The Ninth Stop

DISCLAIMER: The following is a work of fiction, and any resemblance between the characters herein and real persons living or otherwise is purely coincidental.

We were intimate friends, I told the investigator. It was true, we loved each other the way only friends do. Remember the quote I found from Webster Hubbell, not one of my favorite people, but quite insightful when he said: "I mean, you love a friend more than you love a lover"? She'd probably deny it now, or resent me for bringing it up, but it was she herself who declared she was my friend for life. I hadn't heard that before from anyone.

But then it was over. I don't know why, she won't say why, it was over and it only got worse, all of a sudden. I asked if it was something I had said or done, and she said no. Soon thereafter, she made the accusation, one of several, that I had presented her a bar of imported bittersweet chocolate, her favourite flavour, by the way, with the word "Passion" printed somewhere on the wrapper. She ate it first, of course. Last Saturday morning, that is several months later, I made the ninth stop on the weekly errand run again, to visit the shop where I had bought it, searching for this word on the wrappers of their large selection of chocolate bars, having remembered nothing about the brand or the country of origin, but I didn't manage to find it.

I'd like to tell you what happened and why, but I don't understand it myself. I gave her chocolates, CDs, books, homemade clear borscht, which she loved; she in turn gave me banana bread she had baked herself, pastry and cafe lattes from her favorite bakery, her poetry. She wrote well. She told me I made her laugh, and that she had seen me change. I told her to take full credit for that change.


Like a soap bubble, it all burst, made a sticky mess, and was no more. One friend tells me such breakups are always final, but I live with hope. Liz Taylor and Richard Burton went back together for a while, didn't they?! Time, that heals all wounds, will tell.

I saw her the other day, for the first time in months. Just a brief glimpse. I was walking down a deserted street, she, driving her car, passed me by, must have noticed me, my back, that is, I turned to look and saw her face in profile, staring intently ahead, pretending not to see me, but in that split second, I saw enough to get all shook up again, the fresh haircut, the anger, sadness and pain, and her incomparable beauty. And then she disappeared in the vast parking lot up ahead.