"Antilove" by Victoria Parent '24
Art by Brenna Arnold
She tries to hug me and I push her away.
With smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts, that’s how we’ve always said our goodbyes. Now we go through the motions with a sense of change and distance lingering about. I look at her arms, the ones she’s never felt comfortable showing until I started going to a school across the city. Her hair grazes her broad shoulders. It doesn’t hang down to her waist in a tangled mane anymore. The girl who refused to put on lipgloss now rocks a bold, winged eyeliner, which would make even the pickiest boys stop and take a second glance. I’m not sure if she would be too afraid to give them a chance anymore. Would she hand out her Snapchat if they asked?
She’s evolving with maturity and confidence, but she’s evolving without me. Still, I can’t be a hypocrite. When she recognized that my hair is the longest she’s ever seen it, she couldn’t help but grab a lock. She didn’t comment on my clear skin and choice of jeans, two rare occurrences in middle school, although she obviously took notice. When we’re on FaceTime, my heart breaks as she sets her eyes on her ceiling because I haven’t changed out of my school uniform, which is a neon sign advertising a world she’s not a part of. It’s the world I chose to be in.
It’s not like we haven’t tried. She asks about all my new classmates she doesn’t actually care about, and I request updates about people from middle school I’ve never liked. She asks if I want to hangout while I say I do, if only I had time. She texts me, I respond. I tell a joke, she laughs. We complain about tests, we discuss the boys that flirt with her, and we figure out how to navigate the rest of our friend group. That doesn’t change that we’re beginning to grow into young adults without each other physically. Soon it will become that way emotionally and mentally as well. While our separate worlds are growing in infinite ways, the universe we’ve shared since the fifth grade is dissolving like ice in boiling water.
There are few greater loves than what’s between two friends who found each other when they needed to be found, but even the greatest loves can fizzle out. When she made an attempt at a hug and I pushed her away, we didn’t smile, and we held no joy in our hearts.
We knew it was the beginning of the end. Our end.
With smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts, that’s how we’ve always said our goodbyes. Now we go through the motions with a sense of change and distance lingering about. I look at her arms, the ones she’s never felt comfortable showing until I started going to a school across the city. Her hair grazes her broad shoulders. It doesn’t hang down to her waist in a tangled mane anymore. The girl who refused to put on lipgloss now rocks a bold, winged eyeliner, which would make even the pickiest boys stop and take a second glance. I’m not sure if she would be too afraid to give them a chance anymore. Would she hand out her Snapchat if they asked?
She’s evolving with maturity and confidence, but she’s evolving without me. Still, I can’t be a hypocrite. When she recognized that my hair is the longest she’s ever seen it, she couldn’t help but grab a lock. She didn’t comment on my clear skin and choice of jeans, two rare occurrences in middle school, although she obviously took notice. When we’re on FaceTime, my heart breaks as she sets her eyes on her ceiling because I haven’t changed out of my school uniform, which is a neon sign advertising a world she’s not a part of. It’s the world I chose to be in.
It’s not like we haven’t tried. She asks about all my new classmates she doesn’t actually care about, and I request updates about people from middle school I’ve never liked. She asks if I want to hangout while I say I do, if only I had time. She texts me, I respond. I tell a joke, she laughs. We complain about tests, we discuss the boys that flirt with her, and we figure out how to navigate the rest of our friend group. That doesn’t change that we’re beginning to grow into young adults without each other physically. Soon it will become that way emotionally and mentally as well. While our separate worlds are growing in infinite ways, the universe we’ve shared since the fifth grade is dissolving like ice in boiling water.
There are few greater loves than what’s between two friends who found each other when they needed to be found, but even the greatest loves can fizzle out. When she made an attempt at a hug and I pushed her away, we didn’t smile, and we held no joy in our hearts.
We knew it was the beginning of the end. Our end.
