Hello Kitty Tears

The flight was long and arduous, and I almost broke Lara's hand during lift-off. We were seated in a 3 people row in the centre of the plane and Lara knocked out almost immediately and left me next to a stoic German man dressed in a 3-piece suit. I was a nervous chatter but after my first attempt to make small talk with him, he regarded me with a look that should really only be reserved for the sharp rocks in the same on the beachfront on which you stub your toe.

I felt like the bile in my stomach was swimming up my throat while to ascended and fluttery felt buzzed at the base of my ear channel until we were in the air. Once we settled the air hostess came around, casually speaking to multiple passengers in their native language. That basically meant that by the time she got to our row, she had asked the couple in front of us if they wanted food in Afrikaans, calmed down a crying child in Mandarin and then offered coffee to a young man into the right of us in IsiXhosa before finally addressing the German man beside. Then she turned to me with a smile that looked so authentic I actually felt like she was living her girlhood dream of being an air hostess.

"Would you like anything to drink with your meal?" She asked me.

I kept nudging Lara beside me, more violently with each nudge until she eventually shot up and opened her mouth to grow at me. Then she effortlessly turned towards the air hostess and regained her aloof composure.

"Red wine for me, please," she said and then shifted around in her seat to sit up comfortably. I wasn't much of a drinker, but I didn't want to seem like a barbarian, so I just muttered "Me too please".

This earned me a strange look from Lara but she was still waking up so I didn't pay too much attention. I just kept my mouth shut and thanked the hostess while she opened my make-shift plastic table from the seat in front of me. I guess I hadn't hidden my lack of experience with air travel. It made me feel like an imposter. This was something that me and Lara had spoken about at length so instead of shying away from the fact that this was my first flight, I cleared my throat and steeled my nerves before asking the air hostess how to work the TV. She was very kind and instructed me on how to work the screen in front of me as well as showing me where to get my fresh set of earphones in the little pocket at the back of the seat. I ignored Lara's chuckles and thanked her before busing myself with finding something to watch. There was nothing more awkward for me than eating in silence.

I found a cool-looking movie set in France about a male ballerino that was from the soviet union in the 1960s. I love the aesthetic of brown and grey so decided that the "White Crow" was going to be my entertainment for the next 2 hours. It was a good choice because I became enthralled but 20th-century French architecture and the way that Rudolf Nureyev navigated the world of professional ballet. He was not supposed to disobey his Soviet leaders and even organisers, but he found a way to follow his own way at every turn in the story. The way he moved throughout the movie both on and off the stage felt like he was crafting his own universe with every step. He knew exactly what he wanted from life and he defied even the most formidable of authority figures to stand in his way. In the end, he went as far as to defy his own government to realise the version of himself he wanted to be. I couldn't fathom having that much conviction in my actions or even thoughts.

I turned to look at Lara, who was reading a book that I couldn't see the book cover of. She looked so effortlessly beautiful and poised. The last few months of spending time in her presence made it abundantly clear that some people just get what they want not because of money or connections but because with every fibre of their being, they believe that they deserve to receive it. I envy that in Lara not in a way that makes me hate her or even dislike her. I mean she's my best friend and I just wanted to prove that I was worthy of that, her friendship.

At the end of the movie, Lara passed out again and everyone was settling in for the night. It was a 13-hour flight, so few people wanted to stay awake throughout the whole flight. My formidable row mate was always reclined back in his chair with a grey eye mask that matched the grey hue of his undercoat.

I chose that moment to retrieve Sage's letter from my carry-on backpack. I smiled at the Hello Kitty envelope and chuckled when I realised that there was no matching catch inside. She really had just taken one of her little sister's envelopes to put her letter in. I pulled out the folded-over lined paper from the envelope. It was the one from her A5 diary that she always wrote in. I used to love watching her right poetry in it on the rare occasion when she allowed herself to be a dreamer and let the rest of the world fade away.

"Hey Tay,

I hate having to write this, but I want you to know how I feel before you leave me for good. This is a wild adventure you're about to go on and I'm not going to pretend that I won't miss you.

I wish your life wasn't taking you across the world from me but I understand that you need to do this for yourself."

Her letter went on to talk about how sorry she was for how things ended in high school and how much she wished that we go back to how we were before things got complicated. She knows that it was impossible and that hurt me too. But it was for the best, I couldn't settle for someone who never truly loved me the way I deserve. The rest of her letter was about how she wished me all the best of luck with my trip abroad and how much fun I was going to have. She told me to not make too many friends and forget about her. That made me think back to what she said at the airport. If I hadn't seen the look in her eyes when she said it I might have thought it was a slight or that she was mocking my ability to even make new friends without her and now without Lara but I saw her. I saw her eyes and the sadness in them. Maybe she wasn't lying about how much she was going to miss me. Perhaps all this time she actually felt as deeply about me as I did her. Maybe not in love but this had to be some kind of love. The kind of love that people think about when they're alone and consider when they're looking for things to be grateful for.

I smiled as I read the rest of the letter until my vision got blurry from unshed tears and I wiped my eyes. Thankfully Lara was still dead to the waking world because the last thing I wanted was to explain to her why I was crying over our ex while we were on our way to put two continents between us and her.

She signed off by saying:

"Love you, my shadow xx".

I choked on my tears and gently packed the letter back into its envelope and tucked it back into the front of my bag. When I sat back, I met the eyes of my German row mate. His blue eyes were not as cold as before. There was a hint of a smile on his face as he looked at me. Had he seen me cry over the letter? We didn't speak a word to each other but there was a calm silence as I returned his half-smile and turned to look away, in the direction of my sleeping best friend.

I tried to get some sleep and think towards the future. This was my chance to move on from Sage once and for all and see who I could be without the wait for everyone's judgement about me.

Starting tomorrow, I told myself, I am going to be a more friendly and charismatic person than anyone in the Netherlands had ever met.

We finally landed and I had to stop myself from gawking at everything in the Amsterdam airport. It was huge and everything looked like something out of a Hollywood movie. They even had those concession stories with the merch like I saw in Hallmark movies as a child. I was definitely not in South Africa anymore.

Lara walked me towards the baggage conveyor belt thing so I could collect my suitcase. Her flight wasn't for another hour or so. She agreed to help me sort out everything and walk me towards the place where my host family was supposed to fetch me.

"Nervous?" she finally said.

I looked at her and shrugged. If I was being honest, I wasn't entirely sure how to feel. Excited. Scared. Completely out of my depth.  I was like a fish out of water and flung into the Sahara desert. I also realised a very alarming thing at that exact moment. I whipped around towards Lara and flung myself at her.

She pushed me off at first but barely gave me a nudge in reality. All of that only to embrace me tighter.

"I don't be an idiot this time, okay?" she said chuckling sadly but pulling away and holding me at arm's length. She had tears in her eyes before she cleared her throat. "Let's make this a thing. We're going to see each other soon. You'll come to meet me in Weimer, and I'll come visit you too. Until then, it's not like we're incapable of using Skype. So… just call, okay?" she said and tried to re-enter her usual aloof demeanour. I didn't let her. I hugged her again.

"I love you, Lara and I'll call you every day," I promised her and she pushed me away hitting me in the shoulder. She nudged me towards the entrance. I saw a tall ginger-haired man with a blonde woman and a blonde-haired boy clinging to his mother's leg. The man was waving at me and motioning for me to come over. I guess they were my host family.

Lara smiled at me and nodded in their direction. I returned her smile and turned to walk towards them. After all, we would see each other soon enough. I had relied on her long enough to help me make a sense of everything so I needed to figure out who I could be when I was on my own.