friendship

Our friendship developed slowly over our career in the academy; I think we'd known each other for a year before we even had a conversation where it was just the two of us. (She even commented, I think, with a rare wryness to her tone, "Have we really known each other for so long and we've never been alone in the same room together?") It wasn't that we didn't like each other, but the opportunity never arose for more than an odd conversation here and there. She was comforting, a little oasis of stability amidst the mercurial moods of the rest of us, and I came to treasure those moments we spent together.

I think she's the reason I was able to start seeing the cracks between us, the way everyone leaned on her for support, the way she would always offer that warm smile, and listen, and offer advice or consolation as we needed it. And when one day we were alone--we had taken to practicing fencing together--and I finally asked if she was all right, she finally told me no.

She'd gotten too close to the chaos that was the rest of us, I think. She'd become entangled. All she could tell me is she was overwhelmed, that she felt pulled in so many different directions, that she was exhausted--I don't think she understood yet that what she needed most was to leave. So I did what any friend would do, and I planted those seeds, and tended those little shoots of doubt, so that one day she could finally be free of us.