The conformist

I have known this girl for long now. We grew up together. I have known her deepest secrets and all her dreams. It has been years since we have met. She is none other than my only best friend, Grace.

She wasn’t really outgoing and preferred staying back at her home. I always forced her out of her room for a hang out. She had fewer friends and she couldn’t care less because all that she needed was a comrade to be by her side always and she found that in me. She could confide all her feelings in me and me in her. We were nothing less than soul mates.

Things changed when she got the opportunity to study in one of the best colleges in the country. She moved in to the city and I stayed back in my own small town having my grades much lower than Grace’s.  She didn’t want to leave me alone but she also had her own dreams to accomplish. I was happy for my friend but deep down I didn’t want to let go of her. She was the only friend I could really talk to.

She called me often from there. She would tell me about her days in college and her new friends. She was happy. One day she told me that she tried vodka for the first time. Her friends were forcing her and that she couldn’t say no to them.

“A little vodka is really fine, no? She is living in the city now after all.” That was I told myself at that moment.

I started receiving less calls from her until, she stopped calling me and started to ignore my calls. I was losing my best friend in the gleaming world of city lights. Every day she would upload new pictures of her, drinking in a party and with a different man everytime. She was going the wrong way and the worst part was that I couldn’t stop her. I was losing my best friend.

It was around 10pm in a cold January night when my phone suddenly rang. It was Grace. I received the call but there was a long silence at the other end of the line.

“Hello” I said.

“Akira?” A woman’s voice came from the other side. It wasn’t Grace. “I am Grace’s mother.” At that moment I had no idea why her mother had to call me at that hour and that too from Grace’s phone.

“Yes aunty, where is Grace? I haven’t heard from her for a long time.”

The next morning I rushed to the hospital. Grace was brought back to the town. Her mother explained to me how Grace had been into drugs all this time and she asked me if I had any idea about it. She told me that Grace had wanted her to call me last night.

I went inside the cabin where Grace was admitted. She was in a deep sleep. She looked really pale. I was starring at her when she opened her eyes. I sat beside her bed. We talked for a long time until she was tired and finally fell asleep again.

 

Today, after three years I am going to meet her. It has been really long. We don’t live in the same town anymore and as I sit beside her grave I recalled her last few words to me,

“Akira, I was very wrong in the first place. I should have been more decisive back then. I was foolish and couldn’t keep myself away from the temptations. I wanted to fit in there. I couldn’t accomplish my dreams and I couldn’t fulfil my parent’s dreams. I only ended up turning into a conformist. I am a failure. I have also hurt you a lot, please forgive me. You have always been my only true friend and you will always be.”

I cleaned the dead leaves that covered her name on the grave and placed a white rose on it. The cold February wind blew and the gush of the trees whispered along the silent graveyard.

“I miss you, Grace” I said softly and then turned away. I had lost my best friend.