I never forgot you

"I am curious."

Max was lying down with his feet up on the bedpost. A relaxing, somewhat nostalgic tune seeped inside the room through the open windows. Night was descending. The air was warm,but not too much. I sat on the floor, resting my head on the bed beside his and closed my eyes.

"I have always wondered what kind of friends can you make when you know you are not like others." His slender finger played with my earlobe as he went on, "Like for me, I have mostly weirdos in my friends list. Some of them are outcasts, some are just hiding under the disguise of normalcy, some are just, well, weird." He gave a small laugh.

"One of my friends is a teenage immortal. There is a man who worked in a circus, and then he built his own circus for people like us. There is a drag queen too, who claims to have seen everything in the world. A K-pop lover is there, and a famous actor. Some really rich people, and some complete outcasts." I reminisced about my time with all these people and added, "There is a whole gang of very colourful people who would probably love you. I guess we all attract the people who reflect what we are ourselves."

"Do you think your friends will like me?" he asked in a dreamy voice. I did not have to look at his face to know he was in a sweet reverie.

"They absolutely will. Some of them will also hate you, or doubt your intentions with me in the beginning, but that is only because they are protective of me. Eventually, they will grow on you." As I spoke, my mind weave colourful images. Images of me walking down the sidewalks carelessly. Images of us enjoying our time together with those very colourful friends of ours.

We could do that. We could just have a nice house party one day. We could have beers together, share our weird stories, have bursts of laughter, talk about nothing but everything. We could do that, now that we were together.

Mirroring my thoughts, he said, "We could meet up with them one day. They'd love you too. And like your friends, some of them may question your intentions with me too. But I can tell, we will have a good time together."

"I also want to take you to travel the world. Do you know, there is a lake in Alicante, it is naturally pink."

"As in pink?" he turned his head to see mine.

"As in bright pink. Like a painting. When I first went there, I just stared at the water. I thought it was the blue in the water that calms your mind but turns out the pink does the same. The water is really salty, they say the water is good for your health too."

His eyes sparkle, like the first day I saw him on the train. "Tell me more," he whispered.

"Well, once I got really down. I sulked in my room thinking of many things, but mostly how miserable my life was. I even cried one night and tried to kill myself. Then I remembered that I couldn't die. Finally, I packed a small bag I left my flat. I asked Summer—"

"Summer?" he cut in, then looked apologetically at me.

"Summer is, you can say my best friend. She looks like a teenage girl, but she might be technically older than me. Anyway, I asked her to get the first available air ticket, and it took me to Croatia. I still have my doubts that she deliberately took me there, but it was therapeutic."

"Didn't they shoot Game of Thrones there?"

I frowned. "They did, didn't they?"

"Wait, you didn't know that?" He sat up with childlike excitement. "You know what the Game of Thrones is, right?"

"Of course I do," I snapped defensively, and then broke into a shy smile. "I even watched a couple of episodes and got bored of all the sex and conspiracies."

"So, what was there in Croatia?"

"An island. Crystal clear water, greener wherever you look, a lot of sunlight, and beautiful, authentic food. There is a town called Mali Losin, it was a little far from the town. I didn't want to stay there for more than a day but ended up staying a week. I thought, if I ever got married, I should bring my person there. At night I would stay lie down on the grass and watch the stars. During the daytime, I would sit in the garden and watch how the daylight changed everything."

"You felt lonely!" Max exclaimed with understanding. I nodded. "Then you returned to your old life?"

"No. Summer dragged me to another small town named Groznjan. She said, 'don't ask anything, just come with me.' So I did not ask her anything until we reached there, even the name of the place. That place was even better."

"How so?"

I stretched my hands, cracked my knuckles, and started telling him about one of my favourite places in the world. "You can just walk down these streets, surrounded by old fashioned Italian style houses, and the streets contain just right amount of crowd. Not too much that you'd lose yourself, but not too little that the emptiness would suffocate you. And there is music, a lot of it. Wherever you go, you'll find someone playing some instrument, you will also find painters and sculptors. You may actually enjoy this place, you know?"

I noticed the music coming through the window had changed. There was a very distinctive playlist going on now, instead of instrumentals now there are some songs that I had never heard before. I frowned at the change and looked out of the window. Reading my mind, Max came closer to me and said, "It's the young girl living next door. We were so caught up with everything that I couldn't introduce you to her. She's nice. Very shy, but cool."

"So all the music I heard since I came here was hers?" I stood up and walked towards the window. "I like this song. Very…" I thought for a moment and found the perfect word, "Nostalgic."

"It's a musician called Hayd. she listens to his music a lot. But you didn't end your stories. Where else did you go?"

"Nowhere really. We stayed there for another week or so. Early mornings Summer would leave god knows where, and return at night. I think she had found someone there, judging by the glow she had on her face. I would go out, walk around aimlessly, eat in small streetside restaurants when I was hungry, and meet new people. I met many artists there, heard their stories, and had drinks with them. I was just starting to find some peace again, until one day I had this terrible dream."

I still remembered the dream. It was so vivid that it was etched in my memory like an experience. "There was fire everywhere. A young boy was crying and pleading with me to leave. I knew everyone and everything will end if I left, but he was asking me to leave. I could not stay there longer, but I could not leave to. I didn't know what to do. That dream appeared for three nights straight."

Max was sitting on the bed still. His face had fallen, eyes were a light shade of red. I went over the bed and sat beside him. "After that, I realised why I was so restless and depressed in the first place. It was because a piece of me was missing, and I had started to remember it. It took me sometime to reset myself, but I decided to go and search for it. I left that place leaving a note for Summer."

I ran my hand through his soft, dark hair. There was a tear drop waiting to fall in his left eye. I placed a kiss on his cheek and continued in a soft voice, "On my way back, I met Jace. I felt something, like I was on to something special. After a couple of days, he introduced me to Amy. she had probably liked me from the very beginning, but I was reluctant."

I lay down myself, with my head on his lap and continued, "Until one night she got drunk and told me a story. It was a sad story of a sculptor who fell in love with his creation. The story was far away from the reality, but it was a push. While I listened to her story, I could see myself with someone, walking down the streets, laughing, taking photographs, making out. For the first time in my life, I felt happy. So happy that it made me weep. Of course, drunk Amy didn't know that.

So the next time when she approached me, I said 'yes'. I would date her. I was under the impression that it was her. The truth was that she was the path I needed to take to reach here. To reach to you."

Max sobbed. I wiped the tears that flowed from mye eyes and said, "You see, I never really forgot you."