I don't think you remember as well as I do. It's impossible.

We used to be kids, with whims that nobody could ever understand, tapping on the walls instead of talking and laughing at the jokes we said without breathing a word.

We were the best of friends. I loved you even more than my yellow duck plushie and when you went away to summer camp one year, crying your eyes out because you were leaving me behind, I lent you Arsenic so you wouldn't feel as lonely as I would.

We used to play in this old tree house we found in the woods one day. We didn't even need to fix it: it was already the most beautiful place in the world with shimmering curtains of leaves and glowing bark for thrones. I was the woman and you were the man. We lived like king and queen in our sheltered palace while ruling with beauty, intelligence and justice our court of imaginary lords and ladies.

I would cook the most marvellous invisible soup in the world and after a whole afternoon spent drinking it, you would head back home with your stomach full of butterflies and sunshine. Your mother always used to wonder what we used to eat when you came over because you would refuse to have supper with them afterwards. If only she had known.

Sometimes, you would slip inside my room at night and lay besides me because you had a nightmare or your father was beating you again. You would close your summer lake eyes and crawl under my covers to feel warm and protected. I would put my arms around you and I would be the man.

Time passed and we grew. I thought you'd make a lot of friends because you were the most beautiful boy on earth, the smartest and the most talented. You did but somehow, you always came back to me and stayed there, just stroking my cheek.

We always were together: at school, at parties, walking, talking, laughing.

No girl or boy ever approached us because they assumed we were sleeping with each other, which was true but not the way they thought. We had a lack of social skills but you always did attract crowds with that incredible charisma I was the only one able to resist at times. People thought we were going out but people know nothing about anything. We were beyond that, far beyond that.

You would slip inside my room at night, not because you were scared anymore but because I was. Ghosts would follow me on the path home and even though I tried to drown them in my bathtub, they always came back. The city lights couldn't shake my fears away and I stayed trapped in a prison of bubbling black until you crept close to me and took me in your arms.

We would walk in the park together or in dark alleys. We would smoke crushed cigarettes and drink hot coffee even if I hated the shit-colored liquid. We would pretend we were foreign musicians and play in the middle of the streets then rush and buy warm sugary-cakes at the bakery on the corner. We would point and laugh at our respective white moustaches then you would sit down in a gloomy staircase to write a poem or a story in your rain-stained, worn old notebook. I would read quietly from behind your shoulder, wishing I could be the beautiful words you would draw against the blank page.

Normally, in a story like this, one of the friends would move away or the love of one's life would come and spoil it all. Maybe one of the hero's would die or the childish infatuation would slowly falter. But in this case, it was different.

You ruined it with a simple kiss and I ruined it with stupid insecurities.

Remember how some people think that God is perfect, with no flaws? I didn't believe in God or in anything at the time but I had the feeling you would be the closest you could get to this perfection they would talk about. I wasn't perfect enough for you. I was plain, I was simple: the woman I'd be could never make the man you'd be happy enough so I would be able to sleep at night.

I was stupid and ashamed of myself. I let you leave, crying your heart out to me, pleading me to stay with you. You promised to bring me the sun one day, to lay it on the floor and to slip the moon under my pillow while I slept, make me necklaces out of the stars so I wouldn't be so scared of shadows anymore.

I couldn't, I couldn't let your beauty die because it wasn't held at its advantage.

So I screamed, I yelled at you. I told you horrible lies, horrible stories so you would stop loving me and go, go, go. Meet the girl born to make you shine and have a wonderful life.

You held on. But each day, you said less and less, you came by less and less and when, finally, I saw you again walking in the streets, you weren't alone and changed sidewalks when you glimpsed at me.

I had more and more trouble waking up in the morning, buttered toast didn't taste so good anymore and I would gulp down cups and cups of coffee until I wanted to puke all my sorrow, all my loneliness and all my shame in the toilets, just in memory of what we used to be.

I started to write at that moment.

No novels, no sharp and percussive stories, no long poems of love and hate. Only letters talking of my everyday life destined to the boy with calm eyes the color of the skies. I would type how I regretted to have pushed you away but how happy I was to see you weren't lonely anymore, that the burns I gave you made you stronger and brave enough to search after a better mate. That I hoped you'd have kids like we used to plan out back in primary school. I would've loved being the fairy godmother to shower your children with beautiful gifts but you always saw me as the mother. That somebody would be there to protect you and kiss you and hug you and cook you real soup that would have a real smell.

That I loved you, I sincerely did and still do.

I wonder what I thought when I decided to start writing a novel.

About a girl with a skipping rope and a boy with a baseball bat. About trees and fairies, about whispered secrets in a warm bed. About a willowy boy who would hold the hand of a pale girl on the way to school, who would drink coffee and laugh at sugar moustaches. About two high school students who would continue to strum their instruments in the middle of the streets even when rain poured down to their shoes. About two young graduates who fell in love but one was too afraid to try and pushed the other away.

I sent my whole life to a publisher, not because I wanted recognition or fame but because I was starting to slowly wither away, turning into the person the queen I used to be always wished to never become. Because I didn't have a thing to lose and I swore that if my whole life was considered a waste of space and paper, well then, I just had to go and kill myself.

It got published. The piece of paper acknowledging me of a reason to live made me cry, laugh and prance around in my dingy apartment. I chose the color of the cover, the same than your eyes. Letters started to flood in my mailbox; people wrote how I had touched them, how I had changed their lives and how they loved me. My postman was proud to know where I lived and to see me in my ratty boxers and old tank tops everyday.

Then, one day, I decided to face the world and walk out my door. I thought that a year and more of confinement would've gotten me rid of my habit of scanning the crowd to see your face but I hadn't. I assumed you had moved away or was basically too busy to walk by yourself once again or maybe you didn't have a reason to do so anymore. This made me happy, I felt less guilty and I continued to go out.

It was a shock when I saw you sitting on that bench.

You never sat on benches before; you preferred being perched on top of a tree branch or sprawled in a staircase scribbling in that notebook of yours. You had the peculiar notion of hating sitting where other people had sat. I just thought you had grown up and that passing my way would be the most intelligent thing to do even if my heart had started yelling matches with my head.

You looked up and what I saw made me live all these years of hurt once again.

Your eyes were empty, they were hollow and your face was thin. They seemed to struggle to focus on me and when they did, light crept in slowly but surely and a second later, you were radiating from the inside once again. It hurt me to see you look so beautiful after a glance at me when you were so dull a moment ago.

I could've never thought your perfection came from your being completed by myself and it hurt, it hurt to think of all those years lost because of my stupidity.

You had seen what I never had.