Bye, Baby

by Carola Lovering

Around Cassie, I no longer seem to be capable of saying what I mean. In fact, me not saying what I mean seems to be the one thing still gluing our friendship together.

Or maybe that’s just how friendship works when you’re young. Maybe the choice to tether yourselves to each other isn’t a choice at all but an unconscious pull that doesn’t require an explanation, a response to shared circumstance, joined with something in your heart that feels good and right. The loyalty that follows feels inherent, lasting, tamperproof.

That’s just how friendships become in your thirties, I think as I head south. The love is still there, but the urgency for that constant companionship fades, replaced by something else—romantic partnerships, yes, but maybe we also just get tired.

Of the love between two best friends that dies but doesn’t disappear. There’s still the soul of that love. It goes somewhere.