"Thanks for waiting."
Do I remember what you said next? I don't really remember what you said next. It's been a while, right? It hasn't been long at all, right? When was the last time I saw you?
Here I am again, pretending you're waiting there. At the end of one year, I sat at my desk in the middle of the night, folding sticky notes between my fingers. I filled a bag with dodecahedrons and pressed them into people's hands the next day. Did I have any left over? I don't remember if I wrote a note for you, but I really hope I did. I don't remember if I gave you one, but I really hope I did. And in the same world, I put your name in a OneNote page, highlighted it, bolded it, put it into red so that I could write you lines and lines of hope.
"Thanks for waiting." I've always been quite bad at being the one to arrive first. But I was very happy to see you there. "Thanks for waiting." I like seeing you smile. "Thanks for waiting." I like seeing people like you happy. "Thanks for waiting." Eventually, summer ended. It took me a while to decide that I hated summer. I also hated waking up early. But hey, I remember setting an alarm on my phone so that we could hang out early in the morning for a bit the next day. "Thanks for waiting." I can't imagine why you'd want to see me. I'm glad to have made you happy at some point in this confusing life, though.
In a few days, this fourth summer will have come to an end. I hated it just as much as I hated the other ones.
Hasn't it been a while since I've seen you? Haven't I seen you just today?
I wish some days had never ended.
And some days still continue.
I still remember the mutual ignorance of homework to play some game, some this or some that, and shared songs that I didn't listen to until much later. I still remember you waiting for me. I still remember waiting for you. Whether to walk, whether to watch a movie, whether to climb a tree. I think I heard you laugh. I think I doubled over laughing at some point after something you said, drained of sleep, almost delirious on the walk back home.
If I still remember them, do the days ever really end?
Making small talk with your parents, hoping they don't hate me. Walking the streets by your house in the summer (this neighborhood is at least a thousand miles wide). I wonder how you remember me. Perhaps there was a year when I played the piano on the floor of a gym. You must have been in the bleachers. Perhaps I looked for you.
I wonder if I'm dreaming it all sometimes. I think a lot of time has passed already, hasn't it? This is not grief, nor is it exactly longing. But I do still think about the days that never ended. Well, if I can imagine them hard enough, then those days definitely never ended.
Do days end?