Lost love

I spoke to her after 5 years, but this time round I sounded older than her. Her voice was still her own, but her words were different, cynical. She told me what her life had been like after I left. She changed schools, found friends who betrayed her and ended up broken and faithless, watching her life flow down the drain.

She told me how she was being blackmailed by her boyfriend. Her friends weren't around when SHE needed help. Her little sister was ill and her parents were too busy to notice what was going on.

All it took was 2 years in DPS for her to lose the idealism and youthfulness that i was so attracted to. She was disillusioned, didn't trust life and didn't have friends because she was too afraid to trust people.

She was angry with me. She had expected me to continue corresponding with her. She said she felt abandoned. That she never really realised how much comfort I gave her. That I was the only one who understood her, that she was lost without me.
She told me about how she searched for my contact number but never called because she was so angry.

"Well," I said to her, "You took me for granted. You never told me you felt that way. If I had known, I would have been different." So different. I was in love with her. Her voice, her perfect diction, the way she walked back from the tennis court with me, telling me what an indecisive person she was. The way she'd wait for me before school started, under the big tree outside the dining hall. We'd walk together almost every morning, and I would savor the way words fell from her mouth. She was my saviour. That such a one could exist among the rest of them then surely, I could not lose myself.

When I left she told me that blood was thicker than water. I wanted to tell her that water was as important as blood, but I didn't, I was afraid my voice would break.

And now, it seems strange that she should cling to me for support, when the only reason I survived was her. I tried sorting her life out for her, reminding her about who she used to be. There, she fought her way out of depression every waking moment. She rose above it all, she was high enough to see the big picture, she saw that there was more to life. Now, its as if she's been sucked under, into the vortex of depression, going round and round in circles of regret.

I know how that feels. What its like to feel worthless. Life is what you make of it. And I just didn't make it good enough. What can you do with broken pieces of lost dreams?
Is there more to life?

This is for you, Misha:

The best is yet to come. You were a different person with a different life when you believed that. And that is the person you deserve to be and the life you deserve to live. Find it. Live it.