Bittersweet Are the Milestones

Autumn has never been a good time for us. I still remember that other autumn; the first time I tried to do this. It was the beginning of a long and particularly gruelling tradition of half hearted goodbyes and emotionally driven breakups.

It wasn't until my last ditch effort to protect myself that I realised the very boy I'd been utterly committed to loathe, had wheedled his way into my very soul and taken up permanent residency there. Despite my efforts, nothing could flush him out. Against every instinct I possessed, I kept returning.

It always came back to the same freakin' question: Am I doing the right thing?

He says no. He says I'm wrong. As I stare into his eyes, warm and full of tender anger, I start to believe him.

The white autumn sun is fading and it descends into the horizon like a giant monarch sinking into a frothy bath after a long day. The air smells like fresh rain. It stings the tip of my nose and numbs my hands. I pull my jacket tighter around myself and study his stony face.

I know the face he wears. I know him well. His features are flat and remote, almost as though by remaining expressionless he can distance himself from the reality of pain I'm causing him.

And I think about what he said: "Was all this for nothing, then?"

In year nine, when I was just fourteen years old I met a boy. I dubbed him, the Stalker. That was our first milestone and the beginning of everything.

Mum, to this day, thinks it was all very sweet. For a fourteen year old girl with three protective brothers and whose only 'boyfriend' experience was a three hour relationship in primary school, it was anything but sweet.

My parents built a house on a five acre block, a small parcel of land that was part of a massive new real estate venture owned by some rich tycoon. I mention this specifically so you understand that from the town to my house it was, at the very least, a fifteen minute drive.

I was hanging the clothes on the line and dad was waiting in the car; mum had left us a grocery list a mile long. Clipping the last pair of sheer, lacy underwear – a raunchy item for mum – I noticed something dark and wavering floating up the road.

My phone buzzed and I fumbled in my pocket. Recently, I'd been handed my first mobile down the family grapevine. It was an old Nokia pink and silver flip phone. It wasn't as cool as a BlackBerry, the new hip mobile that took the student body by storm. Nevertheless, it was still thrilling to have one's own phone. It was very grownup. Grownup like wearing eye liner, padded bras and the little something-something called menstruation.

"Howdy-fiddly?" I answered smoothly, all faux nonchalance-like.

"Hey so, don't be mad, but you will never guess who dropped by," came a high and breathless voice. I could hear giggling in the background. "I hope you don't mind but we gave him your number...and your address."

"Huh?" I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes at the approaching blob.

"You know. It's so cute! He really likes you."

I froze, "You're joking. You're not serious. You wouldn't do that to me... I don't believe –"

I choked off. Waves of heat rippled across the road and I couldn't quite make out... The dark figure drew steadily nearer. There was something very familiar about the shape of his head, the way he held himself. Swiftly, he hovered down the road, his lower body obscured by bulrushes and long yellow grass. A bicycle; he wasn't hovering. He was riding a bicycle. He stopped at the end of my block and perched there almost expectantly.

Oh my gosh...

"You're all a bunch of...cows. I have to go." I hung up, glowering at the phone in my hand.

How dare they? How dare he? I fumed, willing him to go away. He was taking this too far. This was beyond embarrassing.

My phone buzzed again. Unknown number. I pressed answer with unnecessary force. "What?"

"Um...hey," his voice was surprisingly deep. "I'm outside your house - ah, you probably don't know me but I'm in your home group class. My name is –"

"I know who you are," I said in a tight voice. "And you should leave."

What did he expect me to do? Run to him with widespread arms to Chariots of Fire?

Dad called out and I started guiltily; quickly pressing the end button without waiting for him to answer, sending one last glare in his direction for good measure. I scurried around the side of the house and slipped in the car, all the while fervently hoping he'd was off and peddling his little heart out.

I was beyond mortified when dad pulled over on the side of the road and that boy, with his square face and stupid puppy dog eyes, was leaning down and trying to fix his bike chain with clumsy fingers. A fiery blush washed over his face and neck. He avoided looking at us directly, eyes firmly fixed on anything but Dad who, oblivious to my inner turmoil, offered him a lift. I glared at the boy hard enough to burn holes in his head and his eyes widened.

