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You say I’m kind.
You mean it. You say it with such devotion. You say it with a soft smile, the blue of your eye glazed with a mist of tears as you avoid my gaze. You look up to the stars as you say it.
“You’re too kind, you know.”
I don’t know. I don’t think so. I can’t bring myself to deny it. Or agree. I just sigh, looking at you as you look at the stars. Your posture stiffens. You know I’m staring. I join your gaze up, then, at the sky, and I feel you relax next to me, just a little bit.
There is sadness in your words, a feeling ancient, rooted deep into your being, a sadness I have often tried – and failed – to grab, to weed out of you, but you won’t let me. You hold it so tightly I’m sure it must hurt, must have your limbs aching with the effort, and you hold it so tightly you have no arms free to hold me instead, and I envy it, this sadness, and I despise it, and I hate it, and I want you free of it, so you’d have space for me instead.
So when you look at me and you say I’m kind I don’t believe you.
Because I know myself, and what I am, and what I want, and why I do the things I do. And when I think of it, I don’t see kindness.
I see selfishness.
Maybe the way my actions are perceived and the good they do outweigh my motivations, and so it’d be rude to say I don’t agree with you when you say it with such honesty and belief.
But my motivation is the opposite of selflessness.
Maybe not always: I suppose there must have been a time before all this, before all this fear. But when I close my eyes and I dream that old dream, when the world is coated in white and blood and screams, when I wake up sweaty and angry because it’s been decades and I can’t seem to shake free of this childish fear, I know only one thing.
I’m never letting people die in front of me again.
When I saved you that first time. That was the thing on my mind. I did it for me. I was glad you were alive, snow-white, maybe-suicidal stranger that you were. But it was for me. Because I remembered how it felt, how that hopelessness felt, how that anger felt, how that fear felt. I was not being kind then. I was afraid. And I didn’t want to be. I wanted to show myself that I could save people. And I did. And I’m glad.
It’s always been for me. Even as, over time, the thought changed. Somewhere along the line, in between our adventures, the time we spent together, before I knew it, it became I’m never losing you.
And it’s still for me.
I helped you achieve your dream to live under the stars, in your own atelier, free from the bottom of the ocean, hidden from prying eyes, away from the cold pressure of the ocean. I helped you settle as a teacher. I helped you sort out your thoughts when you were organizing your lessons. And I’d do anything else you’d ask.
And it’d still be for me.
Because when our eyes meet and you smile that small, awkward smile of yours, something inside me shifts.
And I know what it is. I don’t need to name it.
I know you know I feel it. And I know you don’t feel the same.
You recoil when you think I’d act on it, even though I wouldn’t. I’ve been watching you too long to know.
When did you start to keep your guard up with me?
I look so far back that my memories blur and yet I can’t see when this started. It was like this at the start, yes, but then it changed. There was a time when you shared everything with me. Every thought. Every fear. There was a time you’d pull my cloak and demand my attention and talk my ears off. There was a time you’d sit a little bit too close and lean on my shoulder to peek at what I was reading. It always made my chest flutter. I used to think this would be our forever. When I thought of tomorrow, I thought of that. Of us, so close people thought of one when the other was mentioned. Of us, huddled together under the stars. Of us, together. Us.
Then it changed again. Somehow, somewhere I can’t quit spot, in one of the blurs of my memory, you… changed. We changed.
I used to think we were on the same page for everything, and then suddenly we were not.
And then, lately, every once in a while you do something that leaves me wondering if I know you at all.
I mean, of course I know you. I know you as well as you allow me to know. And for the most part, I am fine with it.
I’m fine with having the bits of you you’re willing to share with me. And I continue, as I have, to convince you to give me more. More of your secrets, more of your thoughts, more of you.
Give me your sadness, I think, and I’ll take that too. I’ll share. Maybe we can hold it together, we can wrap our arms around each other and shoulder the weight of it.
Hell, I’ll carry it all myself.
But you keep me away. Sometimes I want to yell at you for it. How dare you keep that to yourself. How dare you think I can’t see it. How dare you leave in the middle of the night when you think everyone is asleep to go sit alone in the dark on the fields and watch the stars alone? You used to wake me up for that. We used to do that together. We used to be so close! What happened? What happened to you? What happened to us?
Why won’t you tell me?
I have a memory that is not a memory of me resting my head on your shoulder as we watch the stars. In it, I feel so nervous my heart is about to burst. In it, I say, The stars are so lucky. In it, you ask why. In it, I say, They don’t need words, they’re just together all the time. In it, you say, You’re like a star to me. Then you cry. Then you push me away. Then you refuse to elaborate. Then you fall to your knees, out of breath, and I yell at you, and you shake your head and you apologize. You apologize! It pisses me off that you’d apologize. You say, I wish it wasn’t like this, but we can’t—and I interrupt you to yell Why—and you interrupt me to cry Because I don’t want to die!
And I know it’s not a memory because it’s not connected to anything else, no before and no after, like a dream I had once and lingered, lost, unsure, the feelings it conjured too raw for it to be properly stored anywhere.
And although it’s not a memory I can’t help but treat it as if it was. I know, somehow, deep down, that if I were to try to talk to you about this – about this not-memory, about these thoughts in it, these feelings and fears – I know how you’d react.
I can see the smile, the fake smile you shouldn’t use on me but that you do anyway because you think I can’t see the difference. I can see the smile and the dismissal and the change of topic and the hurt it’d bring me.
So I won’t.
Because I’m selfish. Because I want you well, and close, but I also I don’t want to hurt myself more than I have to, so I’ll take what I can get.
So when you tell me I’m kind, I want to scream I’m not I’m not I’m not!
Is it kindness to be such a coward?
I’m far from kind.
I sit here, as close as you’ll allow me, and I try to get as much of you as you let me, all the while wondering how this happened. How did we get here. It’s a puzzle I can’t quite solve. There is a missing piece somewhere. Why won’t you let me in? Why won’t you share your sadness? What do you know that you won’t tell me?
“Yeah, well, we’re friends. I’d do anything for you,” I say. I’m not embarrassed to say it. it’s the truth. You know it.
You hug yourself tighter. There is a long pause.
When you speak again, the sadness is so raw I can almost touch it, like you’re finally, finally letting me see a bit of it.
You say, “I know…”
But then you smile that smile again, the one you think will fool me, and you say, “Shall we get back? It’s getting chilly.”
And I agree, because I’ll take what I can get, I won’t push my luck.
I look up at the stars. They’re lucky, I think. I open my mouth to say it, then close it again.
You lead the way home, and I follow.