Lose It.

Length: Short - Medium

Genre: Angst, Romance

Now Playing: Oh Wonder - Lose It

Wendy and Irene go dancing in the rain.

Sometimes for Wendy it was so painful to look at her. To look at Irene the way she did most of the time. To see her there and see how beautiful she truly was, see her like no one else did. The sharp lines of her jaw, her gorgeous chinadolled face with those rouge lips, the way her hair black as the night came half way down her back, how in rain it looked as if she was caught in some eternal storm, some perpetual equinox from which she would not be free. It hurt to look at her like that because it hurt to imagine what it would be like if she were Wendy’s. If she were truly Wendy’s. God did it hurt.

They could never. They were always too different, too a part of separate groups to be anything more, anything together. Wendy so shy, so timid, so giving, and Irene so stoic and reserved and strongwilled. They were opposites. They had always been opposites. But it didn’t stop Wendy from staring, from praying every night. Please. Let it happen. And she knew it too. Irene did. She had always known. She felt the same. But there was an awful unspoken burden between them that told both it would never work. It would always go wrong. That was the way it was. That way and not some other way.

It hurt because they had had their chance so long ago, and neither had taken it, and now Wendy wasn’t quite sure there would ever be such an opportunity again. They had grown distant over the years. Finished school, still talked but not as much. Both going to different universities, both doing wildly different things. Wendy, history. Irene, psychology. And gradually they had talked less and less. And then when they had graduated they had not talked much at all. Once a month, if that. Once they went half a year without speaking. Without a single word. That broke Wendy’s heart. But she would never text first. Not Irene. Could never bring herself to do it, for good or bad. She thought more often than not for bad.

And both had gone in different paths beyond again. Irene had become a psychologist. She had helped people, brought them out of their shells, made them themselves again. She was always good at doing that, Irene was. Always had been. And Wendy had gone to do a master’s degree in history. They had told her not to do it. Her parents, her closest friends. It’s useless. Won’t get you anywhere. Best do something else. But she did because Irene had always told her to. Because Irene had said once a very long time ago that you should always follow your dreams. No matter how stupid or simplistic that sounds, no matter how warped a view of the real world, you should never settle for less than what you’re worth. And what you’re worth is more than any salary or raise or promotion or down payment could ever pay. More than any amount of money at all. What you’re worth is your happiness. You’re owed that much.

She loved history. Always had. Her parents not so much. Her teachers, friends, the same. But Irene had believed in her. Irene had told her to do it. Irene had said time and time again: follow your heart, Wendy. Don’t try and search for some sort of happiness either. Because happiness is different all the time. It constantly changes, it evolves. Look for what you believe your heart wants, and contentment will follow. And then you can be truly happy. So she had done history. She had done what she wanted to do and she had loved it and it had worked out, and she was doing a master’s degree and loving that, too. Like Irene had said she would. Like Irene had always said.

It hurt to think of those times. Of all Irene had told her, taught her. And she had taught her a great deal and she remembered all of it. She would never forget it. Irene wasn’t just her closest friend. She was a confidant. She was the yin to Wendy’s yang. Her balance. Her equanimity. She would ground her whenever Wendy was lost or confused or hurt. She was always there.

‘Hey.’

Wendy turned. Irene was watching her with a curious look on her face and she grinned. ‘You okay?’ she said. ‘You looked like you were spacing out.’

‘Yeah,’ said Wendy. ‘Yeah, sorry. I’m fine.’

‘Alright, cool. Just making sure.’

They were sat on a park bench looking out over the cold and purple night. A gibbous moon hung. It cast them pale and indistinct and in its glow Irene looked luminescent. Looked inhuman. Seraphic. Wendy just looked at her for a moment. She was so stunning it hurt. Inside and out. So painful she wanted to cry. To break down and hug Irene and say: why couldn’t it have worked. Why did we wait so long. Why do we have to be half way across the country from each other and doing different things and liking different people and having different interests and crushes and partners and everything else and why aren’t we together, why aren’t we here, why can’t we always be here, why can’t we just until the end of time just like this, you and I and no one else, why why why.

