10,308 km

Best friend across the ocean, imagine if I decided to swim to you. Damn these airplane ticket prices; I’ll steal a boat and sail over. The boat could sink but I would keep swimming. I’d walk across the ocean floor if I had to. Inside my head, I’ve imagined your whole world. I need you to fact check it – the floorplan of your house I constructed, the distance between you and your workplace, what your mum looks like, the little details that make up your entire life. I’m privy only to the tiniest pieces. Where do you do your grocery shopping? Can we go see the guy you think is cute that works at the bubble tea shop? I want to meet your mum. It sounds like she’s just like you, maybe a little more stubborn. When you told me she had cancer, I laid in my bed for hours, staring at the roof. Stuck. Where can I go? Not to you. I can’t hug you, I can’t hold your hand, I can’t drive over to your house and sit with you, make you tea, try to get you to smile. I’d make myself sick if I let myself miss you too much – if I think too hard about the ten-thousand-three-hundred kilometres between us. When we call for hours it’s easy to be lulled into thinking you’re with me, right there, sitting across from me on the other side of my bed. My tower of pillows is a poor substitute for your body, my phone is your head, propped up precariously. When you make me laugh, I knock the phone and it falls, your disembodied voice laughing along. Fuck time zones. Why are you always asleep when I want to talk to you? I hate telling you about things, places, people in my life that you might never see for yourself. Is my brother a mysterious figure just like yours is to me? Is he even real if I haven’t seen him? I always thought I was introverted and happy only having a couple of friends, not going out much. But I want to hang out with you. I want to make weekend plans and watch movies and go shopping and have pyjama days. I don’t care for romance at all, but I’d take you on little dates. It’s not like we have anything better to do, anyone else waiting for us. How were we so unlucky to find each other? A friend all the way across the world, how annoying. I’m scared that if I’m not in your life enough, things will change without me noticing. Maybe you’ll meet someone and forget to mention it on the phone. What if you slip away? I can’t accidentally bump into you, ask how you’re doing and say, ‘hey, we should catch up soon’. I’ll settle for anything I can get, even just a call once a month. I know I’ll get to see you someday, but for now I’ll keep waiting and be grateful that I get to be your friend.