Memories Never Seem To Fade

If there was one thing I hated more than waking up in the middle of the night, it was being on an airplane and woken up in the middle of the night by turbulence.

Sweat was beginning to form on my forehead, as I gripped the arm rests with all my might. Flying was difficult to begin with, but when it had turbulence—that was a whole different story. My hands were going white from the force I was using to try and keep myself secure in my seat. My eyes were focused on the seat in front of me, and I wouldn’t let them wander off anywhere.

To keep myself sane, I needed to keep myself completely focused. Grip the arm rests, stare at the seat in front of me, and whisper soothing words to myself. Though, at the moment none of it seemed to be working.

“Keely,”

I shook my head, not bothering to turn to my right; I knew who it was trying to calm me down. It wasn’t going to work. Trying to get me sidetracked just wasn’t going to work. Taking in a deep breath, I continued to just stare at the seat in front of me.

No matter how hard I tried though, the vibrations from the turbulence wouldn’t go away. I was stuck on an airplane, buckled to a seat hoping that everything would go perfectly and that we would land in back in Baltimore in no time and I’d be safe. Completely safe, and I’d never take another plane ride for as long as I lived. Of course, this was just wishful thinking.

“Keely, look at me,”

The tone of the voice had softened, calming my nerves enough to distract myself from looking at the seat in front of me.

As I craned my neck, I managed to take a look at my best friend. His hair was shaved—which honestly hadn’t changed in the four years that I’d known him in college. He held his hand out, and flipped his palm so it was facing upwards before twiddling his fingers, silently telling me to grab ahold of his hand.

Nibbling into my lower lip, I looked down at my hands and then back up at my best friend. Reluctantly I loosened my grip on one of the armrests, and reached for his. Immediately, he grabbed ahold of it and held it night. Every so often, he’d rub his thumb across the top of my hand to calm me down.

Surprisingly, it worked.

“Jamie,” I started, turning my head back to my best friend, “Have I ever told you how much I fucking love you?”

Upon hearing his name, Jamie turned and looked at me. A small chuckle escaped his lips and shook his head. “Well, have I ever told you that you’re just not my type?”

“Oh, right, you’re type. It’s a shame I don’t have a real dick, we’d be a cute couple.” This was how our conversations always went, and no matter how I was feeling, they brought a smile to my lips every time.

We met as freshman in college. I’d been walking to class, wondering about how Jack was doing on their first actual tour, and in the midst of my thoughts, I ended up running into someone. That someone, obviously, was Jamie.

It took a bit for us to actually become friends, but it ended up working out just fine. I think I was also the first one he came to when he wanted to come out of the closet. Our friendship was something I had always cherished. He knew everything about me, and I knew everything about him. Plus, whenever Jack came into town or something, Jamie always knew what to say to help keep the conversations going.

Don’t get me wrong, Jack and I are best friends—always have been and always will—but, going a few months without having an actual conversation face to face made things difficult. It always seemed to start with the weather and a few short response answers—until I learned to text Jamie and he was able to come up with the perfect questions to get a conversation rolling.

Jack. It’d been awhile since I’d actually thought of him. I’d been in Europe for the past month with Jamie—so that was one excuse. However the months before that, I had no excuse at all as to why I never left him a text or a phone call. I’d had a part time job as a waitress at the local diner trying to pay off my student loans, but managed to get myself fired--which was where the trip to Europe came in. Jamie had decided that I needed time to just relax, and he paid for the whole thing—something I regret even letting him convince me into allowing. So, I had no excuse. Jack, on the other hand, had every excuse known to man, and always somehow made time to try and contact me—even if I never really got around to responding.

“Keely, where’d you go?”

My head shot up at the sound of my name, bringing me out of my thoughts for the time being. “Huh?”

“I asked, where’d you go?” Jamie repeated, raising a hand and flicking the side of my head. “You went off into a daze of some sort.”

“Daze? Oh, right, I was just… thinking,” I allowed a small sigh to pass through my lips as I leaned my head against the head rest. I just wanted to get to Baltimore. Then everything would be fine.

“Why don’t you try sleeping? The turbulence seems to have calmed down some,” Thinking about it for a moment, I decided that Jamie’s suggestion seemed to be just what I needed. More sleep. I situated my head on top of my best friend’s shoulder before closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep.



“I’ll go get our luggage, wait here.” Putting his hands on my shoulder, Jamie situated me in a random spot before taking off towards the luggage claim.

I rolled my eyes at the back of my best friend as I watched him walk away. I was okay with him carrying the luggage; it wasn’t like I had the muscle mass to do that sort of thing.

Knowing that it’d take him a while to come back with the luggage, I pulled out my iPhone and turned it on for the first time since landing. We’d landed in Baltimore around thirty minutes ago, and to be honest it unnerved me that we had left London at 7pm only to land in Baltimore at 8pm the same day. Time zones honestly annoyed the hell out of me sometimes.

The second my phone was completely turned on I was flooded with notifications. I had three voicemails and quite a few texts. Since when was I so popular? With a sigh, I lazily checked to see where these voicemails came from—the texts could wait.

I listened to the first message, and nearly fell over when I heard Jack’s voice in my ear.

