I/II
Everyone knew he was a writer. Not necessarily because he was scribbling in his notebook all the time, but because he spoke like one. Andy would usually speak like how one would imagine Shakespeare’s actors read their lines. Dramatic, overtly emotional, sometimes in an avalanche of rounded vowels and sometimes like a river with too much space between thoughts. We were thirteen when Andy showed up at school, having moved into town with his mother and sister. Andy was short for Oleander, which I found out thirty-something years later when we had already lost touch for some eight years. As a child, I always thought it might have been short for something like Anderson, but it didn’t matter what he went by, which was Sam after he joined law school, short for Samuel, his middle name. He remained Andy for those who remembered, mattered, and gave a damn.
It wasn’t until September four years later that Andy sat next to me in class. What was meant to be one History period, turned into days, and eventually weeks of him settling on the seat next to mine. At that time, it felt like such an unnecessary burden to carry, for a social outcast like myself. He was not our kind, you see. A white, bespectacled boy with red-brown mullet speaking oddly was never easy to get used to, even in one of the most exclusive private schools on the island. I remember trying to be grown-up about it, trying not to pronounce my ‘O’s too loud unconsciously while talking to him, and struggling to keep my Sinhala accent from showing too much. If he noticed, he didn’t show, but I would catch him mouthing words every now and then right after I did, trying to mimic my accent. The girls sitting two rows down would snicker every time Andy fidgeted in his seat, snuck glances or attempted to talk to me. I remember wishing for the days when Andy was not my problem. He no longer seemed visibly invisible. I no longer had the luxury to forget his existence when I wasn’t secretly observing him like everyone else. It was unapologetic and no one felt bad for doing it. He was of different species from the rest of us in all concerns.
Yet, it all made sense two years later when we were seniors, about to leave school, and most importantly: inseparable. Neither of us knew when we hit it off, but Andy firmly believed that it might have happened after the day he helped me in an unfortunate incident with a period stain, ruined school uniform, and some mean back-row girls. Back then I hated him for taking my side. I hated him for walking close behind me as I rushed to the girl’s washroom. I hated him for staying rooted by the door, constantly going “ For fuck’s sake it’s just some stupid blood Dari,”, “Will you please stop crying and let me come in?”, and “I have a spare PT bottom, and you can wear that.”
And I did.
It was surprisingly the first time he had called me by my name. It was the first time I had a guy storm into the girl’s washroom, bang on the door, and leave his PT bottom hanging from the top of the cubicle wall threatening to bust the door in if I did not emerge from the washroom after changing. As cliché as it sounds, it might have also been the first time I saw him as more than just the Sudda boy’ in class. It left a hole in the place I had reserved for him and instead I was left with a warm feeling in the belly, which came from knowing that I had a friend. And no matter how hard I tried to shove that feeling down the sink as I frantically washed my hands, I couldn’t help but look at him differently… like looking at an actual person… after he coaxed me out with more empty threats.
Flash-forward a couple of months later to our final exams, Andy confessed that his family had plans to move back to the UK. The harsh, August winds of Colombo blew dust in our eyes as we walked home after school. His side bag slapped the backs of his long legs as he walked beside me, pushing his glasses back more often than normal as he did when he was uncomfortable. Calculated short strides to match my pace, as his body would turn on its own accord to face me every few steps like it was making sure I was still there.
He seemed to expect my silence. And I, like clockwork, couldn’t utter a single word.
Maybe it was the fact that we were not in love. At least not in the general sense you would expect two nineteen-year-olds who were also best friends, to be in. But there was a lot of love going around. Sometimes to the point of suffocation, yet somehow we managed to be selfless in that love. One should never love to a fault.
Maybe it didn’t make sense to base our bond on blurred lines and confused labeling as we did. It didn’t matter because nothing we did made sense. We didn’t fit into anything, just each other’s complexities. For us, it didn’t occur that we never really talked about them. Never acknowledged them for what they were. Instead, we always converged on each other’s simplicities. He liked me for my quiet understanding. I liked him for his patience. And in those small pockets of trust, we unearthed multitudes. We were so young to be what we were for each other. No one we knew had what we had. A love that fit no plausible description.
Andy never had a problem with us. It was always me.
And he never loved me any less for it. He would, however, mention it out of frustration whenever we argued over something. And I would immediately shut off. And that would be the end of it. Sometimes, I wondered if he fed off that toxicity, or if he simply had more in him than I ever gave him credit for.
The fact that we were good to each other did not guarantee the same for ourselves.
Years later, when my self-hatred ate me inside out, up to the point where I left everything on hold, Andy came to see me at my apartment. He found me clutching a ruined painting, convulsing, numb from an anti-depressant overdose. I survived that night because I did not have a say in it. He did.
Two days, sleepless in the hospital after we came home to each other, we spent our first night together alone. After seven years of a seemingly eternal purgatory with painted glass ceilings for me, and courthouses for him.
He left his wedding ring on the sink in plain view as he climbed onto the cold tub with me after dinner. Neither of us spoke out of respect for each other’s pain. His was laid bare in his glass eyes, very different from my frozen gaze. Because we both knew we failed our truth. The truth that nothing on this planet could replace what we let go of. There was nothing left to say which would not be in vain once it left our lips. Nothing we could think of to say to each other after all the years spent apart. Not because we care any less, but because we knew it made no difference.
