I Was Heartbroken — Then My Best Friend Did This

Dear best friend,

It’s been 4 years. I still vividly remember the moment I knew this friendship doesn’t need words.

I had written this and never sent it to you. Here goes.

21st February 2021

I’m lying on the bed, staring at the curtain concealing the moonlight. I hear you humming. I shut my eyes tightly, as if to press the refresh button. I fail. You continue humming. I continue trying to not spill over, trying so hard to not go down that road again.

I feel you can hear my thoughts. It doesn’t freak me out. It makes me all the more vulnerable and helpless. This too shall pass, they say? WHEN?

I am at your place again, ranting pouring my heart out to you, and you have indulged me and my stories of my first heartbreak. Trying to make sense of it. How did I get into this mess? When will this pain end??

I relive the events of January 2021. Professional highs meeting Personal highs, and then hitting rock bottom. How we’ve discussed each and every detail, every single day. I’ve implored you, pleaded you for answers, cried to you, asking you to tell me what to do. I’ve wanted to spend the rest of my days on Autopilot till I feel I can fly again. But you won’t take the seat. You guide me, but you don’t spoon feed me. You don’t coddle me, you don’t infantilize me, and boy does that drive me nuts. I want to strangle you and hug you at the same time.

So when you stop humming, I ask you if you’d sing for me. You smile at the choice of the song – a song I had heard for the first time at this very place. You sing the whole song. I don’t know when and how my mind shuts off and sleep takes over, and soon the moonlight turns to sunlight and I wake up with just one thing on my mind now.

Gratitude.

Not grief over my heartbreak. But gratitude for my best friend.

It’s been 4 years. And we have a lifetime to go.

More musings and reflections from Shweta Chakravarty