Page 13 of Once Bitten

“Don’t be. Move upward and onward. Don’t look back.” Finn fidgeted with his hands and stared out ahead into the night.

“I wish it were that easy.”

“It is, just close your eyes and make the leap. Don’t ever look back.” He sighed.

“What about you? Where are you leaping to?”

“Me? Who knows? My leap doesn’t have a destination yet.”

“It’s going to be pretty weird not being around the same people all the time.”

“That’s the best bit. No one to miss here.”

I let his words hang between us, the letters mingling with the air and mixing into a million different combinations – every single one meaning, that I meant nothing to him.

“You’ll write to me, won’t you?” He turned to look at me as he asked.

“Um. Do you want me to?”

“Yes. When I said don’t look back, I meant it. But, I didn’t meant with me. I was hoping I wasn’t someone you looked back on. I hope I’m part of your looking forward.”

“Ok…”

“I mean, we’ve been friends for ten years now.”

“Have we?” I asked dumbly.

“Haven’t we?”

No words came out of my mouth when I opened it. Maybe it was a case of self preservation.

“Hey, remember that time we all went to the beach on Thanksgiving three years ago? I don’t know what possessed us to even try dipping our toes in, a week from December.” Finn reminisced, making me grin at the memory.

“Wait. There was no toe dipping, YOU flung a whole bucket of water at us, we were freezing the whole way home and Heather was sick for a week after”

“But you remember it, right?” He grinned his cocky grin that I pictured almost every night before going to bed.

“Not in the way that makes me feel like I should write to you!” I poked my tongue out at him, suddenly feeling more comfortable with him than I ever had in the last decade.

“Then it worked. You don’t write postcards to people you don’t remember.”

“Am I going to get a postcard from you?” I felt brave just asking.

“I don’t know. What’ve you done that I should remember?” He poked his tongue out at me back.

“Nothing.” I admitted. Not a goddamn thing.

He reached over and grabbed my hand, and just let it lay there on top of his, palm to palm, fingers to fingers. “‘Dear Finn, don’t worry too much. I’m sure you’ve just misplaced it. It will turn up tomorrow and you won’t even remember that it was lost. When you start to feel miserable, think of something happy. Like chocolate milk or puppies. Don’t waste time being sad when you could be smiling instead.’” He recited.

“What was that?”

“That was you.”

“Me? When?”

“About 7 years ago.”

I rifled through my memories trying to remember when I’d said that and why.