- ONE #2
I excused myself after a dinner of chopped salad that Jade had insisted on throwing together around eight that evening, wanting to settle in, wanting to get a good night of sleep for the first time in a week.
"But it's a full moon," Jade had said, turning from the dish she was rinsing and giving me her full attention.
"Ah... okay," I said, unsure how I was supposed to respond to that.
"You don't want to come out to the circle with me?"
Not knowing what the hell a circle was, but pretty damn sure it wasn't up my alley, I shook my head. "Not this time, Jade. I'm just... beat..."
"Oh, right," she said, shaking her head like she was being silly. "Duh. Okay sure. Maybe next month then. I'll be late. Get some rest. There is lavender spray for your pillow in the bathroom if you would like to really unwind."
"Thanks, Jade," I said, truly meaning it. Not for the lavender spray, but her kindness.
"Of course," she said, giving me a smile that was all white teeth. "We're friends now!"
--
Then we were.
It was like her off-hand declaration was some sort of premonition because, quite frankly, while I thought she was a doll in her sweet, naive oddness, I didn't exactly think we would bond.
See, we were opposite in almost every way it seemed at first. Aside from the vegan thing.
She only liked to own things that were 'previously loved'; I liked new.
She seemed to itch if she had to wear too much clothing and the clothes she did wear were all of the natural material variety; I was forever covering up as much as possible in stretchy leggings made of who-the-hell-knew synthetic fibers and oversize sweatshirts.
She hadn't owned a television in years; I always caught up on Netflix and Hulu.
She worked for herself making some kind of hand-carved figurines; I worked for a lawyer who I loathed to my very core.
We were just so different.
But the first night I woke up to an odd clinking sound to find Jade in my room, her delicate hand holding an ornate bowl full of some kind of tumbled stones as her other hand lined a bunch of them on my windowsill.
"What are you doing?" I asked, my voice sleep-raspy and perhaps a tad bit too surly.
"Unakite," she said, holding up one of the stones in her bowl.
"Una-what?" I asked, sitting up and flicking on the lamp on my nightstand.
"Unakite," she repeated, showing me the swirly green and pink stone. "For the union of opposites. It's to take the negativity off your heart chakra."
I smiled, shaking my head a little. I hadn't told her about my breakup, but sometimes women could just put two and two together.
"I happen to like the negativity on my heart chakra.
If there is a stone that is the metaphysical equivalent of barbed wire for my heart chakra, please give me some of that. "
While I knew because I knew she was a soft-heart like that that she didn't approve of my comment, she hadn't tried to change my mind.
She had simply sat down at the foot of my bed like we were the dearest of friends and pulled a necklace out from a tiny little medicine bag she wore like a cross-body purse.
"Here," she said, holding out a huge chunk of clear gemstone with a wooden notch attached that had some kind of symbol burned in it, both hanging off a hemp rope.
"I made this for you. Crystal quartz. For protection," she explained as I took it and pushed it over my head, perhaps feeling a bit gushy inside.
While I'd had female friendships over the course of my life, it never got to the point of making one another friendship jewelry.
"Protection from what?" I asked, tilting my head a little.
"Whatever you may need protection from," she told me, leaning down to place the bowl of unakite on the floor and curling up at the foot of my bed. Before I could even grasp what was happening, she had fallen asleep.
As I sat there listening to her breathing and trying to wrap my head around the weird interaction, the chunk of gemstone between my breasts seemed to hang heavier, seemed to vibrate with an energy that was at once anxious and relaxing.
With that, deciding I was being a nut, I flicked off the light and passed out.
But in the small exchanging of a gift that I never again took off and sharing a bed, a friendship was born.
It was the likes of which I had never truly experienced.
It was effortless. There was no snippy-ness, competition, or jealousy.
There were no passive-aggressive texts. Though, that might have had a lot to do with the fact that Jade didn't own a cell phone.
But we just... got on effortlessly.
She kept odd hours, working for herself, so some mornings I would wake up to find her sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter with a giant platter of chopped fruit she planned to share with me before work.
Other mornings, I would find her passed out on the living room couch beside a big pile of finished figurines.
Those days, I would make a big lunch, take half to work with me and leave the rest for her.
She asked me to join her on her hippie trips out but didn't fuss when I refused.
She would frequently 'cleanse' the apartment with burning sage and bring me hot tea in bed at night, sitting cross-legged on the edge and asking me about my day and hopes and dreams.
She listened about Corbin and confided about a man she dated named Doyle. "He took someone else on Beltane," she said as if I should know what that meant. "Which, I mean, most people do. But it was just..."
"A betrayal," I supplied.
"It was Beltane though," she shrugged.
"Yeah, well, fuck him," I said, not knowing the man in question, but outraged on principle.
"No, really," she said, shaking her head. "He's a wonderful person. Truly. A good soul. I'm not angry."
And she wasn't.
Most women I knew who said that, said it to save face.
They pretended to not be angry, so no one knew that they were hurting.
But Jade meant it. She wasn't angry or bitter or fearful of loving other men.
Jade, I swear to all that was holy, had sugar water running through her veins. Everything about her was sweet.
"You know what, Jade?" I asked, tapping her knee with my toe.
"No, what?"
"I think I am in friend-love with you."
"You know what, Celestine," she said, smiling because she knew I hated the name, "I think I am in friend-love with you too."