#apolloroad.ap.

I used to write on trains, back from the north to home. I would spend hours looking outside, seeing miles and miles of hill, grass, and ocean with the seat empty next to me, words in my head spoken to a ghost. It was the one place I knew I could be alone between here and there with my memories and just pour it all out on an old laptop.

I wrote one story only on trains. It was also the one story that I wrote extensively and tore up each time. In retrospect, it was too early to write any of it. I had just barely stood up from my own version of the tale and here I was, trying to tell it about someone else. I made something surreal that had been too real to me at the time.

And so, I stopped. Trains are like that for me. For those hours I took that train home, I was suspended with a memory that haunted me. At some point, I stopped taking trains--even when I had loved them and writing on them.

Cat teased me about wanting to bring my notebook to Japan. We both know realistically I won't have time to write. But I would be remiss if I didn't try on a train. I'm hoping just to jot down a few words here and there--ideas and skeleton paragraphs, really. I also know myself though.

For all it never seems to go anywhere, that story grips me by the waist and pulls back to my seat at the window. Miles of a world I don't know stretch by as the tracks continue on.

Do you remember that day we drove that bike into his truck? We thought we could do it together, balancing on one bike. Together--because we've always been inseparable. We did it anyways and regretted none of it. We could have died that day, but we didn't care. At least we would have gone together.

We're different now, but something remains at our core. I saw it again when we both yawned and laughed over a song. I saw it when we waited for hours in line together, reminded of our childhood and long days we had been each other's only companion.

I don't think anyone will ever completely understand how grateful I am that you were the one I grew up with.

You're an idiot, but you're also my idiot. And I am your friend for life, as someone once quaintly put it.

“I love you.”  I woke up this morning to you saying those words, caught up as an illusion in a dream that only half-existed.  I looked everywhere for that voice and instead only found the same four blue walls that I had painted once.  The color of the sky, I told you once.  You smiled softly, quite taken aback by that compliment.  

But you weren’t here.  You aren’t here.  I felt sick as soon as the haze of morning wore off.

I ran into her yesterday and talked to her for what seemed like the first time since I’ve been away for four years.  It’s strange.  In part, I left because I wanted to escape the cage I had created for myself with her.  As soon as I came back... well, the first day I had to myself to settle back into my home again, she happened to be there.  She was walking across my viewpoint without noticing me, glancing about to see what she needed to buy next.

Truth is, I’ve run into quite a people of my past before and I’ve never bothered to say hello.  What’s the point?  We say hello, catch up, and then say goodbye again, only to part like straight lines with no trajectory of meeting again unless magnetic poles suddenly jerk our lines together.  With her though... I couldn’t not say hello.  The moment I stopped in my tracks and she kept walking her way, I instinctively knew to call to her.  Her mannerisms are still the same, even from when we were children.  Her head jerks and she makes this surprised face when I tend to surprise her.  Her mouth makes an “Oh my god,” shape without actually saying the words sometimes.  

I don’t feel the same about her anymore, but it goes to show that I can’t imagine her not being in my life in some shape or form.  I don’t expect us to ever return to how we were with the relationship we built up when we were younger, but she was such a huge part of my life.  I really did love this girl before me.  I knew that when she half-ran across the path to hug me and I knew it before.  I still love her, but in a different kind of way... much closer to how I probably cared about her those first years we ran wild across grass fields and pavements.  

She and I might get together sometime soon with our group of four childhood friends.  The thought that we’ll still keep in touch and that we are attempting at reviving in some shape the way the four of us played as kids makes me agreeably happy.  The universe always seems to come full-circle for me.  In this case, with her, I am happy it did.  She is, for better or worse, the first person I loved.  She was--is--also my first friend.  How many people can say that they still keep in touch with the first friend they ever made?  Not many, right?  I love that about us.  I think no matter where we went in this world, we would still be fond of each other.  That’s what it’s like to be childhood best friends with her.  With me.  With one another.