The Friend Who Shows Up

You don't keep score. That's how I know. When I moved apartments you brought boxes before I asked. When I got the job you were louder than my family. When I lost the other thing— the thing I still can't name without my voice doing that embarrassing thing— you sat with me in the parking lot of a Denny's for two hours and didn't once say it happens for a reason. Thank you for not saying it happens for a reason. You are the person who shows up. Not the one who says I'm here if you need me— everybody says that— but the one who's already in the driveway with the engine running. You remember things I've forgotten I told you— my mother's maiden name, the street I grew up on, that I can't eat cilantro without becoming a different person. You hold my history like a second copy. When they write the story of how I survived the years that tried to break me, you won't be a chapter. You'll be the spine. The thing that held all the pages together when the binding was coming loose. I don't say this enough. Nobody says this enough. The world celebrates lovers and forgets the friends who kept us alive long enough to find them. So here it is, plain and true: you are the most generous thing that ever happened to me. And I am paying attention. And I am grateful. And I am not going anywhere either.