A Box of Mints

My flight is tomorrow. I dug through my basement until I found the box of mints. The box was greying and losing lustre. I shook it. Nothing. I grabbed a random packet of mints off the counter. Mint flavoured, I laughed. How original. I dumped the mints into the box to fill it. I took toothpaste and rubbed the metal container till it looked shiny.

We were nine when she handed the mint box to me. It was night, we’d sneaked out of our houses to see each other before I left for Canada. The street was empty, its darkness lit by a single streetlight. Standing under the light, we giggled at everything. How I had tripped on a step sneaking out. How she almost set off the alarm while opening her window. How our parents were going to freak out when they hear we did something bad together.

It didn’t worry us, that we were going to be two Earth’s radii apart. Or if it did, we knew not to say it. 

We stood in silence for a while. The streetlight hummed a quiet tune that matched the coolness of the night. It was a comfortable silence. We felt no need to break it.

“I bought you a gift.” She said, her voice blending in with the silence.

Eww! What is it this time? That’s how it used to be. I said everything that came to my mind and it never bothered her.

She handed me a shiny little box. Mints. She said. Every single flavour. She was right. She bought a packet of every single flavour of mints and put one of each in the box. She always gave cool gifts. 

I laughed. “That’s so dumb.” But I loved it. We were too close to say thank you. I mumbled one anyway.

“We’ll stay best friends okay? Forever?”

We were old enough to know forever isn’t a thing. “Okay.” 

It was so easy. We talked without talking. We never had to fill in the silence. We never minded the silence. We promised that we would be best friends forever. Then we pretended it was true.

When I moved, we rarely got to talk since I was always thirteen hours behind her. We would message each other updates on our lives every day.

I told myself it would go on like that forever. I told myself a lot of things.

I went on vacation once and we didn’t get to talk for a week. Then a week became a month. A month became a year. We began to only message each other for holiday wishes. I would get two “Happy New Year!” messages in my old email. One from her and the other one from the old Walmart in our town.

When I wrote to her, I still signed with “Your Best Friend”. I saw our distance grow larger, but I kept telling myself it would vanish the moment we saw each other again.

On my flight back to see her, I imagined all the amazing ways I was going to surprise her. I imagined how I would sneak up behind her and yell “Boo!” Or how I would run over and back-hug her. How she would shriek in shock and how we would giggle at it forever.

But then I saw her.

She came to pick me up from the airport. It was night but the entire city seemed to be lit. She was standing near one of the many lamp posts.

Her back seemed so distant and so unfamiliar, I found myself walking closer to make sure it was truly her. But even when I was sure it was her, I couldn’t bring myself to do any of the things I had imagined on the plane. Come on, she’s your best friend. I tried to convince myself. I took a deep breath and got ready.

“Hey.” That was all I could say.

“Oh,” she turns around, a little surprise catching her as she glances at me from head to toe, “hey”.

I watch her as I realize how different I must look. I cut my hair to shoulder length. It used to be much longer. I got glasses. I used to sit at my desk and squint at the board, too embarrassed to walk up and read it. She sat beside me and whispered the words into my ear. We always got into trouble for that. I also pierced my ears. We weren’t allowed to do that in school.

Nothing about her had really changed. Then again, she seemed different somehow. Surely something had changed. I just couldn’t name it. Her hair is tied up in a high ponytail, the kind dancers have. We used to do dance together. We would practice the splits and compete to have the straighter one. I can barely touch my toes now. Her features seem different from how I remember them. I search for an image of her in my mind and realize how blurry it is.

We stand in silence. I search for a place to put my hands. I settle for the back pockets.

“Umm… How are you?” I mumble, my smile unnatural. Oh god, nobody asks their best friend how they are.  “I mean… How’s life?” I try again, shifting my hands into my front pockets.

“It’s fine.” She nods and turns her head to the left for no particular reason. I find myself looking down and playing with my watch.

“Oh, right,” I say, too quickly, eager to break the silence. “I got you a present.” I search through my bag, digging desperately until the box reveals itself. “Matching watches.” I hold up my wrist to show her.

I hold the box in front of her, my hands glad they finally have a place to be. “They look so nice!” She takes the box and puts it in her bag. “You didn’t have to get me anything.” 

“I’m glad you like them.”

And then we stood in silence. I looked around, trying to pretend it was comfortable. It was so quiet that I could hear the electricity going through the lights, humming in monotone. It was too bright. I could see everything. I wish the lights were dimmer.

We were wrong. There is no such thing as forever, and there was no use pretending it existed.

“Want a mint?” I opened the box that I rubbed with toothpaste.

“Oh wow. You still have it.” She reached over and grabbed one.

“But I ran out of mints. So I just filled it with a new packet. All mint flavoured.”

She nodded. “That’s original.”

“We are not best friends anymore.” I said. The lights stopped humming to listen. “But I still want to be. This box, I did everything I could, but I couldn’t make it go back to the way it used to be.”

“We could start a new one. Did you know they came out with more flavours?”

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