"N-no, I'm fine," he stammered, shaking his head; brown hair flopping emphatically.

Skulking, stalking blip! What wouldn't I give at that moment to see the ground swallow him up?

Perhaps I overreacted. But understand, I was fourteen years old; I was mousy and on the ugly side of puberty with a flat chest and a round face. Just the idea that a boy could like me was a completely and utterly foreign concept. I was still a tomboy. I wanted brothers and playmates, not boyfriends.

From that point on, I bullied him mercilessly. I hated him like I have never hated anyone before. His mere presence repulsed me and the mere sight of his drooping brown eyes set off in my breast a raging storm of hostility. He wasn't perturbed – damn him. He texted me, continuously, and I tried to be polite and accommodating at first.

Hey! I was generally a passive tempered girl, not this Termagant that had taken over my body.

Eventually I lost all patience and whatever graciousness I could boast of. He was too intense, too persistent and in the hopes of scaring him off and making him dislike me in return; I told all the boys in my class what he had done. How he rode to my house on his bicycle and sat outside like a creeper. From then on he was known as the Stalker. I had ostracised him so thoroughly it was a wonder he could still talk to me without rancor.

Naturally I feel quite guilty now.

I remember one time in particular a few months after the Stalker incident. We were both in Home Economics together and I was scrawling a few hasty lines on my assignment; I never was one for theory. I wasn't aware of Stalker Boys presence until he was halfway leaning across the marble laminate bench I slouched over. The warmth of his breath on my face had my skin prickling and he smelt like boy and cheap deodorant. I ignored him. He shifted slightly and cleared his throat.

"You have really nice hand writing."

Smooth move, dufus.

I paused and slowly straightened. I met his eyes across the counter with a flat, hard stare that should've sent him scurrying away with his tail tucked between his legs. His eyes, normally so flitting and shy, held my glare and searched it with something akin to fascination, like an illiterate man, for the first time, reading a book with clarity and understanding.

I scowled, "Thanks."

He gave me a short nod, smiling tentatively before reverting back to shifty-eyed half glances. I sniffed, picking up my papers and strode away.

During the next two years, an enduring repugnance for my Stalker was marked and noted among all our classmates, which was why our abrupt friendship became something of an unexpected curiosity. Between his harmless amiability and my own indifference, I was able to talk to him without feeling threatened or treating him with aversion.

That was my mistake. I've tried to find a fitting allegory for how he snuck up on me and stole my affections like a thief in the night. He sheathed his claws and hid his teeth and presented me with an illusion of safety. He was too shy for me to be susceptible to whatever charms he could possibly possess. Or so I thought.

With all the ambiguity of a dream and the consuming, giddy passion of wild fire; I fell into deep infatuation. And I was not aware of it until I'd already stepped off the precipice and was floundering in feelings and emotions I believed, like all those too young for love, was entirely unique to my own experiences.

I had tried to end things between us then. Damn him. The boy I had been so thoroughly convinced to despise was now essential to my happiness.

The second milestone of my budding friendship with the Stalker, whose name I finally began to use, was when he began asking me questions. We would talk on philosophies and theologies. We argued over movies and – foolish boy – why superman was not in any way superior to Batman. He knew how to hook me and I allowed myself to be caught. If we were texting, he would purposely fall asleep so I'd be obliged to carry on the conversation the next day.

Connor wooed me with the Star Wars movies, charmed me with laughter and captured my attention with the deep well of strength and quiet reserve that was distinct only to him. In the night, he would call me and in the intimate, silent darkness that felt more like home than home did, we would talk for three hours, four hours, five hours, six hours. Eventually there was not a time, unless we were unconscious, that we were not somehow communicating. My schooling and friendships suffered; they were all part of the matrix that figured as the background of my world. My world was Connor.

Once, eavesdropping as I typically do, I heard dad muttering to mum in the kitchen. He said that Connor looked at me with adoring eyes, like I was his world too.

The first time we hung out he spilt my bottle of ginger beer all over my legs, knocked me in front of a moving car and gave me a splinter the size of kindling, all the while flushing and mumbling his apologies. Ironically, he now tells me he was only trying to make a 'good impression' and didn't want to completely 'blow his chances'.