“Yo, bitch, call Jack back. One it’s been awhile, and, two I have some news to tell you. Call whenever, okay? Whether it’s five in fucking morning, or five in the afternoon. Over and out.”
The second voicemail was sent about a day later… and it was from Jack yet again.
”I don’t know if you’re ignoring me or what. But, seriously, Keelz I have important shit to tell you. Call me.””

The final one was from my mother, which didn’t shock me in the least. She was wondering when I was coming home and then said that I needed to call Jack.

Wait. He called my mom? Right, he’s Jack. What was I thinking. Of course he’d call my mother.

Looking around I spotted a pillar that was a few feet away, and walked over to it before I leaned up against it and dialed Jack’s number. Better late than never, right?

“Keely, you bitch. About time you called me,” The familiar voice whined into the phone, and I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

“Well, Barakat, seems like you haven’t changed a bit,” Jamie came walking towards me with our luggage in to at this time. I held up my free hand to single him to stay still for a moment. “Impatient as always, look I just landed in Baltimore about a half hour ago. You called my mother, didn’t she tell you I was in Europe?”

“Europe? What the fuck where you doing in Europe?” Of course. Most things my mother said to him went in one ear and out the other. “I don’t even remember your mom telling me that.”

“I went on a small vacation with Jamie,” I paused, finally remembering that he had something important to tell me. “So what is this big news you have for me?”

“Oh, right!” All of a sudden Jack’s voice vanished and a little bit of static took over. I frowned to myself and contemplated ending the phone call until I heard something that caught me off guard. Giggling. Even though Jack was the king of giggling, I knew that this wasn’t him. It sounded too feminine.

“Jack?” I tried, letting a sigh escape my lips hoping to grab the boy’s attention. However the giggling persisted. “JACK?!”

“What?” His voice appeared to be slightly irritated.

“The news, Jack, give me the fucking news. I’m tired and want to get home.” I raised my hand to my forehead and gripped it for a few seconds as I grew more and more tired.

“The news! Shit, I almost forgot!” Jack’s tone of voice changed immediately. What had once been irritated was now filled with excitement. “Jack’s engaged mother fucker!”

“En-what?” I repeated dumbly, trying to process the information that he had given to me.

“Engaged,” He repeated for a second time. “You went to college, you know what it means. To promise one’s self to another person. To promise to be wed, get the picture?”

The grip on my phone loosened, and it started to fall to the floor as I stared off into space. Jack Barakat was engaged?

My best friend, since the fifth grade, was engaged to be married. That couldn’t be. At all. I wasn’t even married, and we’d both had pretty much come to the conclusion that I’d be the first one to say ‘I do.’

Feeling a tap on my shoulder, I flew back down to reality and looked up at Jamie. He looked down at me with concern in his eyes. I ignored his concern for the time being, and took my phone which had been located in his outstretched arm.

I put it up to my ear again, and spoke into the phone. “Engaged…?”

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d been eaten by an Alien or something,” Jack laughed, trying to ease the tension in the air with a light joke before speaking softly, “Yeah. I’m engaged. I’m happy Keelz, so fucking happy. It happened in a matter of days, but it’s all for the right reasons. I love her, Keelz, I really truly do.”

“That’s,” I hesitated for a moment, trying to come up with the right words to say. “That’s great Jack. Look, I’m kind of tired, but tomorrow we should get together and—”

“I’m in California Keely, I have tour remember? But, I’ll be in Baltimore in about a week. How about we get together then? It’d great to talk about this in person.”

“Oh… yeah, that’s perfectly fine. I almost forgot for a moment that you were a rockstar, living the dream.” I chuckled, and flashed Jamie a small smile to reassure him that I was doing better than I had earlier. “Just call me up when you’re in town and we’ll have coffee or something. Just the two of us, right?”

“Just the two of us,” He confirmed into the phone. “Well I should get going. It’s three hours difference, and I have sound check in five seconds. Catch you later, Keel.”

“Catch you later, Jacko.”

The line went dead, and I slowly stuffed my phone into my pocket before turning to Jamie and relaying the news to him. “Jack, of all people, is engaged.”

“Engaged?” Jamie raised his eyebrows in shock. “You sure we’re talking about Jack Barakat? The oldest five year old I have ever met?”

“The one and only,” I nodded, as I walked over and gripped the handle on the smallest suitcase situated right next the converse covered feet of my best friend.

“Huh, interesting.” He followed suit and grabbed ahold of the last two luggage handles before walking off towards customs. However, before we had even walked five feet, he stopped and turned around to look at me. “The question is; how do you feel about all this Keely?”

I looked at him for a long moment, blinking every few seconds as I thought about my answer to this. Jack was my best friend, and I knew for a fact that I didn’t love him in that kind of way, yet I found myself frowning upon his decision. I mean, I was happy for him, don’t get me wrong. But this just didn’t seem right.

“I’m concerned for him,” I paused and let out a small sigh. “He said it had all happened in a few days… doesn’t that seem a little fast to fall in love, to you?”

“Who are you to say that he doesn’t love her? There isn’t a certain time frame for it to be considered love. It might have happened in minutes, maybe hours… but it’s not like you can tell whether or not this is genuine—unless you were Jack.”

I looked up at Jamie, and then nodded. He was right.

If Jack said he was in love, who was I to deny it? He was my best friend—and I supported him no matter what.