A successful art curator/historian, working as a private consultant to local and overseas buyers and galleries, divorced, known for her scandals surrounding substance and being the best in the game. A barrister who gave up writing, called to the bar just two months ago, married to another lawyer for just one, back in Sri Lanka on a supposed business trip, known to be a brutal defender. Two worlds, staring at each other in a cold tub, because the heater had been broken for some time, and I didn’t bother getting it fixed.
He still wore his stupid glasses. I knew it only meant that he still hated his parents and that if I were to mention this, he would swear for a straight minute. I reached out and touched the bridge of his nose to let him know I noticed. The sigh which filled the silence moments later tore at my heart and I let my hand drop as his head bowed into his chest. Only to have him catch it and bring it back to his forehead, to let me know he allowed it and wanted to share the pain with me. The water lapped, sloshing to the cool tile from the sides as I moved closer to the boy who once let me define happiness for him. He opened his veined arms as we collided ever so softly once more. My back finding its home, glued into his chest, neck cradled into the hollow of his sculpted collarbone, his hard torso liquefying to house my burnt-out edges. Our skin struggled to communicate all that our lips failed to. Our minds racing at the speed of light, trying to outrun each other’s familiarity. I imagined the Nietzsche in him chuckling softly at the paradox we were. A tangle of limbs promised to other things. A white girl with dimples and a doctorate in his case. The homely void found within empty Crystal bottles and torn canvasses in mine.
“Do you remember…?”
His voice was coarse, liquid sunsets poured down my ears, roughed up by the years, the first words he burned to my neck through shaky lips.
Do you remember?
My body burrowed deeper into his embrace in response and he kissed my neck as he gathered me up to his chest in acknowledgment.
How can I forget?
“Do you still keep loose change in a jar for no reason?” he asked.
His chest rumbled with a suppressed coughing fit as he chuckled. I turned my head and found his lips, tasting the cloying nicotine in his breath as I whispered in his open mouth.
“Do you still smoke like a crazy person?”
“Are we going to ask each other stupid questions all night like this?” his mouth curved into a smile, still touching mine.
“Yes.”
We stayed like that for a while. Eyes open, lips locked in brief, soft kisses, as if re-familiarizing with the taste, the contours, and the lines. Arms in a chokehold, clinging onto whatever parts of us we seemed to grab hold of…almost frenzied in fear of losing it again. It s funny how you can be touch-starved for one specific person, and your skin being able to remember every note of their essence, which once re-introduced goes through a long checklist of features you didn’t know you held on to for all this time.
He cooked for me. He took care of me. Played my guitar and rolled up the blunts in the evenings. In the week after my overdose, we never left my apartment unless it was for a grocery run or for one of our late-night drives by the Marine Drive. We did not talk about a future together. We didn’t ask ‘What now?” Maybe it was the unsaid promise each of us made to each other all those years back walking home from school. The day he told me he was leaving. And asked me if I would go with him or at least if I was willing to wait until he found a way to come back to me. We both knew that I was incapable of leaving. We both knew that I would wait. We both knew, with certainty, that his family would never let him return to me. And I waited until he eventually stopped writing. I waited until I heard through a friend that he was making plans to migrate back to the island. I waited until I heard that he met with a bad accident. I waited until my father forced me to marry an emotionally distant pediatrician. I waited, years after my messy divorce, until I heard of his marriage through that same friend. I waited until he flew to Sri Lanka on a fabricated business trip, leaving his newly-wed wife in the UK after a brief honeymoon. I waited as I listened to the pulse slow down in my head from the pills I swallowed, unable to run away from his message on my voicemail, hysterical, telling me that he checked into the Hilton at Colombo and that he couldn’t take it anymore; living without me. I waited, even as I blacked out, as he finally busted my door like he threatened to, all those years back at school, screaming for me to open my eyes as he drove me to the emergency unit. It was haunting. The return of him. And it haunted me for a good part of all the years he had to be gone. Again.
We met for one final time when each of us had turned 46.
He had divorced Jaime. Left his career in law and returned to his writing while taking an MFA class in Gloucester. His parents had died, months apart from each other to their respective illnesses. He went to the pub every Saturday night for a drink after working a day job he didn’t have to. He had savings from his time as a barrister to see him through the rest of his life quite comfortably. I was on an art tour in Europe when I got a call from an unknown number, which I knew even without answering, belonged to the man who defined melancholy to me.
I left a local museum opening in Strasbourg to catch the red-eye to Glasgow a week after his 46th birthday, the day he rang me. I left multiple messages on his voicemail but got no response. As I look back on it now, it might have been the most depressing flight I have ever had. I was not sure if I was making a mistake, or if Andy even wanted to see me. I was not sure if I did too. Up until the moment I received a text from him asking me to meet him at a local pub.
I walked into the dingy pub in my cherry dress, whiskey breath, and broken heart. Not ready for more Oleander in the winter of my life. Not ready for this. I have already had too many glasses.
I kept walking to the bar, repeating in my head
None for me, thanks.
No, none for me.