Sometimes he wouldn't let me out of his sight, almost like I was a mirage, too good to be true. Under the pretense of alleviating my boredom, Connor would sit on one of the benches lining the wall adjacent the checkouts at my workplace. He would watch me beep beep beep as I worked, sneaking glances and sharing secret smiles. Often he'd wait two, sometimes three hours just to sit with me for my ten minute break.

Occasionally, we spent our free time exploring infamous, dangerous places. One of my particular favourites was the Sand Sheds; an old abandoned factory a ten minute drive out of town. It was steeped in a sort of otherworldly menace and was one of those haunting, fearful places that attracted young people whose idea of fun was seeking thrills and doing all manner of risky, hazardous things.

Firstly, we had to squeeze through a hole in a chain link fence. I remember the way it clung to my hair and clutched at my clothes as I fell through the other side with all the grace of a new born calf. Huge yellow, red and white signs, worn and rusted by the salty ocean air and fierce winds, had illustrations of stick figures tumbling to their death and words like: "Prohibited. Trespassers will be prosecuted. Illegal. Dangerous conditions."

The great hulking shape of the factory, reclining precariously on the edge of a cliff, was outlined against a back drop of dark ash grey clouds. The sea, its mood being more tumultuous than usual, spat and vomited and churned like an angry monster. The arctic wind tugged at my hair and with it came the sharp scent of rusted metal.

I know now why he wanted to bring me here for my birthday. I glanced at Connor and smirked.

"What?" he demanded over the sound of sinister ambience.

"It's like a horror movie or something. I love, love, love this place!" I gushed in a sing-song voice, spinning around and flapping my hands.

We explored the factory and it moaned and howled as though at any moment it would crumple like a house of cards and slide listlessly into the sea. We creaked up rusted staircases, crawled across 'causeways' (planks of wood) and stood over yawning mining pits so deep we couldn't see the bottom.

Scuttling out of a hidden entrance bathed in pure light, eager to escape the dimness and dank air of the Sand Sheds, we came across a steep ditch littered with jagged rocks. Connor, quick and light as a cat, scampered down the side, sliding and skidding till he came to a sputtering stop at the bottom.

I gulped. "Um...Connor?"

He craned his neck and shades his eyes against the white winter sun. "Just jump."

"Easy for you to say," I mumbled.

"I'll catch you. Just jump."

"Look, I'm heavier than I look; it's the Italian in me. I'm like a baby elephant."

He smiled up at me and my unreliable heart flutters and settles in a heavy, discordant beat. "I promise I'll catch you."

"Alright. I'm trusting you; don't break my trust."

He relaxes into an even stance; feet spread shoulder width apart and body lightly clenched. I admire him; his funny square shaped head, square jaw, the stubborn tilt to his chin and the boxer muscles bunching under his t-shirt.

I take a few tiny steps backward and then lunge down the slope. I'm definitely not as graceful as Connor. I careen wildly, my ankle twisting as I lurch head first. The full barrage of my weight crashes into him like I'm tenpin bowling. I smack my ear on his knee and roll through his legs. He staggers back but doesn't buckle, catching me firmly about the waist.

Through the dizzying buzz in my ears, I could hear him laughing – really laughing; little huffing breaths punctuated by snickers. His laughter is so rare that when he does it for real I stop thinking and listen like its most precious sound on this earth. Never mind that he just dropped me like a sack of potatoes.

I stare up at him in wonder. His eyes, shaped like horizontally drooping tear drops, crinkle at the corners until he barely had eyes at all. His arms went back around me, trying to steady me as I drunkenly gained my feet.

I feel my body thrill and thrum like live wire. I'm breathless and a little dazed.

"Caught you," he grinned and there is something indefinable in his soft brown eyes.

Making him laugh – for real – was such a rare occurrence I found myself desperately trying to amuse him and recreate that magical sound that rolled deep in his chest. But everything I laughed at, he would smile in a humouring, indulgent way like he thought I was cute. I am not cute. Everything he laughed at, like farting and random unintelligent things, produced in me an almost comical desire to pound my head up against a brick wall and wonder what precisely I saw in him.

