I remember those days when I stayed over at your house just because I didn’t feel like returning to mine. I can still smell those fresh homemade chocolate cookies that your mother used to give me when we laughed together, commenting ridiculously on movie trailers. I used to be at yours every other day when we used to complete our homework without getting bored, because we would be chatting all the way through it, then play football together before I left. You had been my best friend forever, at least since the day I offered to share my half eaten lunch when you dropped yours on the first day of nursery school
When we were eight, my girlfriends had found it odd that I played game-boy with you instead of braiding Barbie dolls, and your friends always scrunched up their noses when you kept hanging out with a ‘girly girl’.
In middle school, we began to change and you suddenly stopped speak to me one day because I had completely ignored you the previous week, too busy with my girlfriends. I got mad when you ignored me too, because I had every right to go out with others. But inside I was terribly missing you, and a few days later, turned up on your doorstep with my dirty football, and a sheepish smile pleading mercy.

Things changed in high school. You were suddenly transformed into a hottie and all the other girls craved for your company. I remember getting cramps from laughing at how you tried to be polite when you turned down the hundreds of girls who asked you out every day. And I used to go, just to piss you off further, “How’d you survive that stampede? I thought tiffany was going to eat you up, alive”, or something like that.
Once in every few years we’d a little quarrel, and would you remember how you jumped into my bedroom from the slit on the rooftop and hugged me sorry, and how I refused to forgive till you cleaned my room, which was actually a chore mom had ordered of me that day?
It was when you went abroad for summer vacation before university that everything turned upside down. I realized for the first time that I had really liked you. And they suddenly crushed me like a meteorite, the horrible thoughts of liking you as more than a friend.
It was crazy, seriously, and I just wanted to shrug those monstrous feelings off, but they just wouldn’t let go. I spent weeks trying to convince myself that these feelings were only momentary, but my inner mind felt otherwise, and I, I felt helpless to change these feelings.
I suddenly began imagining how it would be to lay my lips on yours, to shuffle your clumsy brown hair, to speak with those wide green eyes you had. Those liquid green eyes that hadn’t till then made me feel sudden convulsions like my friends had described would happen to a love sick cat, I had never felt any convulsions or butterflies. I feared inside, would you turn me down too, like the many Melanies and Tiffanys that you turned down every day? And would our lifelong friendship be gone, pop, just like that, if I told you how I felt?
And I vividly remember that dreadful day, when you returned from your vacation:
You announced something that I even now wish could be undone, "I’m moving out"
I asked, almost mutely, "where?"
And I knew, when you didn't reply something like 'to the bathroom', that it was a serious issue. "The Melbourne University", you said.
I sat there, stunned by what you had said. My mind blanked out and all I could think that was Fred is going away to Australia...Fred’s moving to Australia.
It was a gazillion miles away. I had had dreams of spilling my feelings to you when you returned, but this new news made one thing very clear in my head: I would say nothing about my silly feelings to you. What if anything would happen to our friendship then? I couldn’t risk it, not for the world.
You were very quiet so I asked, "Shall I leave?" perhaps you wanted some privacy.
But to my surprise, and I was getting many those days, you went ,"No, stay"
"Okay, to the ocean, then" I told you, trying to keep my voice steady. It was becoming so hard.
The 'ocean' was our codename for where we went to talk or just to chill out on your rooftop.
Once we were up, next to each other, I murmured reluctantly in a frail attempt to comfort you, when I was shattered myself, "It’s okay, you know, moving. It isn’t going to be so bad, I promise. Same buildings, same types of malls, and Australia is a beautiful country, everyone would be new to each other, so you can easily make new friends…", angling my face upwards to the sky, where a solitary star twinkled far away. Tears were forming and I didn’t want them to fall, not in front of you. I didn’t want you to see me crying, because I never cried, I was a strong girl. Strong. I could get over this. No big deal.
You, just staring straight outward, with a slight mocking smile you went, "cry girl"
Of course. You’d guessed. We knew each other better than ourselves, I should have known better than to conceal my tears. "Wimpy kid, worried about moving" I retorted.
"Nah, I’m just worried about what'll happen to you, my loser of a friend, if I move away." you said. I shoved you hard. "Ow" you squinted.
Preposterous as it sounds now, that just got me crying harder, and I started weeping uncontrollably. Inside, I felt like an emotional freak. I felt like a dam that had burst. Between gasping and coughing I said, "Freddie, you'll visit for vacations right?"
You grinned a bit dolefully, wiped my tears with a crumpled hanky, summoned as if magically. "Yeah, I hope so", you answered quietly and added, "I’m going to miss you”
We spoke nothing for some time and I didn’t like the silence. But before I did anything, you pulled me into an embrace and I was sure I felt a tear trickle down my sleeve, that was not mine.
"You’re getting me all wet", I mumbled and you just hugged harder. I wanted to scream right there and then, that I love you Fred, I love you Fred because you meant everything to me. But I controlled myself for the sake of our friendship. And inside I comforted my ache with the fact that you were only going to the other end of the world, I could always catch a flight to see you. But I knew right then that it was never going to be the same again between both of us.
“I’ll call you every day when I reach Australia” you promised me.
So, I let go off your strong, caring, warm hands, but now I wish I’d held on. I looked away from you brilliant green eyes ignorant of the fact that they’d never look into mine again.
Because you never did reach Australia.
The news was late to reach us, and your family was grieving too much to let us know of it themselves. It was only when my dad was watching the news that he came to of the plane crash that took you away from me forever. You were no more. The flight to Melbourne had crashed after the pilot lost control.
I was shattered, Fred, I still am. Who’d I play football with after school, who'd I fight with, or comment on trailers, or have a running race back home? No girlfriend could ever replace you, they were too obvious. But you are my Fred.
Now, no matter how much I reach out, my fingertips can’t touch you. Your beautiful face haunts me in my dreams every night, and ever pair of green eyes reminds me of your goofy smile that lit up yours. I no longer go to your house because I can’t bear to see that missing happiness, that mischief or that one boy I poured my heart out to. Even funny trailers make me cry these days because I don’t have you with me to laugh them through.
I still curse myself every day for not daring to tell you how much I loved you. What would you have replied? Would you have taken me in your caring arms and kissed me tenderly saying that, all along, I was the girl you loved, too?
.But I know you’re not completely gone because there’s a big place in the core of my heart that is full of only you, and our precious memories, and our treasured friendship. But there’s only one hole in it, one thing incomplete, that I hadn’t uttered to you those three sacred words.
I love you.