Portal

This is my best friend's rooftop. It is far away from where we grew up together. We used to be neighbors, but I live 12000 kilometers away from that neighborhood now, and she, about 30 kilometers away. Maybe her new rooftop is a portal. The way it bends the sunlight, the pristine blue, and the perfectly straight lines, all seem other-worldly. Maybe if we climb through the portal, we could emerge on the other side of all this distance. The portal surely leads to better times. When I was 12 and she was 10, we would watch scary movies to spite my mother. Stay under the covers, lest the evil forces come and snatch us up. We would watch scary movies to spite my mother and regret it at night. But in the day, when the sky was blue, we would walk around the neighborhood, letting everyone know that we owned it. We marked our territory with popsicle wrappers and stacked up flat rocks into towers. Those days were ours.

Her’s was my first ever found home. I would walk up the stairs to her room, avoiding her satanic dog, who trapped you into petting him by wagging his tail and bit your hand just as you reached his furry head. I hugged her mom like she was my own. Slept in her bed like it was own. Knew where the spoons were in her kitchen like it was my own.

This is my best friend’s new rooftop. I’m not as comfortable here as I was before. I don’t know where she keeps her socks anymore. Her dog is old and not smart enough to manipulate me. Maybe if I climb through the portal, we’ll be 10 and 12 again; 21 and 19 doesn’t have the same ring to it. Maybe on the other side of the portal, beyond distance and time, we are two girls completely comfortable, at peace, holding hands to ward off ghosts.