Orange

I've always thought about maps in terms of their colours. The relationship I have with my best friend is orange. Orange, to me, is a mix of colours. We all know the yellow and the red. But the orange that I think of when I think of my best friend is peachy. Maybe a yellow and pink, rather than a yellow and red mix?

Yellow has always been a colour of happiness. Like sunflowers and marigolds and sunshine against a beach. The colour yellow reminds me of walking through the ocean right as it meets the sand. It reminds me of vibrancy and life and sunshine and flowers in the garden.

Yellow is my friend walking beside me on the beach as she tells me about her life. Yellow is dusting our feet free of sand as we stand by her car. It's the lemon in her spicy margarita glass. She fishes it out with her straw and she makes a face at as she sets it aside, her jaw clenching against the sour taste. It's the way she laughs when I say something funny.

Yellow is the faded map of our friendship. It's a friendship that's followed most of my life. I met her when we were young and now we're grown and aged and patched together like an aged piece of parchment left out in the sun.

Her face was pink the day we met. Or maybe it was even just the first day I knew her. She'd been crying, just like all the times we've cried together since then.

Pink to me is happiness, love, roses on a rose bush, nights dancing under strobing lights and laughing so hard we spit out the strawberry daiquiris. It's the cheap rosé we drank from the bottle as we put on our blush. It's the moment I burnt my finger straightening her hair.

Pink is the faded red from the times I thought I was jealous or hated her. It's the faded red where I blotted out mistakes along our journey. It's the faded red of the anger I've had as I've ranted to her about the things that have gone wrong, or the rage she's had when people don't treat her as she deserves.

The orange is muted because of the sadness I have at being away from her. Our lives, our life maps, are in different directions. She's no longer the girl who cried. She's stronger, she's better, and I'm prouder.

I'm sad she's different. I loved the girl who cried. I loved the versions of her I saw over the years.

But I'm not the same either. I feel calmer and less red and more yellow and pink than before. There's some more blue now, but it's a colour of calm, not sadness as I thought.

If my life map is a jigsaw puzzle made of different colours and shades, my best friend is orange. A muted, soft, pastel, impossibly happy peachy orange. Vibrant, full of love and laughter, beautiful.

Her puzzle piece is tucked safely between the deep blues and light purples, threaded through the greens and the greys, and still stark in contrast against the other yellows. She has her own place, her own space, and I look to her in good times and bad, knowing she's always there. Gilded in orange. As admired and appreciated as gold.