my parents but I enjoyed being in trouble. It was like punishments were made for me. I grew up being a little deviant. My parents loved me, let’s get that right. They just thought that taking me to a boarding School that was far away from home would help brighten my future; and it did because then I realized my full potential which gave me pride.

Being a deviant, proud, loner who likes to live on her own terms; I rarely trusted people. When I met her that changed. She was full of ego, deviant and loved to take life by the horns. She was exactly my type. In another world, I would have built our own planet and eloped there with her; maybe marry her and just live. We made plans, plans of the two of us; of how we wanted our future to be and even promised each other to never go apart, we planned to travel the world together, to chase our dreams as one. Without knowing it, I had grown to love her and she loved me too (or so I thought).

She would call me for long hours when she was away. We always had something to talk about. We talked about everything and anything. Oh my, how I miss our long phone conversations. She would tell me about her day and the crazy things she had done. We laughed off the bad days and celebrated the good ones. Worrying was not our thing, our conversations were therapeutic. We healed each other’s broken hearts even without knowing it, we gave comfort to one another even without intending to. I thought our friendship would last forever; why wouldn’t it? After all we were addicted to each other. Not in a romantic way, let’s not get that twisted.

See, she was a woman in quest of love. She had searched for it most of her life and when she couldn’t find it that easily she started looking in all the wrong places. Men had broken her heart severally but she always picked herself up, dusted off and moved on. She grew up to be an expert at breaking hearts. They say if you can’t beat them, join them right? The result, she still felt empty inside. She was looking for something she could barely understand, maybe answers that she was still not ready to hear; I don’t know for sure but I always thought it was something intangible, something that was buried within her that she had to unlock so that she could be free.

One thing she wasn’t aware of was that I loved her unconditionally, without any expectations. My love for her was innocent and as such it was enough to sustain her until she learnt to love herself. I always hoped she would see herself in my eyes, maybe then she would realize her value and how much of a good soul she was and maybe she would be contented and stop searching.

I wish some things could last forever, well at least our friendship. If wishes were horses, I’m sure we both could ride. As the saying goes, nothing good lasts forever and neither did our friendship. At some point life got real. We got to a point where we realized that we had other dreams and desires that were not quite compatible and that our paths were taking different turns. We both fell in love with amazing men and that’s when things started changing. See, the thing with our friendship is that you had to be all in or all out. It would have never worked any other way. We had to choose between our love for the men in our lives or the friendship we had. We could not have it all. The reason being that we were each other’s mind bangers and when we saw each other we could forget about every other thing or person that mattered. It was like I was her home away from home, she was mine too.

It took a long time of soul searching and me literally forcing myself to accept what would follow. I knew that it was a bad idea sacrificing our friendship for love, but I did it anyways. I had to do it to protect her, she was the one person I never wanted to hurt but I still did. I knew that with her in my life I would never open up myself completely to another human being and neither would she. We had fought severally since we had fallen in love with our different men which was not something normal for us and as it started becoming a norm, I knew it was time to end it.

That day in December was the worst day of my life. If I didn’t know better, I would say that it was the worst breakup I’ve ever had all my life. See, breaking up with a boyfriend hurts real badly but breaking up with your best friend could scar you for the rest of your life. Best friends are irreplaceable. No one can ever take the place of your best friend in your life, because they cannot touch your heart the same way your best friend did. I’ll probably regret that decision for the rest of my life but I’m glad I met her in this lifetime. She changed my life in a great way. She taught me that we are all broken in our different ways, we all have our mysteries, our secrets, our dirt, our weaknesses, our strengths but we can all choose to find our greatness despite the ugly.

I think of her a lot. Sometimes, I want to dial her number and just talk to her, to find out if she is okay, if she is happy, if she has found another best friend and what she has been up to since the last time I saw her. I wonder if she still thinks about me, if she is angry at me for choosing love over her or if she is happy I did. Maybe I’ll never find out or even see her but I find comfort in the fact that the memories we made together will live in us forever. I’m proud I experienced an exciting chapter of my life with her and I know for sure nobody will ever replace her. In My heart she is still my best friend as she left an indelible mark in me.