Bringing his hand down to his face, Justin made a 'V' near his eye, pushed it out towards me, and then flattened one hand in front of him and touched his palm with the fingertips of his other hand, folded at the knuckles.
"See you again."
And I bawled. I bawled so loud that my mom thought I was in pain. I heard her voice, though it was a bit distant. And when she touched my shoulder, I woke up.
I woke up.
She touched my tear-stained face and looked at me with concern. And all I could do was cry more. Cry till my throat hurt, till my eyes felt dry.
And through it all, my mom hugged me tight and said reassuring words. Without asking anything. Just rocking me back and forth, giving me the comfort I needed.
It was in the evening that I finally went to talk to my mom. I sat on the floor and rested my head in her lap while she sat on the bed. I told her about the nightmare I had, about how I was slowly losing my friends, and how much it scared me.
At first, she heard me out without interrupting. But when I suddenly broke down into tears again, she simply said, "They have been a part of your life for a very long time. And so have you of theirs. For you, your friends are your topmost priority, which is why it's affecting you so much. But believe me, whatever their priority might be, if they have noticed this gap forming between you guys, then it would affect them too. If it doesn't, then they just don't want to be a part of your life anymore and you can't do anything about that, honey."
She lifted my chin with her fingers and said, "Don't beg them to stay. If they know your worth, they'll never be able to leave. If they don't, that's their loss." She gave me a small smile and pulled me up onto the bed. "As far as I know, they're good kids. And I know you mean a lot to them as well."
"You've seen me go meet my school friends once every year, right? Even after we lost contact and didn't know what the others were doing for years, we still found our way back. When we meet up, we're not awkward or uncomfortable. We're just ourselves even after all these years."
"My point is, you'll lose some friends and you'll gain some more. Do you want to keep looking at the back of the ones you spent years with, but then they just left? Or would you rather look at the ones that you have with you, hm? What about Jaslin? Don't you have her too? Don't you love being with her? What about your other classmates you've become close to? Your group of 4 that sits together and pranks teachers and students? They are with you, aren't they?"
The stuff she said only reminded me of the guys. How I replaced them with new people, doing the same things we used to do.
"But ma, that's what we used to do too."
"I know my baby.." she said and embraced me. After a few minutes of silence, she spoke up again. "Do you remember the last time you cried this hard? Was it in 5th grade? Or was it the 6th?"
I sniffled and said, "5th. I fell sick a day before my football match."
Both of us laughed a little as she said, "That's right. Now, my strong kid who hardly ever cries, I think you've cried enough for today, right?"
I nodded with a small smile.
"Great. I thought I'd have to change my t-shirt altogether," she snickered as I rolled my eyes.
As I was walking away to my room, she said, "Don't think about this right now. You still have half a year before you guys go off to college. Enjoy your time with your friends now. You can worry about it when the time comes." I smiled and nodded.
"Hey, ma.. can you make me some chocolate milkshake?" I asked for the one thing that always seemed to calm me down in any situation.
"WHAT'S THAT?" she shouted from her room. "YOU'RE MAKING SOME CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE? GOOOOOD. MAKE ME SOME TOO.