Melike Leyla

Yilmaz

I am standing on the balcony as I call you, my fingers pressing into the metal of my phone. It’s cold.

I think of you on nights when the cold is so sharp that it collapses against my bones. Hits them with a certain shiver that reminds me of midnights in your room. How we would sit in front of the only open window and breathe the air of each other’s company in silence. We would pretend to stare at the trees that were visible from that small opening–all glorious with branches hugging the stars, not the concrete city we were used to seeing. The sharpness of the air combined with our childlike innocence wiped the exhaust of the city clean.

On those weekends I stayed over, we barely came out of your room. Your turquoise walls–turquoise, because I had decided it was my favorite color and then it was yours too–would engulf us in its bounds. Turquoise, like Agean seas, like the neon highlighters you had, like the dolphin that was in that Barbie movie we watched together. We had also decided dolphins were our favorite animal. Because they are smart, you would say. And I would nod my head in approval. We were smart girls, you know.

Only ten, and we would make your mom buy the poorly written poetry books by a man comparing his girlfriend to a daisy. Beautiful, he would say. Beautiful. I count your eyelashes and study your face. You have the face of the moon. Fragile, dainty. So, so loveable. Beautiful. We were smart girls, but we were still ten, so we would find those words touching, desirable. Taking turns with your turquoise highlighter, we would underline lines we most wanted to be described as when we grew older. Beautiful, we would highlight. Beautiful.

What I knew as beautiful was the smell of gentle lavender soap lingering on our hands after we washed them before dinner. Beautiful was our hair hanging off the mattress as we laid there together and held hands.

Those nights, we would make plans of what our life was going to look like together. In high school, we thought we would go down to Bagdat Street down your house and visit cafes after school. In college, we would be roommates. We were going to adopt a cat, and you would let me name it Snowflake, as long as you were allowed to name the puppy we would get in return.

Those nights, we would lay under your teddy-bear covers, our hands tightly tucked into each other’s, unable to sleep because of how giddy we got thinking of each other, of us, of our future.

Right before drifting off, we would tell each other things that we were too sad to say in the morning light. You would complain about your siblings and I of my loneliness. I love you, you would say. We will never ever separate. You are never lonely with me. You would hold my hand. I’m here, you would say, gazing into my eyes. I’m here. Do you hear me?

Now I’m standing on the balcony and I ask you how school is going but what I really want to say is–do you remember when we used to wear your long dresses and pretend to be princesses when we were younger? You would tell me to call you Victoria and I would be Theresa, because we thought princesses only had foreign, English names. What I desperately want to tell you is that I read that your name means queen in Arabic. You have always been royalty, adorned with everything beautiful, sitting on your throne. I don’t know what you would say to that. I don’t know if it matters.

I think of you and I think of the cold air and old poetry books and a turquoise future, when we reach the 20 minute mark in our call. It seems we can’t get past that time. The girls who would sneakily talk under covers after bedtime, now standing in silence, listening to the hum of the phone after we talk about our classes and the weather. Something that tastes like tears prickles in my throat.

I quickly tell you goodbye but what I really want to tell you in that cold air is that I miss you. The fact is, I want to say, I’m afraid those younger girls residing in my memory hate us for breaking their promise. The fact is, I want to tell you, I itch to tell you, I feel lonely. And I want you, so desperately, to hold my hand and say I’m here.

Can you hear me? I’m here.

I hang up the phone.

Memento Of That Bay