A picture of the two over the summer together at the pool

I lay awake each night haunted by the picture that hangs in front of me. 

A picture of the two side by side afloat in their laughter surrounded by nothing but the whistling air. The pureness of the two souls amongst one another is captured in a singular flash and spread of colors. I lay awake each night pondering over that exact moment. That moment when the two of them spent their every moment attached at the hip, basking away in the sunny rays of summer. 

With my eyes fixated on the glistening reflection of the innocence within the girl’s smiles, I now see what I have been blinded to in recent times: it will always be her. 

It will always be the girl who first taught me to laugh, to smile, to love. The girl who taught me the truth of pure platonic love and the touch another soul can have on your life. She showed me what it means to love someone beyond competition and to be able to care for another with no jealousy attached. She brought a simple love to my life. One where we can spend sunrise to sunset on the couch doing nothing but watching home renovation shows, one where we can spend late hours under the stars talking about anything and everything we can think of, and one where it doesn’t matter where we are or what we’re doing but us being together is all that matters.

She single-handedly made me believe in soul ties and proved to me that I will never be able to love another being the way I love her. 

It will always be the girl who helped me get over my fear of the dark as she came into my life shining a light on any and all darkness surrounding me. She brought an unforced smile and a genuine from-the-stomach type of laughter to my life, making everything feel okay, and saved from the things I didn’t know I needed saving from. 

Looking at this picture, I cannot help but to bask in the love-hate relationship I have with it. 

It’s haunting. 

I lay awake, jealous of the ones in it. The two girls lying side by side living in the world they’ve created together away from everyone around them. But mostly I’m jealous of the fact that this picture represents only what once was and holds memories of the two in simpler times. Their relationship has been tested over the years and things have changed. 

There is now an unfamiliar distance between the two of them, one that they tried so hard to keep out but it couldn’t help but push them apart. Their experiences together drove them to experience life away from each other as they’ve grown so much beside one another that they needed to grow alone for a while. 

But just as she taught me, soul ties exist in a world of chaos and despite what pushes the two of them apart, in their core, they will always be the two girls side by side, afloat in their laughter surrounded by nothing but the whistling air. 

It will always be her.