h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Funny how life goes
and we take all with no warning,
Its like one minute,
Its alright
Then suddenly everything's upside down
Situations change,
Close becomes distant"

I was thinking about you today. I'm not sure why you chose to pop into my head but you did. Maybe it was Jenna G's rendition of "For Lost Friends." hitting my ear drums through the medium of MP3, but that's hardly likely, as that album has been on effective repeat for months.
We never got it on did we?
There was always something or someone in the way, only one of us could ever seem to be single at the same time.

I met you when you were Kieran's girlfriend. We got on brilliantly straight away, but I've never been one to move to one of my friends girls. Particularly when it's one of my oldest, safest friends that has the girl. I remember when his band would play a gig it would be me and you at the front dancing away, you always were such a good dancer.
We danced well together.

We'd always spend a lot of time together, you never had a mobile phone which always made me feel incredibly awkward telephoning my mate and asking him if I could speak to his girlfriend. I fancied you like mad even then, but was happy just spending time around you. We got on, we'd often spend whole nights out together, but we never let it go any further. I'm sure we both knew, or at least had a pretty good idea what was going through each others heads though.

There were those nights we spent in the same bed, having bumped into each other on the town hours earlier, a club/drug/pub fuelled night and then pass out together. Nothing ever happened, but I wander if you woke up in the night like I did and wished it was different.

So then you and Kieran moved to London. We'd still bump into each other on your return visits, same kind of occurances, welded to each others sides all night long, spend the whole night together and leave in the morning with a deep sense of frustration.

And then there was the time you ran into me when I was out with Sophia. You never knew, but Sophia and I had a deal when we got together that there was a person each of us wanted that we could break up for, no questions asked.
You were that person.

But I didn't know what to do at the time, we barely got a chance to talk that night. It was only after that night that I found out that you and Kieran had split up. I kicked myself but I had no way of contacting you, you would lose mobiles like other people lose cigarette lighters.

The next time I saw you was also the last. I went to my usual pub to be told by a friend, "Laura's here." (Yes, they all knew I wanted you. They knew we were the kind of people who work well together. But they were all mates with Kieran too. What ya gonna do?) I turned the corner and into your welcoming arms. You asked about Sophia, I told you it was nothing serious and anyway, she had left the country by then. I then asked if you were still single. You weren't. I didn't pry any further.

So we went to Lakota together, just me and you, no-one else. A few pills each, I'm sure we kissed for the first time in years of knowing each other on that dancefloor. We walked back, arm in arm, you had already arranged to crash at mine like you had so many times before. By now we had sobered up and I think the boyfriend was fresher in your memory, nothing happened that night apart from chatting all night as usual. You left to go meet your family that morning. That was the last I ever saw of you.

So what could I do? I've never known your surname, never needed to. I think your split from Kieran was far from amicable, and anyway, I can hardly turn around to one of my friends and ask "Remember your first love? Remember how her and I got on so well? Well have you got her number now you aren't together?" No. I'm not that kind of person.

So you've reached that category, the ever growing number of "what-ifs" life presents the older you get. "What if something had happened? What if we had both bumped into each other single? What if, what if, what if.

I suppose it's just something to get used too...

"For my lost friends
Now stops bad feeling
I've put it in the past
The ways we went wrong
for all lost friends
Though it cost time healing
Im better off from it, better"

Myspace can turn up some interesting surprises sometimes...