We sat around a fire built on the rough sandy beaches of the North Sea, warming our bodies against the cold evening. July could no more battle the British ocean’s crisp breezes than we could fight off my impending departure.
“It’s only an ocean,” I told my best friend and she nodded, but continued to cry.
“I know I’m being ridiculous. I know I shouldn’t be homesick already. But —”
“It’s only an ocean,” I said again and closely watched her damp face shine in the glow of the fire for any sign that she actually believed me. When she finally looked up and smiled at me, I let myself believe I was right.
****
“I recognize that song. What is it?” I ask her and she smiles while she looks up at at the lights of the Christmas tree and her low humming turns into soft familiar verses.
“Seems like old times, dinner dates and flowers ...” she sings and I can’t help but smile.
“Just like old times, staying up for hours …” I whisper the next line back to her.
“I don’t want to have to choose,” I tell her and wet tears that I’ve been holding back all day leak from the corners of my eyes and sink into my hair. Laying on my back under the Christmas tree, I look up at the twinkling lights and pretend that it is 12 years ago, that my best friend and I are young and inexperienced and immature and still have a a whole world of possibilities at our feet. I pretend it’s just the two of us — like it was back then when no force was strong enough to come between best friends.
“I won’t make you,” she says and for a half of a second I let myself believe that this must mean everything will be OK. But I’m just pretending. I’m letting myself live in a time that no longer exists. We’ve long ago left that pair of 13-year-old girls who used to lay under the Christmas tree and share our dreams, convinced we’d reach them together. We never allowed ourselves to consider what the adult world might change. Or that there would be a million things separating us.
“It’s only an ocean,” she says and I roll my head to the side to meet her eyes that are swimming in fear. “You told me that when I moved to England. You said it again last year when I couldn’t come home for Christmas.”
I remember.
“You told me it was OK. That things would never change and that it was just a teeny tiny ocean. Nothing more.”
“I lied,” I say. “It’a big freaking ocean.” Neither of us are talking about the Atlantic.
“I won’t make you choose,” she says again, but the way her voice trembles and the tears that fall from her eyes tell me she knows I’ll have to choose anyway.
He will make me.
“We had things all worked out back then,” Mac says and I know she’s missing the 13-year-old friends too. “We were always going to be best friends. And our husbands were going to be best friends and our kids were going to be best friends.”
I can only nod as I clench my jaw together to keep in the sobs.
“Tell me it’s only an ocean,” she begs and her hand is trembling when she grasps mine. “Please.”
“It’s only an ocean,” I choke out and grip her hand. “But we both know that ocean has nothing to do with this.”
“He won’t make you choose,” she whispers. “He wouldn’t make you do that.”
But we both know she isn’t right. He already has.
My tears fall quietly as I listen to my best friend as she continues to whisper the lyrics of the song we used to sing to each other while dancing around my grandmother’s house to her old record player. “Making dreams come true, doing things we used to do … “
Maybe it was very long ago.
“Seems like old times, being here with you.“
Before I even know I’ve fallen asleep, I wake up still under the long branches of the pine tree. But I’m alone. The smell of breakfast wafts in from the kitchen and when I roll over to stand up my hand crunches down on a wrinkled piece of paper with Mac’s familiar handwriting scrawled across it.
I wish it was only an ocean.
