She Told Me It Was Okay to Cry
I saw her last night for the first time in years. She was miserable. She had bleached her hair, trying to hide her true color, just as her rough front hud her deep unhappyness. She needed to talk, so we went for a walk. While I thought about my future, about my college applications that had recently arrived, she thought about her past, the home she had recently left. Then she spoke. She told me about her love-and I saw a dependent relationship with a dominating man. She told me about the drugs-and I saw that they were her escape. She told me about her goals-and I saw unrealistic material dreams. She told me she needed a friend-and I saw hope, because at least I could give her that.
We had met in the second grade. She was missing a tooth, I was missing my friends. I had just moved across the continent to find cold etal swings and cold smirking faces outside the foreboding doors of P.S. 174, my new school. I asked her if I could see her Archie comic book even tohugh I didn't really like comics; she said yes, even though she didn't really like to share. Maybe we were both looking for a smile. And we found it. We found someone to giggle with late at night, someone to slurp hot chocolate with on cold winter days when school was canceled and we would sit together by th bay window, watching the snow endlessly falling.
In the summer, at the pool, I got stung by a bee. She held my hand and told me she was there and that it was okay to cry-so I did. In the fall, we raked the leaves into piles and took turns jumping, never afraid because we knew that the multicolored bed would break our fall.
Only now, she had fallen and there ws no one to catch her. We hadn't spoken in months, we hadn't seen eachother in years. I had moved to California, she had moved out of her house. Our experiences were miles apart, making our hearts much farther away from each other thab the continent she had just traversed. Through her words I was alienated, but through herheyes I felt her yearning. She needed support in her search for strength and a new start. She needed my friendship now more than ever. So I took her hand and told her that I was there and that it was okay to cry-so she did.
By: Daphna Renan
