T'Estimo

At first Jessica didn’t understand why Sophia couldn’t talk back. She didn’t need to.

Their conversations were incredibly interesting, and their personalities were very similar. It didn’t matter that Jessica often spoke for hours without a single reply, as their bond ran deeper than language and two-way conversation. They knew how one another felt without words, and would sometimes spend a day in comfortable silence when neither felt ready to speak.

Sometimes Sophia would talk instead of Jess. Out of her mouth came a stream of fast paced words that strung together in a way young Jess could only describe as beautiful, despite not understanding the words being spoken. It was so incredibly pronounced, with rolling tongues and a soft voice speaking those words into the silence between them.

School was a difficulty. There weren’t any teachers who could assist Sophia in learning English so that she could get on with school as it was such an unusual language. Her parents also knew nothing of English, meaning the only words the young girl could pick up were from her friend. But despite Jess’ best efforts to explain the work and to teach the language, it was still a barrier that couldn’t be broken. Sofia would always have difficulty with the streams of harshly pronounced, but extremely interesting, words that the teachers made no effort to bring into an easier context.

“Jessica, honey?” A voice called out from down the hall. Jess had a spring in her step and a glint in her eye as she bounded down towards the kitchen, where she was about to ask her mum if she could have her very first sleepover with Sophia. They would have done it a long time ago, if it were not for the fact that she couldn’t understand what a sleepover was. Now that her understanding of the language had reached further levels, she knew that sleep (a snoring mime) and over (a point towards Jess’ chest) meant that she would be spending more than a few hours with her friend.

“Hi mum! I wanted to ask you something, it’s about Sophia.” Her mother sat at the kitchen table, a glossy magazine open in front of her showing off a collection of ‘high fashion’ outfits that frankly Jess wouldn’t be caught dead in. They were all frills and dressy and she had no time for that sort of thing. In fact, she’d never seen her mum in anything even resembling those strange outfits.

Her mum lifted her head at the sound of her daughter’s voice, then her back stiffened at the name mentioned.

“Actually dear... I wanted to talk to you about Sophia too,” She sighed heavily as she rose from the seat. Her daughter looked apprehensive, but the glint in her eyes from her previous excitement had still not left.

“I really don’t think she’s the best girl for you to be friends with. I mean, how can you develop social skills if you can’t even talk to one another?” She laughed a high pitched and obviously faked laugh, before coming to an awkward halt at the flat expression of her daughter.

“Look Jess, the thing is, Sophia isn’t even English. Her parents haven’t even made an effort to learn English. You need to find a more reliable friend who you can have a proper conversation with and who you can invite round and sit up all night and chat. What about Katie? She’s a nice girl isn’t she?”

“Katie called Sophia a freak,” Jess replied shortly. She turned on her heel before her flustered mother could reply, and left the room.

She didn’t understand this prejudice against a girl who spoke another language. So far she had been called in by her teacher to talk about her choice of friend and about how it wasn’t healthy to rely on one girl who couldn’t even converse properly.

Sometimes Jess just wanted to scream. She had chosen her own friend, she knew the difficulties. But she also knew how amazing it was and how she one day wished that they could both start to learn each other’s languages, and have conversations in proper sentences. She didn’t need advice about how to live, no matter how young she was.

She desperately wanted to go out and see Sophia at that moment. She wanted to rest her head on the other girl’s shoulder and cry quietly as she choked out words that couldn’t possibly be understood. But Sophia understood emotions, and she would be sure to whisper things in her own language while stroking her best friend’s hair. Soothing motions and tones of voice didn’t change through culture and upbringing.

Instead, Jess could do nothing but sit quietly in her room, watching cars pass by outside her window. It was late autumn, meaning the sky was lit by a powerful but low in the sky sun, and frost could be seen clinging to the plants covering the front gardens of all the houses on the street. She briefly wondered if the same thing was taking place over at her best friend’s house further down, but then shook her head as she remembered the huge grin on Sophia’s mum’s face when they first met. She had called her something that sounded vaguely like ‘affect,’ but she presumed it was good.