But Connor gave me laughter even if I wasn't always entirely successful with him. I have many fond memories I could share. Just one of them being the time he was stung by a jelly fish when we went swimming together and I wandered up behind him.

His back was turned, body angled away and shoulders hunched.

"Connor? What are you doing?"

He jumped and peeked over his shoulder, eyes wild. "Watch it!"

He was peeing on his hand; on the jelly fish sting.

I flung a hand over my eyes and spun away, tripping in my haste. "Ew! Ew! Ew! That's disgusting!"

According to Connor, peeing on a jelly fish sting would reduce the swelling and pain. With my newer, Telstra Samsung mobile, I googled jelly fish stings as he washed himself off in the sea, discomfited and bashfully avoiding eye contact. With delight, I read: "Peeing on a jelly fish sting is not advised. Urine, on occasion, can even cause the sting to inflame and burn more, not less."

To which Connor, blushing profusely, mumbled very wittily, "Shut it."

The next milestone in our relationship was a deep revolutionary shift in what we meant to each other. We always were exclusive; we denied it to everyone, even ourselves. Despite our denial, we were intensely and genuinely in love. It almost seemed like everyone else knew before we did.

We were bickering as we sat on the town jetty, legs hanging over the side of an overcast sea when he kissed me for the first time.

I was not a willing participant. He simply leaned down and pecked me on the lips. Almost like a nervous, hungry bird; swooping in and stealing a morsel of food and swooping out. I had no time to recoil, or to enjoy the kiss; he was there and then he was gone, sly as a fox. He didn't declare himself, say anything romantic or simply smile tenderly while caressing my cheek, as you would naturally expect. He merely began laughing – and I mean, for real laughing, whilst simultaneously managing to look halfway repentant and extremely anxious. My expression, he says between gulps of air, will forever be burned in his memory.

Apparently I looked like I'd just been kissed by a dead fish. My lips were curled back, open mouthed and aghast, my nose was pinched as though I'd smelt something truly repulsive and my eyes were as wide and as ridiculous looking as a possums who'd been caught in a sudden flare of light.

By this point, I get the feeling that love isn't like we think it is. Oh, we all say we know. We say love isn't like the movies, the books, the songs. We say we know better than that. I've come to realise it's just a front. It's like I hope to use reverse psychology on the god I've made of love. I say I don't believe in that kind of love, I don't expect that kind of happily ever after, or the kind of man that can sweep me off my feet. In reality, parallel to those so called convictions, deep down in my heart I'm telling myself I just haven't met the right person yet. If I expect it, it won't happen.

When I'm with him though, the doubts quiet and fade to a small jittery part of my soul; hushed but not silenced. The joy of being with him is all encompassing. It is a powerful, inscrutable feeling that had every nerve in my body crying out with the intensity of our absorption.

To this day, even as I sit here in the icy autumn gale with someone whose manner has become as equally icy, I feel that same bubble of happiness that envelopes us in our private world of obsession.

"No," I finally said. "I don't believe it was all for nothing."

He is silent and that doesn't alarm me. With him, confrontational conversations always moved like slow moving molasses.

I think that perhaps I'm in shock. The air around me feels like ice and sludge while my mind, hot and dizzy as it is, stays coldly logical.

"I feel like I should be used to this by now," he muttered bitterly. "It's easy for you to be so blasé about it."

"Friend –" I paused when I realised what I called him and how much he hates it. A reminder that friend is all we ever will be. "I think I've always subconsciously known this would happen."

"Funny, I didn't get the memo."

I take a moment to answer knowing his sarcasm and surliness is hurt and resentment putting on a brave face. In doing this I was hurting him on a deeply fundamental level that few people could reach and I didn't want to hurt him anymore than I had to. I've hurt him enough.

"Remember what I said before I moved to the city?"

I squinted at him when he doesn't answer. He is clenching his jaw and fisting his hands.

"I asked you if you ever thought about the future and what you wanted from me."

He refused to look at me. I sighed. "You said you were going to finish your apprenticeship, go on missionary trips, maybe move interstate or even to Spain. I was struck by the fact that in my future I'd been making plans and adjustments for you. But in your dreams of the future I wasn't even a consideration."

