The Other Way

“How long has it been?” he asked her.

“Since what?” she questioned despite understanding.

“Since you knew for sure,” he pressed on.

“Sufficient time,” she replied offhandedly.

It felt awkward to be discussing it with him. She had logically expected some surprise but then she had allowed herself to imagine he would immediately be supportive. He was afterall her best friend. But after the initial shock registering explicitly on his face, he had asked one question after another and she no longer held any leverage, having lost her hypothetical control of the situation. She preferred her cooked up version where he went on to offer a hug and much needed reassurance; the real and present version was unnerving. She had worked hard to muster courage to face the issue; with herself first and now with him. She was worried he would shake her foundation up again.

“Does your mom know?” he asked her. He knew she was close with her mother but over something of such huge proportions, it was impossible to predict reactions. For the first time since she had confessed, he caught himself wondering how he had reacted. How did he sound? Was he being a jerk? What she had told him would change her life and he didn’t know if she realized it, but would change his too. A powerful feeling of loss gripped him. He felt an urge to bury his face in his hands and cry. Only half an hour ago, they were waving to each other across the road, buying a cob of corn before settling down on the short dilapidated wall that lined the beach. This was where they met to catch up, to rant, to wonder and to contemplate in company. They had both had something to tell the other. He had asked her to go first because he knew nothing could trump the something he had to tell her. He had been wrong.

“No,” she whispered, eyes lowered towards the sands. “She loves me but I don’t think she’ll let me go scot-free with this one.”

It hurt him to look at her, so ridden with guilt. He could’ve asked her not to worry, this was out of her control, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He didn’t think it was out of her control, she’d made a choice hadn’t she? He hated himself for blaming her but in his eyes she wasn’t the same girl he had met all those years ago, the only one who had befriended him when his family had moved to the city and he’d had to leave behind everything he knew as home. He had been terrified of fitting in but too proud to admit it and she had ripped through his hesitation without ceremony. Both of them knew then that they would be friends forever. He could now see in his mind, forever laughing at him and his childhood whims.

How foolish are we as people to assume the constancy of associations, when change is what propels each moment of our existence? Nothing remains the same. And right then, he couldn’t have agreed more. She had slipped through his hands while he’d been watching. Couldn’t he convince her otherwise? Bury the problem and hand time the prescription?

She could see that their friendship was disintegrating. A moment is all it takes to address your true feeling for something or someone. When you toss a coin, in that moment the coin lingers in the air, fighting physics over fate to give you a response, you realize what you want in your heart and the outcome doesn’t quite matter anymore. That was how she’d felt when his confusion had extended beyond the permissible period of indecision. She had wanted him to understand but he’d called heads. She recalled that day when his family had moved next door to hers, the fear on his face, reluctant to join the other kids from the apartment in their games. Something about him had reached out to her, in silent beseech. She had stepped out to shake hands with him, watching relief flood his face beneath the mask of indifference he wore. They had been friends ever since, the ones from the apartment long lost. ‘How ironic,’ she thought; she was asking for his help now, vocally, but he seemed to not hear her, willingly and otherwise.

He was judging her, she could see. Had their friendship worked its way to an ending? Perhaps it had been only a kiddish dream they had shared. Perhaps in the adult world, it was indeed each man for himself. She felt a creeping sadness inside when she recalled how when typing out her first resume she had written ‘Friendship’ under skills and his name under ‘Assets’. She knew she had been brave about this current decision of hers. For once she had weathered her storm prior to telling him. She knew that expecting him to be proud of her was futile. The road ahead was long and lonely and it was only obvious that he won’t make this journey with her.

What right did he have to be judgmental? She was his friend but she still led her own life. She made her own choices and stood up for what she believed in. Why then was he denying this new tangent? It wasn’t even his position to deny. There was no going back now. But what if this was a reckless move? What if she didn’t know what she was doing?

“Have you told David?” he asked her after several moments of internal churning.

She was David’s girlfriend, a situation that had come about unwarranted.

“No. You are the first to know…I mean, aside from myself,” she replied.

What she didn’t tell him was that she knew David would understand and be there despite what he felt about the situation. David loved her. He had said so. She wondered what made her withhold that opinion. Was she trying not to hurt him, her best friend who was reading from some unknown script of life as opposed to her version of the play? She searched her mind for reasons. She had known for a while this was coming. Why hadn’t she told him about this before, while she suspected that it was happening? Memories swarmed her consciousness, of days where her sanity lay precariously balanced, between what she presumed and what she feared, an equilibrium that had eventually tilted towards what she knew was fitting. She looked down at the cob she was chewing on. Her fingers had absently gnawed at the remains, ruffling the order nature had bestowed its backbone with.

She had this habit of nibbling out the corn from the cob one bead at a time. He had teased her about it quite often. He deemed that habit military and rued the fact that she wasn’t a daughter to his ex-Army man of a father instead. For a moment he wondered how his father would react if he were to disclose to him, her secret. From moral values to social stigma, from being shunned as irresponsible, to frivolous due to bad parenting, he would hear it all and never the end of it. It shook him, the realization that she had chosen to deal with a lifetime of adjustments, deaf-ears, name-calling, arguments and heartbreaks. She had chosen to fight. He couldn’t fathom where all that strength had sprouted from. Where was the sweet talkative girl who wanted to be queen of the world? She had rebelled before but only by way of regular teenage requirement; extended curfews, icecream on rainy days, extra pocket money, that kind of stuff. Nothing that couldn’t be addressed with grounding and lectures of ‘When I was a kid…’ This was a different thing altogether.

A dull ache in his heart confirmed what his brain had forecasted a moment after her confession. What he wanted to tell her did not matter anymore. He had come there to admit his love for her, to propose they get married, but she had beaten his romance down with a flat iron. A strong embarrassment grew inside him, for her and for him having contemplated a life with her. His ingrained sense of judgment shot down the feeble voice of reason that pointed out how she could still be a part of his life and he could be there for her. She was embarking on a lonely fight and she could use his presence. But somewhere, somehow his ego had taken offence and he was beginning to lose clarity. He didn’t want a solution; he wanted to get rid of the problem.

“I just don’t get it. It seems…wrong you know. Its goes against everything normal,” he said laying the foundation for a separation of ideals that had commenced a while ago. She remained mute. An expression of pain came to linger on his face for a moment. It appeared as if someone was forcing him to commit blasphemy. He grew impatient in her company. He didn’t want to sit with her any longer; she was rapidly assuming stranger status in his eyes by the minute. “Why?” he asked her, one last attempt at articulating the confused mess of comprehension inside him. She held his eyes in a cold stare. She wasn’t in the least bit flustered. Again, her demeanor both surprised and amazed him.

“It’s not a choice,” she said. “It’s not like I decided to have a baby. I’m gay and that’s who I am. Can you try to understand that?”

When he came there that evening he had imagined leaving with her in tow, celebrating the excitement of a lifetime together for he had been sure she would say yes. In the end however, he was the one giving an answer.

“I’m sorry, but no,” he replied, picked up his helmet and without another glance at her, walked away, dealing with the kind of devastation that a nasty piece of news brings with it.

She watched him for a couple of paces and then turned her attention back to the cob. She finished nibbling out the last two rows of beads patiently, chucked the naked cob into a trashcan nearby and got up to leave. Her life now lay the other way.