It had been almost a year. She had not been counting but in truth it was hard to forget that. Since she had last seen Irene. Months since they had even talked. And now here she was. Just sitting there, smiling. Happy as ever. Same Irene. Always the same Irene. Her rock, her solace. Her equanimity.

They talked for a long time. Until the clouds had come over and the sky was streaked in black and there was no moon to see. As they talked they traced patterns in the constellations. Where Orion lay its great fist. A blistering sight in the heavens. And they traced for one another shapes and fates laid out so that both unknowingly were intertwined., and always would be.

They talked of their lives. Small things, large things. Wendy told Irene that she was almost finished with her master’s and after that she had an internship at a museum lined up. Just outside Seoul. She was going to do that nine months and then look at getting into teaching, young kids mainly, and maybe she’d do a doctorate too. Irene said you always wanted to teach, didn’t you? And Wendy laughed and grinned and said yeah. Yeah I did. Funny you remember that. Of course I did. I never forget anything, Wendy. I never have. And she talked of everything else, too. She was living with a couple roommates she didn’t much get along with but it was cheap, and it was okay, she was surviving, and she’d had boyfriends here and there but none of them had lasted, they had come and gone like voices in the wind, and Irene had said oh, that’s a shame, and Wendy had nodded and said yes but she would not say that in truth it was no shame at all, it was good, because she loved Irene, she had always loved Irene and she always would. Her first and her last.

She told Irene she had been feeling down. Life and its hardships. Her mom had been ill. In and out of hospital a lot. Really sick. She’s still not the best. And money troubles. You know how it is. Irene just said yeah. Yeah, I know. She told Wendy how she was doing. She’d settled into a job as a psychologist, just as she always wanted to. A place her friend had set up with. She lived alone. A one-bedroom apartment, not too expensive but not too nice so it balanced out, and it was okay. It was that. Just okay. She wouldn’t tell Wendy that she was desperately lonely, and that at night she would sit alone and cry and wish she could be back in school, wish she could be back with Wendy if only for a couple nights, if they could laugh and joke together and then go run under the sprinklers like they had done that one time they went on a school trip to the cinema to see a film about space, the day they had been giving pairs of 3D glasses to wear and instead they had taken out the little 3D foil squares and folded them over their eyes like pirates, and laughed about that too. She wished almost every day. Wished until there were no more tears to wish with.

She told Wendy about her love life, too. There had been a girlfriend. An on-off thing, not really long term but kind of. About eighteen months. She hadn’t told many people about it. It had been alright but that was it. Alright. And she did not tell Wendy about how she imagined it was her instead, how she longed in the cold nights for Wendy’s touch, Wendy’s caress, the soft hum of Wendy’s laughter behind her, Wendy’s breath hot against her ear. She didn’t tell her that. Never would.

They sat and talked and they talked and they didn’t stop talking and it was good. It felt okay again. The more they talked the more they came silently to the startling realisation that life had changed them, warped them in some unspeakable way that neither could quite get understand and neither wanted to come to grips with. They were different. They would always be different now. But when they were like that, side by side, watching each other, laughing, remembering old memories, it was right. It all fell into place. The struggles of life, the ups and the downs, the highs and lows, it all became meaningless. They had one another, if only for a few hours, and that was that. That was all it needed to be. When they were finally quiet they just sat there watching the park. That cold and black night. Thinking for a great deal of time. About each other, about losing each other. About where they had been and what had now become of them and what still was in the future. After a while Wendy spoke. She turned to Irene and she grinned and nodded towards the street and said: ‘I’ve got an idea.’

‘What?’ said Irene.

‘Remember what we used to do? On the school trips? Every Saturday evening?’

Irene smiled back. ‘We can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘We just can’t.’

