She’d got a job in Vietnam – a big adventure,
a fresh start,
I worried she’d forget me,
so I ordered her a mug –
printed with a shiny photo
montage: us together through the years – smiles, fancy
dress, tongues out, beers raised…
I chose too many.
It was ugly and chaotic – friendship propaganda.
Forced.
The last time I saw her, just before she left, I had it
in my bag to give her but the atmosphere felt off.
She seemed impatient – rushed a bit to finish our
goodbyes, said it would be hard to keep in touch but
that she’d try.
I kept that mug tucked in my bedroom drawer for
when we reunited – a funny story to add to our
collection,
my ugly gift, my ugly love…
but when, months later, I saw online that her and
her new housemate out in Vietnam had matching tattoos
of a key – their key – I threw it out.
Though first, destroyed it – obviously. Rolling pin in hand,
mug wrapped in kitchen roll,
I smashed it with the focus of a murderer
dispatching with a victim’s teeth.
Do you have a best friend, Ava?
You seem the type.
You’ll have a group – a gang, no doubt.
I thought I’d find a new friend via circumstance – thrown
together in the maelstrom of chaotic campus life,
but I never gelled with housemates, classmates…
anyone in that way.
Bad luck perhaps,
badgirl
badfriend.
I had run away from halls and the gastropub to live as
Jane.
Had left my stint as nice, clean Jane in the
surveyor’s nice, clean house because I’d heard some
