“I am on my way home”
Those were the words I heard from the phone and my heart broke. She was always the other girl on the parade ground, never a friend. How easily she spoke to praise me whenever my position was about to be switched. She didn’t look at the camouflage on the body of this soldiers, she sang her praises loud. She would whisper to me “I really need you by my side because you are good”. That made me feel good. How readily she held my hand to dance even when I felt like the wrong part of the puzzle at the cultural dance. That is all I know about her. Even her name is a forgotten memory to this frail mind of mine.
. She fell and held her stomach as the parade we had poured ourselves into was about to start. She looked at me and immediately, my heart raced. I was selfish, I thought of how bad I would feel going down right before the war we trained for. My mouth opened and I heard “Sir, we need first aid”. As she was leaving, the promise fell from my mouth “I’d see you at the clinic once we are done” The war started, my right hand felt like it was holding onto a bigger finger. I tasted change on my fingertips and I dreaded it. It tasted just like failure.
. “I am on my way home” she said and I felt like I had been stabbed. I did not keep my promise. She called to inform me severally on her achievements as she whisked room by room through the clinic but the one thing I never did was go to the clinic. Here I stand, a Judas, betrayed by my words, the selfish creature I am. The tomorrow I will go, never came and never will.
. Was she a wounded soldier or one gone never to be seen, I do not know. All I know is she thought of me through those doors at the clinic and I thought of myself under the sun. The day we meet again, I will be sure to have my head down and kiss the words sorry severally because to her, I was the girl she could call when she needed a wall to lean on, the girl who was always good regardless of how bad she was doing. To me, she was “the other girl on the parade ground”
The girl whose pinky finger made me feel safe on the battle ground but whose friend I never was.
