To All The Friends I've Loved Before: 02

John Mayer, bubble gum kisses, Jesus of Suburbia, and the Aeropostale of it all

To All The Friends I’ve Loved Before is a collection of unsaid promises to the people who have meant the most. The friends I’ve lost, the relationships I’ve ruined, the unspoken words between two people who never had a chance.

This is before John Mayer dated girls too young and Taylor Swift was barely a blip on anyone’s radar.

This was when we spent our days at the rink, and our evenings in the cars of boys who didn’t love us. It’s when you used to sing lyrics like “bubblegum tongue” and giggle in that way that boys could never resist and that I was always trying to catch up to. You would say things like “They just like me better than you” and my friends became yours and my boyfriend became yours and slowly, surely, you tried to grow into me and I let you because being around you felt like being someone.

Back then, everything felt easy and broken and desperate.

Just like I wanted it to be.

This is when you used to call me at 2am crying and you would tell me how he broke your heart. We would drive around all night until you fell asleep on the passenger’s side. We would never talk about it. If anyone asked you were fine, really. It was you who didn’t need him.

Those years were filled with boys I couldn’t keep and boys you’d toss to the side. 

Mostly, I just found you impossible.

But then you’d call and issue some compliment I couldn’t resist, some vulnerability like “you’re doing so much, I’m envious” and I would forget. A rare moment of honesty, a glimpse at who you were under that tough exterior. Who I wanted you to be.

“I’m going back to school,” you said. “You’ve inspired me.”

You never did go back to school.

But there was a time when I used to lay my head on your shoulder, desperate for the sister I never had. Your body curled into mine, “It’s going to be ok.”  (It wasn’t, and then for a while, it was)

There was a moment, so brief I barely remember, when my Springs were spent watching you sneak cigarettes, my Summers spent lying for you, knowing you’d never do the same.

This was when we’d stay up until midnight laughing, running, reckless, our time spent full of joyful screams, youthful screams, the kind you can never re-create. It was “Jesus of Suburbia” on the speakers and red paint on your mother’s wall, and “Saint Jimmy” howling from our lungs.

It was, “I need you,” and “I can’t do this without you,” and “I’m scared.”

This was when my hair was dark and yours was short and John Mayer sang about first love and broken plans.

Back when you and I were still friends or at least, still pretending to be.

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