YOU CAN SIT BESIDE ME WHEN THE WORLD COMES DOWN – Sakina Vs Nilofer

“You can sit beside me when the world comes down.” I laughed when Tim told me that because you see, I did not know how to respond. I didn’t know if he was just joking or being serious. Tim was the epitome of a best friend, he was selfless and never once did he leave my side whenever I needed him. So when he told me something like that, I wondered if he meant it as a friend or something more, but instead of taking him seriously, I decided to just laugh it off.

May came and it brought along a lesson I have learnt that will always be engraved in my heart. She made it clear from day one that she was interested in Tim, but somehow Tim didn’t encourage her advances. I have written many poems of a person I dream to become and May, she is everything I described in my poems. There were moments when I tried to tell Tim this, but he said that I was perfect in every way and that he preferred me to her – I of course thought he was crazy. But I love how he somehow always made me feel much better after that, and without Tim, I probably cannot stand on my own.

May started to hang out with the two of us – mainly because I wanted to be around her, thinking that if she were with me, I would get some of the coolness that made May, May. Every time we would hang out, I would really try to copy whatever she does, agree with her on whatever she says or thinks and with more days hanging out together, I was slowly becoming May.

“Maybe we shouldn’t hang out anymore,” Tim said to me one day. It was not clear to me why Tim would say that until he explained that he was losing me slowly and was upset that I was willing to change myself to become somebody else. He said that he didn’t know who I was anymore and that he wasn’t happy that I wasn’t sticking to what made me, me. Tim left a few days after he said that to go for an overseas trip to Greece for a week and I remembered the last words he told me, “ I am leaving with the memories of you and I, the memories before May.”

I was left stunned, rooted to the ground as I watched him walk away from me without even turning back to take a look at me. This was when the world came down for me and what was worst is there is no Tim to say “you can sit beside me when the world comes down” because he was that world and he was the cause of it. I thought about my feelings for him, wondering what the difference was between a friend and a lover, thinking that the line between these two statuses can be so thin. I care for him so much to think him as my world but can all things last?

May called me during the week Tim was gone, and we hanged out once, but it wasn’t the same at all. I realized I stopped trying to become like May and I tried my hardest to get back pieces of me that I threw away, pieces of me that I knew Tim had missed. I stopped wearing make up that I didn’t even like; I stopped wearing shoes I didn’t even like, I stopped everything that I thought I wanted to be. I deleted away the poems that reminded me of May and I started writing poems of just Tim and I and how things would always last when it is good.

I still had trouble figuring out my feelings for Tim, but I knew that I had to be there in the airport when he came back or I would lose him, forever. I knew how it felt to lose something irreplaceable and I wasn’t ready to lose Tim because between the both of us, I am not the mentally strong one.

So I got up really early that morning his flight was due to arrive from Greece, found the mix tape t-shirt he bought for me so long ago, wore it with jeans, tied my hair up; and left for the airport. The long ride to the airport was unpleasant so I decided to write more poems that would be included in his ‘Welcome Back’ gift- old photos of us, a Straylight Run CD and letters that were written when he was away. He had to read those letters, to try to help me understand and decipher what my feelings for him were exactly.  About half an hour later, I was at the airport and with my heart thumping nervously, I walked to where he would be arriving at and waited.

I spotted him before he even saw me, walking to get his baggage, spotting a tan. He looked the same, had the same look of concentration when he was busy and most of all, the same person who I knew would still tell me that I could sit beside him when the world comes down. I could feel my heart pounding as I watched his every move; from how he spotted his baggage to how he lifted it up, placing it on the trolley to how he walked out the gates and spotted me.

I smiled and he increased his pace of walking and as he got closer, he left the trolley aside to hug me – a big and long hug. I pulled away and we looked into each other’s eyes for a moment before he bent down and kissed me lightly on my lips. Suddenly it did not matter if we hadn’t spoken the words to express how much we care, words were unable to express what a touch, a hug or a kiss could. I remember the thin line between friends and lovers and I realised in that moment that in order to get to being lovers, we had to be friends, so really, there wasn’t a thin line between lovers and friends – both statuses are just entwined.

It was five years later when Tim and I eventually got married and during the 20 years of our marriage, I have seen the best and worst of times; all of which became my pillars of strength when Tim passed away. And now, I live my days to the fullest, living in memories, waiting for the moment when I can be with him again.