.bernmendoza

B: SERYOSO BA YAAAAAAAAAN

Me: How was your test!

Pio: (stops) ... A-ate?

Me: Yes? How was your test!

Pio: It was fine. I answered my test correctly! I used your trick!

Me: Good!

Pael: Ate, are you on drugs?

Me: (rolls eyes) No.

Pael: (Quiet voice) I know. Are you okay?

Brother: You look tired.

Brother: LS was draining?

Me: Yes.

Brother: Are you sick?

Me: No.

Brother: Are you crying?

Me: A little.

Brother: What's wrong?

Me: I don't want to talk about it.

I wrote before about how I wanted 10 minutes more to spend in a city I found to love. You see, in ten minutes, you're able to have yourself absorb all else that's happening. Or at least that what I thought I would've been able to do. I threw around "maybe later"s and "I'll do that tomorrow"s like I had all the time in the world. But I didn't. And I don't. And now I'm in a similar situation trying to understand how I got here.

Hi.

Here I am. Here in my bed underneath the covers. I should probably be doing something else, anything else, but I'm guessing I should get this out of the way.

We've done this before, haven't we? It feels like a dance that we've practically memorized from beginning to end. Each step calculated, each step not the least bit surprising. I became, as you said, predictable. When you said it the first time, I smiled. I smiled because it meant that you may actually be starting to know me; quirks and all. But now that I think about it, that should've been a red flag -- we were just going around in circles.

Don't get me wrong, the friendship, regardless of what came after, was beautiful -- it is beautiful. The memories of the non-stop laughing and the comfort in the silence in the car -- my favorites. The little inside jokes and not-so-secrets we shared placed in my pocket ready to be pulled out in case of any emergency.

So why did it stop? I've back tracked so many times that I tell myself to stop living in the past and instead start accepting what's in front of me -- that there is a void. And that's okay! Because we're two different people, and that's what we've always been anyway. But who can blame me for still wanting an answer?