He rounded on me. "You treated me like a stepping stone. Something to pass over to get to the next stage of your life and I got tired of being second best to you. I was never good enough."

I don't try and deny it; not necessarily because it was true but because I'm not entirely certain it isn't.

"I wonder sometimes...if it wasn't for how I..." he drew a ragged breath.

For a moment, I'm tempted to make him say it; he never could confess the words aloud and I wondered if it was shame or habitual pride.

"Lied to me and made me feel like scum?" I prompted and winced. Obviously there were still those last remaining dregs of bitterness I hadn't quite mastered. I take a deep breath. "No, I forgave you for that. It hurts like the blazes to think about but I do understand."

And I did. Growing up, teenagers are filled with insecurities. I understood his desire to be admired, to be flattered and to be liked. When I first found out, I felt like someone had punched me in the chest. My heart ached so painfully it was difficult to breathe and I wanted to be physically sick. It felt like I'd eaten a trailer load of gravel; the pit of my stomach heavy and scraped raw. It amazed me that I could have such a physical reaction to something so emotional.

Reading the texts, being told personally... I didn't want to believe it. In the texts, in the words, I saw my friend as someone completely different from the gentle, innocently affable boy I thought I knew. This person was a creature of arrogance and sensuality. It's not true, I told myself. The boy I thought I knew more thoroughly than anyone on this earth was a stranger to me.

He'd betrayed himself more than he could ever betray me.

After my initial explosion of temper I had one question: Why? He'd always refused to answer me, even after I forgave him. I convinced myself it was okay, it wasn't a big deal. Stop being the possessive girlfriend. Get over it. Technically, he didn't even cheat; he was just lapping up the attention like any young man discovering power in his new found handsomeness.

But I remember the perpetual watery heat behind my eyes, the way I'd wring my hands, the hungry aching in my heart. With no closure, I'd agonised over it till I could think of nothing else. His silence inadvertently made me feel worthless. I became suspicious and miserable. When he demanded why? I laid my heart out and wondered why he could never do the same.

He never admitted it but finally I began to understand. At that point, I wasn't even angry that I'd believed his lies and placed him on a pedestal of righteousness. I was angry because he couldn't admit what I already knew, deliberately told him I knew and even had firsthand proof of.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly, almost as if the words had been hauled out of his lungs. "I'm sorry I did that – with them. And I know it was never about the girls. It was about me lying and denying it and tricking you into thinking you were just some crazy, jealous girlfriend and letting it go on for so long... I'm sorry. I screwed things up. You're a beautiful girl and I made you feel like – like you weren't enough. I'm sorry."

We sat in silence as I tried to rein the hot sting behind my eyes. I'm hungry for his touch, just like old times, and restraining the impulse felt like containing a roaring fire inside my body.

Reaching out with a trembling hand, I touched the sinewy curve of his strong shoulder. He has boxer shoulders; solid strength sloping downwards into long, lean arms. Touching him felt like coming home; like warmth and belonging. He was mine and I was his.

Dear Friend, you are still so beautiful to me.

He looked at me then, almost as if sensing my certainty and conviction. There was something so irrepressibly mournful in his eyes; the knowledge that something wonderful was coming to an end. "You really have decided. You're for real?"

I nodded slowly. "Yes."

"If I can't have you the way I want, I still want you as a friend. I still want to know you."

I couldn't help smiling. "With our history? I don't think so."

His eyes tighten and his jaw jutted stubbornly. I love his jaw. I used to wish I could sculpt so I could capture his square, rough lines and the firm, masculinity of his face.

I remember in high school when he came and sat with me during my art class. He used to help me paint my art projects; purposely dabbling paint on me 'accidently'. One time, he held me down as I struggled. I was strong for a girl and I wrestled with all my brothers. I probably could have escaped if I tried. Oddly enough I wanted him to best me; I wanted him to have the satisfaction of annoying and teasing me. So I 'let' him paint a black smudge on my upper lip and he called me Hitler all day because I hadn't been able to wash it off completely.

"You don't just throw away a friendship like ours," he said doggedly.