‘Come on. It’ll be fun.’

Irene thought for a moment. Then she said, in a voice so small it sounded barely like her own: ‘Okay.’

Wendy took her by the hand and they ran. They ran out of the park into the dim light of the streets where hemmed in neon the backboard signs looked like synthetic suns and they ran towards the square dodging traffic and laughing and remembering how many times they had done this as kids, back when they were still in school and there were no worries, and all they were bothered about was whether they’d catch a chill standing there too long. They never did. Wendy led them to the square and they stood there looking in. The long pan of concrete. The small sprinklers along the floor laying in a thin film of water. Come on, she said. And Irene did. She followed.

They did as they did so many times when they were young. They stood under the sprinklers and they waited until they came on and they jumped from one to another amidst intermittent showers and they laughed and pushed each other and laughed longer and louder and soon they were soaked and it didn’t matter, not to Wendy, not to Irene, it didn’t matter, because they were there and they were young again, just for a while, for a few brief minutes they were still in school, they were still children, they were still best friends and they still loved each other and they never would stop, they never could.

After a while they stood by the side of the sprinklers staring at each other. They were still laughing. Soaked to skin, utterly freezing. Their hair tangled across their faces, the water running from their chins, and from their swollen and purple cheeks, and both wheezing heavily, and both so quiet and so content in that moment. They studied each other silent for a long time. Time itself stopping around them. As if tethered to some bond far greater than they. As if to never be broken. And they watched each other with hooded eyes and soon they were no longer smiling, because there was an awful truth that both knew, a truth neither wanted to admit, that soon they would part and they would probably not contact each other for a long time, because that was the way the world was, that was how it continued on, how it went from day to day, and neither wanted that, and yet neither would say it, both would be forever silent, both would hold their tongues and say nothing at all.

And as Wendy watched she began almost to cry. It’s not fair. Life isn’t fair. Why can’t we. Why can’t we just by happy together. What’s stopping us. I don’t understand. She stood there weeping quietly and trying to smile. And as she looked into Irene’s warm eyes she knew then and there a truth like no other, that she loved her, she had always loved her, her first and her last, her only one, and Irene loved her too and always would, and they were bound together, they were fated to be and she didn’t care how stupid that sounded, how immature, how schoolgirl of her, because they were there and they were together, for one night if no other, and she would cherish it, she would hold it as a memory to never again be forgotten, and she held out a cold and windbitten hand to Irene’s cheek and it tenderly and soon she was crying, she was weeping openly, and Irene was smiling, and she laughed and then they both laughed, and she held her other hand up and took Irene’s face and smiled again, and the sprinklers were raining down around them, and they looked by the shimmer of the windowshop lights palely eternal, haloed creatures so fragile so fleeting, and Wendy laughed and wiped the tears from her eyes and then from Irene’s, and they stood there not thinking about anything else, about their careers or their qualifications or what they had to pay for rent or on food or who had called them or their failed love lives and lost friends, or all that come before that or was to come in the future, they stood there smiling knowing there was a unspoken truth between them that neither would ever voice, neither would dare for fear of breaking it, of severing their immortal ties, and she Irene’s pale and soft cheeks and smiled and said: why not, why can’t I, why can’t we, what’s stopping us, just for one night only, just here me and her feeling the breeze, why can’t we, why can’t we just forget the world and lose it, lose our minds together, be one and the same, and we can dance under the candlelight of the moon and we can dance in song and in silence and we can dance the night away, we can make a spark from nothing and burn up the dark, we can break through together, we can be one and the same, and we can dance until there’s no more dancing left to do, until the music has run out, and we won’t stop no we’ll never stop we never can we never will, because that’s all we can do, that’s what we deserve, because I love her and she loves me and we’re right for each other and I don’t care what the world thinks because I say yes, I say yes yes yes she’s mine, I love her, I love her so much I always have. I love you Irene. I love you I love you yes I love you yes yes I do.