Last

To an old friend who no longers talks with me,⠀
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We were 12 when we first talked about our crushes, and 14 when we first talked about a heartbreak. Your hand cradled around my chest with the utmost honesty. There was this pain in your voice, that made me want to split open earth. I remember the way your tears rested on my shirt buttons — almost sad, almost broken. We were 6 when we would run around the society building, wearing torn capris and holed Tees. The weird games we would play — the garage walls never growing tired of our giggles as we play another game of hiding and seek at 8 p.m.⠀
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“You are too bad at hiding. I will always find you”, you'd say. I remember the taste of an afternoon lemonade being squeezed by our dusty hands after a game of cricket. You always had a way with games. You'd never lose. Your way of escaping out of the slimmest of positions — always the winning move. Perhaps, that's how you learned to run away too. ⠀
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I miss you, a lot more than I could express. I miss the sound of your laughter — the way it would follow me in the library and corners of cafes that have seen too many friends walking away from each other. It's been a long life without you so far and not a day of it goes by when I don't intend to text you with a "Hey". ⠀
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I don't know where we lost it. I don't know why we can not pass silly comments at pretentious couples sitting in the front row of a theater in the middle of a movie. But there are days when I causally write your name or utter your phone number to myself in the thin air — and it hurts. It hurts to know that I can't call you up when I feel out of place. It hurts to know that you no longer want to check if I had dinner. It hurts a lot to know that, the last time I went into hiding, you didn't come to find me. I am still waiting, in case you ever want to play hide and seek again