Our week of play began yesterday the same way it always begins. The familiar ring tone of "Hot and Cold" permeates the silence of my bedroom as the sun peeks through my blinds. A smile sneaks across my face as I already know what it says. Regardless, I fumble around on the nightstand for my glasses and shuffle across the floor to the dresser where the cell phone lies. I open it and sure enough the familiar phrase, "1 New Message From Tyson" is displayed across the screen. I press "ok" and read what I already know, "Morning Sunshine! I want breakfast ;)" I chuckle and quickly type back, "Mornin' Sexy. I want to smoke." And so our morning text-versation begins while I search the mounds of laundry for something quick to throw on as Tyson may walk through the door at any moment. I'm not quite sure how or when we got to the "Unlocked door=Just walk in" state but I don't actually mind it that much; at least not when it's him. Often times when someone knocks on my door I call out, "Come in only if your Tyson otherwise hang on!!"
Breakfast usually turns into ordering Take-Out for lunch. We are such procrastinators. I blame the smoking. It seems that we are always so ambitious and have a plan until the moment we light that smoke and inhale that purple cloud into our lungs. As we exhale, we blow all ambition and organization out the window with the haze. Halfway through this smoking, he picks up a game controller and mutters "Watch this shit" through the corner of his mouth as he hits his cigarette. There goes the day.....he plays games and I sit and watch and smoke occasionally tossing out my two cents on his strategy. The next thing we know, it's lunchtime and we still haven't eaten.
Our relationship began as I was going through my breakup with William and he was going through a breakup with a similar yet totally different situation. We consoled each other on an almost daily basis sharing secrets that we had never shared with anyone else. Speaking words that had never before been spoken about our previous other halves. Advice was always given but rarely ever taken leading to yet another smoking on the couch and cursing session. At one moment, I had almost made the mistake of confusing what we had going on as affection but quickly dismissed it as he spoke of the girl from the night before. Some random girl from some random place--that's how he dealt with his pain. We later realized that the problem was really addiction. I had gone my entire adult life thus far replacing one addiction with another and it had appeared that Tyson had been doing the same. I had once replaced my alcohol addiction with marijuana. Marijuana with harder drugs. Harder drugs with alcohol. Alcohol with cigarettes. Cigarettes with William. Now I felt as though I was replacing William with Tyson. I found myself thinking of him all the time. Craving his attention. Going nuts waiting for him to call or show up. It was during this crazy obsessive time that I thought I was falling for him. This is also when the revelation of the addiction problem became evident.
One of Tyson's girlies had been acting weird and one day after a smoking-cursing-couch session we had figured out that she must have thought that there was more to Tyson and I than what was really there. The best way I could describe our friendship to her was to put it as "Tyson is the Will to my Grace without the whole gay part." She claimed to have understood but still to this day is over-affectionate and clingy towards him whenever I enter the room. Whatever. She's young and doesn't understand what the deal is.
Today began the way they usually do when Tyson and I are on our "on" week. He woke me up with a text only this time it wasn't about breakfast. It was more along the lines of "I've been up all night playing this new video game and drinking. Please help me as I am wasted and suppose to be somewhere shortly." I threw on the clothes from the night out before and made my way through the overly familiar hallway of Tyson's apartment building and stopped at his front door. I knocked quickly and counted to four before turning the knob to walk in.
"Hey! You didn't bring any smokes did you?" I had so I sat down and began rolling one up for him.
"You know, Leila. I thought about you yesterday. Little Girl was suppose to come over and things didn't work out and all I could think about was you and your words of wisdom that I never take. I just sat there and stared at the phone after hanging up on her and laughed and thought of you."
"Well Tyson, that just goes to show you that Leila is always right and knows you better than you think she does. You know I still love you whether or not you listen to me. If you did always listen we wouldn't have these little moments of laughter together now would we?"
We chuckled and then IT happened. We held each other's gaze for that moment too long. The moment that changes a glance into an emotional exchange. You know what I mean....when you look at each other to share a second of laughter and then you look back for some reason and catch the other looking at you so you both look away only to catch the other one looking at you again so you lock eyes and feel all silly and awkward. This is the point where your laughing-at-the-incident-smile turns into that little smile of curiosity at what the other is thinking as you think things you should not be thinking. This particular look and smile are usually followed by someone grinning ear to ear and asking, "What?" while giggling.
Yeah. Not good for a friendship. Moments like these can kill the best of relationships if you opt to give in at the wrong time. There were quite a few of these moments between us today. One of these moments was followed by the confirmation from him that I needed. After the giggle-what, he said, "Leila, we have some weird sort of connection. It blows my mind that we ended up the way that we have. When I met you, I thought you were cool but I never imagined we would be where we are so quickly." And he grinned.
"I agree. Sometimes I feel like you are the Male version of myself."
"Yeah, but don't get lost in that thought. You are a truly good person in and out. I know you have the capability to be as evil as me but you don't dwell there like I do. You even it out. You even us out." This statement was followed by another 'moment' that we both acknowledged yet denied at the same time.
The positive to this is that I finally got my confirmation from Tyson about our friendship. It's just that. Neither of us wants more than what it is and now we both know that the feelings we have are shared. Leila would be lost without Tyson and Tyson would be lost without Leila. This is why we are such awesome friends. We had decided a while back that the "friend zone" is where we prefer to reside. Things have been said since then and events have taken place. I'm just so glad that now things have been redefined. We've been through so much together I would hate for that all to end by giving in to a couple stupid 'moments'. There are a lot of those 'moments' though....j/k. Not even entertaining the idea. I love Tyson just the way we are! The Will to my Grace. "The cheese to my macaroni." We just make sense--platonic sense.
Thanks for stopping by! Be a dear and don't forget to feed the fish on the way out! Thanks!
*~*Leila*~*
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