Along the Lines of Home

I think everyone has that one person that is home to them. Maybe some people have many.  For me, a very slim few stick out in my mind.

Last Wednesday, a friend came down to visit. He was at my house after school and we spent about six hours together. It was undeniably the best hours of my life.

We found the only cafe in town and had dinner, talking for about three hours before we decided to go find somewhere else to be. Driving around the city with him was perfect, being lost with him was perfect, and the feeling he brought was perfect.

He is everything that is home to me, and has been for as long as we've been friends. It was amazing to me how completely okay I was with life when he was here. How alive I felt.

At one point we tried to find this canyon where a bunch of million-dollar homes are built, and we ended up on a single lane road driving down a completely different canyon. We found campsites and just kept driving, him talking about how beautiful it all is and me just soaking in the sound of his voice, watching him, and trying to remember every last detail. When we got to the end of the road, we turned around but found our way back. The second time around, there were three deer at the end of the road. Miraculously they didn't run off, but stood there watching us as we stopped the car. Neither he or I could breathe. After twenty minutes or so they ran off, and he and I got out of the car to walk around and just be outside.

Like everywhere here, it was quiet. There wasn't the sound of a freeway, a car, nothing but the soft trickle of a stream nearby and our own breathing. We didn't have much to say, but we didn't need to. Leaning up against the trunk of his car, we thought and occasionally voiced what was on our minds, but mostly it was just quiet. He put his arm around me when he noticed I was shivering, holding me close and trying to keep me warm.

That hug... God, that hug healed me, stitching together all of the pain and anger and hurt I've felt ever since graduation day. I could breathe easily in his arms, it was safe, and I was home.

The things we talked about and did together in that little part of nowhere will stay between us, at least for a very long time.  It was all so... us, and private, that it'd feel like sharing something sacred with someone else.  (No, it wasn't sex or anything close to it, for those who're wondering. He's not like that, even at his weakest.)

On the way back to the house we noticed his tire going flat. He'd driven through construction and we later found a nail embedded in his front passenger tire.  Because of the potential dangers of driving fifty minutes on the freeway with a dying tire, he said he should probably leave sooner than planned to try and keep the tire alive.

I could feel the stitches starting to loosen, threatening.

He stayed and talked to my parents and me a little longer, and we went out on the back porch. It was then that he asked me how I'm really doing, and I wish I had been able to tell him how hard it is, tell him the things that make me cry myself to sleep, let myself break down and show him what goes on beneath the smiles.
But I couldn't... because he was there, and everything was okay, even if only temporarily.

Finally, he really did have to go. I walked him to his car, and he commented on how he felt like he should be taking me home. I didn't trust myself to say anything, so I just let him hug me. It was tight, and close, and we both started to feel reality sinking back in. He held me closer and tighter for a split second before opening his door, smiling a sad smile, telling me to keep texting him, and got in the car. I couldn't say anything, didn't trust myself to, because when he stepped back and I knew he was leaving, all of those stitches he had put in place that afternoon tore out, taking everything with them. Turning around, I walked through the door, locked it, and tried to go down to my room, but found myself watching him drive off, watching even after I couldn't see him anymore. I was shaking, and the pain was so unbearably real... I made my way downstairs, locked my door, and cried.

I didn't know something could hurt like that. I've been through divorce, and breakups, and moving, but everything I've ever been through doesn't add up to that feeling. I fell asleep crying, and woke up to find tears already fighting to get out.

The pain comes back, breaking through my forced anesthesia. It hurts, unbearably sometimes, but those five hours of home... I would take the pain just to have that back, no matter how brief

Today, this same friend, this same person who is Home to me, informed me that he's filling out his mission papers.  He's going to leave, and I don't know what I'm going to do without him. 

For a few minutes, again, I couldn't breathe.