50 Word Non-Fiction: Friendship – Batch 6

Every week, we publish the latest 50 Word Non-Fiction stories of Friendship. Read this week's pieces below!

*

The last time I hugged a pal, she accidentally stepped on my toe. We fell apart from each other, laughing.
When chronic illness collapsed my world, she stopped replying to my texts.
Some bruises add texture to a friendship; others bloom deep and sore from lack of touch.

'Are you Cal’s mum?' Your words warmly reached out, yet I with the quizzical brow questioned your approach.
'Cal has been so kind to Anders.' It was your son’s first day at school. He spoke hardly any English.
I was humbled. Thankful. This was the beginning of our precious friendship.

You grinned as you walked down the aisle towards me, brandishing a bottle of white that we couldn’t afford. It helped to wash away the ashes of our burnt bridges, at least for a while. Bundled up in your blanket, you looked like a chrysalis, and you felt like home.

Friends are the sunshine of the soul. The navigating light on the darkest of paths. To have friends is to live. To truly exist. To be seen. If I had my time again, I’d choose the friends I have in this lifetime - because I know they would choose me.

I meant to call Rose. I made a mistake. I phoned Rosemary instead. Ten years on, we picked up where we left off and talked for a satisfying hour. It just shows that a true friend who is three hundred miles and a decade away is closer than you think.

I thought, this is the one, this journal will change everything. I pictured myself as a new person, one who was organized and who socialized and remembered to text their friends back right away, instead of meeting their irritated stares at the school gates. My journal, my confidante.

You hold me as I sob on my childhood bed, telling me that the only crime I committed was falling in love with someone. You know it too, this type of heartbreak. A betrayal of trust, only you understand. You've pieced me back together before. And you'll do it again.