i ask god everyday if she could make me hate you

the ghosts of us

i have come to realize that everything i write here is about my life. every single word: something i have lived, something that sat heavy on my chest before i put it down. lately, i have had too much time to sit with myself, to go back and forth between making peace with the person i have become and wondering if i even like her. to retrace my steps, to hold up every moment like a relic and ask: was this it? was this where things changed?

this one feels important.

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i wish you knew me when i was eighteen. maybe then, all of this would make more sense.

it was my first time away from home. i had just entered university, still bright-eyed, still carrying the softness of familiarity, unaware that time would chip away at me. i was loud. not just in voice, but in presence. i knew people, i knew so many people, and somehow, they knew me too. i would scream across campus, grinning, waving, “HIII BESTIE,” like every day was a sitcom episode with a laugh track following my every move.

i was always out. always surrounded. i was so social that i was failing a course in my first semester, but it didn’t matter then. it didn’t feel real. i wasn’t reckless; I didn’t do drugs, didn’t smoke, barely drank. i was back in my dorm by 6 p.m., yet my world felt endless. people came to me like moths to a flame, and i didn’t stop to think about why.

there was this one night, it must have been past 2 a.m. when we found ourselves on the beach, the tide kissing our feet, the wind howling secrets we were too scared to say out loud. it wasn’t planned, but that never stopped us. someone had the idea, and the rest of us followed, piling into cars, racing down empty roads, the streetlights flickering like they were winking at us. we laughed so loud the ocean must have heard us coming.

we didn’t have much, just a stolen hour, a half-empty bottle of soda, and each other. we let the fizz burn our throats and carved nonsense into the sand with our toes. the sky stretched wide above us, endless, and someone, i don’t remember who, sighed and asked, “do you think we’ll still be friends five years from now?”

we swore we would be. we swore we would dance at each other’s weddings

i meant it. i think we all did.

but time moves like the tide, pulling people away before you even notice they’re gone. some of them found their own little islands, places i couldn’t reach. some just disappeared, like footprints washed away before dawn.

and yet, i never really felt alone. because i still had my people.

the ones who sent me meds when i was sick. the ones who showed up with food when i couldn’t get out of bed. the ones who sat on call with me during finals, their voices a lull in the chaos. the ones who helped me burn a polaroid of my ex, laughing as the flames curled the edges. the ones who shared my mother’s home-cooked food like it was a ritual, something sacred.

i miss them. i miss them like a phantom limb.

you might ask what happened. honestly? i don’t know. maybe i did something. maybe they outgrew me. maybe i outgrew them. maybe one day i’ll look back and see it clearly, but right now, i have no clue.

i still saw them, though. we walked the same roads, sat at the same coffee shops, same subway, same ice-cream parlour, breathed in the same salty air. but we weren’t us anymore. we weren’t sneaking out at midnight just to sit by the shore. we weren’t laughing so hard our stomachs hurt. we weren’t promising forever like we knew what it meant.

sometimes, when i was with other people, i’d think of them. oh, you would have loved this song. you would have made a joke about this. you would have rolled your eyes at me right now.

do they ever do the same?

probably not. their lives look whole without me in them. their instagrams are full of new places, new people, new memories. we still talk. when we see each other, we hug. not the kind that says i’ve missed you, the kind that says i remember you. it’s polite. it’s practiced. it’s the kind that makes you feel lonelier than not hugging at all.

we text each other on birthdays, though. just a happy birthday! hope you have a great one.
two years ago, they would have dragged me to the beach at midnight, danced in the waves, and screamed my name into the sky. now, it’s a three-word text.

sometimes, we end up in the same places: house parties, familiar bonfires, scattered across the same room but never really crossing paths. and i wonder: if we met today, would we even be friends?

the answer is always no.

i wouldn’t like who they’ve become. they wouldn’t like who i am now. if we met today, i would have nothing to say to them.

but i don’t hate them.

i want to. i ask god to let me. but i can’t. i still hold onto the versions of them that i loved. the ones who made me laugh until i couldn’t breathe. the ones who swore we’d never let this happen.

those versions are gone. i know that. but they are not gone from me.

i still keep the pictures. the texts. the remnants of something that was real once. not for them. for the memories. maybe one day, i’ll tell my grandkids about them. just the memories, not the people. i wish i could say the people. the ones i used to scream for at the top of my lungs, the ones i would have set the world on fire for.

maybe one day, one of us will break and try to fix things. maybe the rest of us will laugh about it later. maybe we’ll cry and say how much we missed each other and pretend, just for a second, that things could go back to the way they were.

i wish for the latter, but in real life, it’s always the former.

that’s why i want to hate you. it would be easier. but even now, i catch myself smiling when i talk about you. i hope you do too. even now, i tell our stories, and when someone asks what happened, i exhale softly, shrug, and say,

“i don’t know. i guess things changed.”