"You do when it becomes unhealthy; you shoot a lame horse, you don't leave it in pain and declare weeks later that there's nothing to salvage. You're an eternal optimist."

"And you're a pessimist. You're determined to see the worst. You want a reason to end this."

"Yes," I admitted. "I do. When you said you weren't sure what part I played in your future, I knew I had some serious revaluating to do. You wanted to hang on to the high school relationship but we weren't in high school anymore. I'm not saying I was more mature – I'm just saying I was ready for that next milestone and you weren't. I accept that now. I moved to the city and you stayed here for your apprenticeship."

He grounded his teeth and won't meet my eyes. "I've changed now. I'm not the same person I was back then. We've both done some growing up."

"Not me," I snorted. "I haven't even decided what I'm doing with my life and I'm almost twenty one."

I wiped my iPhone screen on my pant leg and sighed. "But you're right. I've also changed. I decided that you could no longer be the centre of my world; the defining point and origin of every thought and action. That's why I flew over. I wanted to do this in person. You never believed me before and I realised phone calls and text messages just wasn't cutting it. You'd never let up. I don't – love you the same way as I did. Not anymore."

When he remained silent I knew he was furious. I wanted him to say something, argue with me. I didn't want him to shut down like overheated machinery. I contemplate the truth I will never hurt him with but could never stop asking myself.

Had our love faded? Or was it never there in the first place?

I had left town with the naive idea that our love was indestructible. And at first, it was. Then the doubts and insecurities began to gnaw. Confusion and disillusionment became a state of mind. Why didn't he text back? What did he mean when he said that? Was he...flirting and calling and messaging girls all the time? Getting what he needed from others because I wasn't good enough?

Disappointment in the form of a piercing, sulphurous viciousness thrust its dagger up between my ribs and twisted. I started to hate my own emotions. The tenderness that belonged to my dearest friend became a cage. I hadn't expected this vulnerability and I expected to get more from giving then what I was receiving. I begin to wonder if I'm commitment phobic, naively idealistic or just plain selfish.

We began to argue. Little things at first but soon it grew until we spoke in an entirely different language of barbs and hateful, hurtful things. It seemed we were always scoping how the other felt; like we desperately wanted to understand but refused to be vulnerable enough to ask. We wanted each other's love but we'd barricaded our hearts behind harsh words and cruel thoughts. It was like watching a train wreck. Even my bones became weary and I grew to loathe myself.

I won't pretend to be innocent. Mostly, I caused the arguments. I become, ashamedly, almost needy with the desire to be loved and valued.

On my nineteenth birthday he told me he would sometimes catch himself hating me. He said he wished he didn't love me; I didn't deserve his love. I think that was when I realised that we'd begun a different journey altogether. We'd been walking it for awhile. His words brought to me a sense of peace. It was a new kind of milestone we were approaching now.

"You don't want to remain friends because you're not strong enough to just be my friend," he said with conviction.

I'm momentarily taken aback by his perceptiveness. "It's not just that..."

But I can't tell him the truth. Not entirely. I can't tell him that just being with him again is like a physical blow of nausea and disgust. I hated who I had become by loving him. A needy, restless, addicted soul hanging on to every word, every action and suffering bodily when he treated me with coldness and disdain. My identity had become so wrapped up in him; it was no longer I that lived but him.

I pushed aside that familiar revulsion and anger to study the man he's becoming in the boy he once was. I remember the way he cowered in front of my family the first time he met them. I remember his lies and his guardedness. I remember he once had the social graces of Edward Scissor-Hands. I remember how he glued to the background like the wallflower original and wedging him out with a crow bar was more of an ordeal than getting my licence.

He is fiercely loyal, proud to a fault, thoughtful and honourable and strong. He is all manner of beautiful qualities that I love.

I am so proud of who he has and will become.

"I don't want to string you along and use you," I said quietly. "I'm selfish but I hope I'm not that selfish. I know you'd be my friend just to be with me. You're so freakin' stubborn you'd probably try and convince me to go out with you sometime down the track."

He was patient like that. He'd wait, just like before.

He averted his face from my searching gaze and when he spoke his voice was thick, "It makes me angry because I think of how your dad was right. I took you for granted. And that makes me angrier because I think of all the things I'll be missing out on. I'll be missing out on you and someone else will come along and..."

