Listen

Listen.

Listen to me. No, don’t cry, no more tears. I won’t have tears from you. Not now.

Oh, look at you, all puffy-eyed and runny-nosed. Silly, you don’t have to cry on my behalf. I understand, I do, but please…don’t cry. I can’t bear it.

I remember the first time I saw you. Such a funny little thing, with untameable hair and huge baby-blues. You were…

Beautiful.

You were crying then too, I remember. Big fat sobs that shook your scrawny frame so hard I thought you were going to fall apart, all because your ice-cream fell from its cone onto the grass in the park. Chocolate ice-cream. My, but you loved that stuff back then, It was all you would ever eat. I used to joke around, tell you that you’d be the size of a house by the end of the week, and then you would turn to me and flash your wicked, chocolaty smile and your eyes would light up, just for me.

You grew up so fast. I watched you change from an adorable blue-eyed ice-cream fiend into an equally adorable, slightly bigger ice-cream fiend. You grew into yourself, your figure filled out and then you were…then you were perfect. More exquisite and beautiful then ever before. Lazy too. You loved to lie in, and I used to whisper to you every morning when you were still asleep that you were beautiful, inside and out, and you’d smile unconsciously and huddle into my arms. You fitted there perfectly. I treasured those moments in the early morning with you. The sunlight made your features soft in the warm glow through the curtains, and sometimes you’d snuffle and hiccough in your sleep, making me stifle a giggle as your hair tickled my nose.

You were always so innocent, too. Much more naïve than all the other boys at that school, but nobody minded. Your face when you came home after school one day after a particularly informative biology lesson was priceless; it made me laugh at how incensed you were at the thought of something that happens everyday. I retorted that you wouldn’t have been born if your parents hadn’t done it, and you blushed a deep red and mumbled something before disappearing off for a long, long time. I did love it when you blushed, it was so sweet. Even when you got to sixteen, seventeen, I still found ways to make you blush and it irritated the hell out of you, but it made my day.

I also remember when you lost your…innocence. I was surprised at my reaction, more than anything. You weren’t mine, you didn’t belong to me but we’d just been together for so long that it felt like you’d betrayed me. We were best friends, and I felt like that connection had been broken. That time was awful. There were arguments, yelling and the like. I believe a plate was smashed as well, I had no idea you could be so violent. It was none of my business, you said, and then you yelled at me to go away. You hated me, you said. You hated me. And at that moment, I honestly believed that you did. I remember running blindly into the bedroom, hot tears burning my face as I buried myself into the duvet, wishing I could turn back time and right whatever wrongs I had committed, to never have gone through that conversation.

After a while, I thought all hope was lost; I thought that you had surely left me to go back to her, and her bed. But a few minutes after this terrible notion entered my head I heard the soft padding of your feet on the carpet and I felt you curl up behind me, your arms snaking around my waist to pull me towards your chest. You whispered in my ear, saying you were sorry, so sorry. You told me that you had no idea you meant so much to me, and that I meant more to you than anyone else. Even the girl who stole your innocence. I turned to look at you, and you had been crying, which started me off again, but we made our promise that night; we would never be apart. I would be with you until the day I died…

The day I died. Its weird; I had no idea that day would come so soon.

Don’t talk like that, you say. Don’t talk like that, you’re fine, you’ll be alright…

But I won’t be. You know that and I know it too. So there’s no point in crying, is there? Besides, I have so many memories of you where tears were shed. I want the last time I see you to be different.

Your breathing hitches and you squeeze your eyes, trying to obey me, and a tear falls like a star from heaven to guide my way. It tastes sweet like chocolate ice-cream. You look at me, and your eyes are dry.

I smile.