When she was called down for dinner, she remained stoic and silent, giving her mum evil glares that she knew in the back of her mind were childish and stupid, but she couldn’t help but feel the need to defend Sophia, and be serious about it.

By the time her bedtime rolled around, she had barely spoken two words to both of her parents, and she was more than ready for the next day when she would be able to talk to Sophia about that day’s events. It was as she was climbing into bed that a thought struck her.

Not a minute later and she was creeping across the hall into her parent’s study, where the large computer sat with its screen thankfully glowing. She slipped into the leather chair as silently as possible, then began to type into the web browser on the keys that seemed far too loud. When the words she was looking for popped up, she wasted no time in hastily scrawling the sentence over the palm of her hand. She whispered quietly under her breath as she shut down the computer and moved back into her bedroom, and even through the dark night when she was supposed to be sleeping her mouth formed the words she was memorising.

The next day she felt on edge constantly, worried that her mum or dad might have checked the internet history, or have somehow seen through the ceiling into the room she’d been sat in. She kept her palm hidden as inconspicuously as possible, and tried to resist the urge to whistle innocently like they did on the television. The thought almost made her laugh.

What was lucky was that neither of her parents suspected a thing, and they were trying as hard as possible not to let the previous night’s argument return over breakfast. Once or twice they skirted over the issue of Sophia, but were brushed away quickly before they could start with their stupid opinions again.

The walk to school was one of the most peaceful parts of Jess’ day. She walked alone down the long street towards her primary school, and along the way was joined by Sophia. They would walk in silence, or one talking to the other occasionally if something big had happened at home, and, even more rarely, they would talk as if having a normal conversation. One would start off the conversation, then they would carry on in their own respective language, interpreting however they liked. To the two girls, it was just as thrilling as any normal conversation. Maybe even better.

Today, at the same halfway point down the street, Sophia came rushing from her doorway, school bag flapping around over her shoulder, and her arms open wide for a hug. The two embraced quickly. It was Jess who started to talk first.

She told the entire story of what had happened the previous night, and despite lack of communication, Sophia saw the distress in her friend. Her arm crept around Jess’ waist, and she brushed the other girl’s hair back slightly in the way her own mare and older sister always did to her for comfort.

“-And, and...” Jess hiccupped slightly as the tears started to flow, and she knew, she just knew, this was the moment.

“T-tu ets, miller – no sorry, I mean – el mew miller amick.” She choked out the words she had tried so desperately to memorise, the pressure of those large brown eyes forcing her to tear up even more and forget the words. Her pronunciation was all wrong, but by the way her friend’s eyes lit up brighter than she’d ever seen them do in their years of friendship, she knew she’d done something right.

Sophia laughed heartily, tears reaching her own eyes when the statement really sunk in. Jess had done that for her. She’d learned something so special forher.

With the words echoing in her ears, and Jess’ shy pink face staring down at the floor, Sophia reacted in the only remaining way of love and happiness she had learned from her mum but had not yet used with her friends. She leaned forward, gripped Jess in a tight hug, and pressed her lips against her friend’s cheek.

Even more colour rose to her cheeks when Jess realised what Sophia was doing. She had never thought that such a quickly thought up sentence could reduce a young girl to flowing tears, and saying something that was so common in English in another language could bring such a loving reaction from another child.

“T'estimo, Jess. Tu ets el meu millor amic.”

And while Jess didn’t understand the first part of the sentence, the rest was the same. And the way it struck her heart was so amazing that right there, right in the middle of a street of houses, the two girls were in floods of tears with arms wrapped around each other like young lovers rather than best friends. But really, the difference didn’t matter in that moment.

This was the first time they had ever almost fully understood each other.

I love you, Jess. You are my best friend.