He doesn't finish. He doesn't need to. He'll miss out on the future we'd always secretly hoped for but never spoke of. It will forever be the possibilities we dreamed of but never recognised. That honour will belong to someone more deserving and all at once I'm furiously, possessively jealous of whoever that someone is.

Abruptly I stand and the action surprises him into looking up.

"I have to go."

It was only ever a possibility.

I walk like a rickety old woman, my limbs creaking as I moved towards him. My spirit is in a world distant and dreamlike, leaving me here, shivering and empty.

I take one last look around. I'm not sure when I'll be back, if ever. The sun was set, faint orange and purple lines streaked across the sky as the last of light clung to the clouds. The park was quiet. We always used to meet here. This town will always be home to me, no matter where I go or what I do.

My friend, the truest friend I've ever had, swallowed and stood as well. "You're not going to answer my calls anymore are you?"

"No, in fact I'm getting another phone; I need a new one," was my subtle attempt at decisiveness. "If you come to Adelaide you know my address."

"I won't be coming to Adelaide," he responded flatly.

And then I know it is final. This is it and strangely, though I'm relieved, I'm also very, very cold inside. I have this urge to laugh.

He hesitates and irrationally I wish he would smile. Even if he doesn't want to, I wish he would smile. He opens his mouth.

"Stop," I blurted because there's something inside me that can't bear to hear those words. "Will you wave to me instead?"

It was our unspoken tradition. Our way of knowing everything will be okay. It doesn't matter if we just had an argument, torn each other to shreds and spat the remainders of our pride and damaged love in the others face. Whenever we parted ways we'd always look back and keep looking back until one of us vanished from sight. Even though we hated each other in those moments, even though we knew we loved each other in others; we'd always look back so the other knew that we'll be fine and we were unconditionally accepted. How it started, I don't remember, I just know we've never said goodbye.

We walk together, cloaked in the dark early night, until my shoes scuffed against the cement path. I glanced back. He was illuminated under the golden streetlamp. The brown of his irises black like empty sockets, his hands shoved deep in his pockets and shoulders rigid.

"I always knew you couldn't always love me. When we were in high school I couldn't believe my luck. I was desperate not to screw things up. I thought it wasn't real. I thought you were playing tricks on me. Even then I knew you'd be the one to end this."

I heard the bitter resentment in his voice. He was trying to rile me and for a moment I'm tempted to retaliate just so I could stay a little longer. He didn't want me to leave because then I'd be gone.

"I'm not coming back this time," I said.

"That's what you said last time."

"I mean it this time. You'll wait till I'm gone? You'll wave?"

His face is shadowed gold and black; I can't see his expression but I see his head nod. "Yeah, I'll be here."

He won't say he loves me but I know he does. He won't say he'll miss me but I know he will.

I turned around and crossed the street. Is it wrong to feel free; like a burden I hadn't even known I carried had been lifted and I can finally stand up straight again? I'm a little shocky; currents of something feeding through my veins. I feel strong and weak and light headed all at once. We had been just two flawed kids who saw the possibilities of our future in each other's eyes. I smile to myself, tucking my hands in my pockets as I peeked over my shoulder momentarily.

There will be no more milestones. I had always assumed he would be a permanent fixture in my life. Later I'll decide if I feel more wretched than relieved. Later when I'm alone somewhere dark and private, I'll cry. But not for him or myself; there has been too much of that these past two years. I'll cry for the friendship that transformed me to the very roots of my being and the first love I know will certainly not be my last.

My steps faltered as I realised.

Why had it been so easy? I had met him in the park with gritted teeth and a firm resolve. I was prepared for a battle of wills and didn't expect to come out undamaged. In the past he'd fight me tooth and nail. For someone I'd always considered so passive and gentle he'd argue with a single minded tenacity that left me yielding under the logic of his persuasion. My tenderness for him made me weak and pliable; eventually I'd wilt like a flower in the blistering sun.

So why had it been so easy?

I looked back to search for him under the streetlamp I already know is empty. He was gone and he broke his promise.

He refused to say goodbye.