First

I’ve done this before, but I didn’t do it right.

Hugging you is falling back asleep after waking up in the middle of the night at a sleepover.

Weird metaphor, I know, but all of them are.

Not all sleepovers are the same, but at ours it’s dark and quiet and we’re packed in like sardines. There’re only a few of us, and we trust each other so completely that none of us worry about midnight pranks, even though it’s totally something all of us would do.

When you wake up at our sleepovers, you’re dead tired because we stayed up half the night crawling into each other’s laps to hide from the monsters in the scary movie we watched or talking for hours on end about anything and everything.

When you wake up at our sleepovers, someone’s snoring quietly, someone’s murmuring, someone’s shifting to get comfortable or kicking butt in a dream.

When you wake up at our sleepovers, you have a bit of a giggle at the familiarity of it all. It’s like knowing what lollipop flavours everyone’s going to pick so you just hand them out and then look up at the amused faces.

When you wake up at our sleepovers, you pull the blanket around you a little tighter, snuggle a little closer to the person next to you, sigh happily, and drift back to sleep.

When you wake up at our sleepovers, you’re tired, but you’re safe and warm and content. There’s a little hum of joy underneath everything, even in your sleepy state. It’s not obvious, but if you tune into it, the hum becomes deafening comfort. If you tune into it, you get the most wonderful dreams.

Hugging you is a hopeless romantic getting caught in summer rain. They tilt their head back and catch the drops on their tongue; throw their arms out to make sure the rain doesn’t miss a spot. Maybe they spin around, or glance at the people around them with umbrellas in an attempt to get them to join in. Maybe one of them does, and then you’re both just spinning in the rain. Who cares about school or work or responsibilities? If you blame the rain, you’re technically not lying as long as you don’t tell them why it slowed you down.

Hugging you is quiet talks in a bathroom. It’s supposed to be about dumb things I did as a kid to make you laugh, but I’m worried and scared shitless so it ends up being gossip. I never did apologise for that, now that I think about it. But I have a few stories in mind if there’s ever a ‘next time’. (I hope that there isn’t one, but just in case.)

Hugging you is someone wearing a scrap of cooking string around their wrist that you knotted in a fancy way and refusing to take it off.

Hugging you is someone running their fingers through your hair just because. Maybe they know you’re stressed or tired, or maybe it was just because your hair was in reach of their hands, and they love you.

Hugging you is me seeing my alarm go off at 5:30 and dropping whatever I’m doing to text you something funny because even just imagining you giggle at something I did or said makes me happy.

Hugging you is someone walking behind the group, and one person turning around, worried, and then – ‘C’mon!’. It’s someone saying ‘I’ll go with you’ without there being a ‘because’ or a ‘so I can’ after. It’s someone saying ‘but if it’s for you, obviously I’ll put a bit more effort in’; or ‘you, obviously’; or ‘I dunno, I just wanted to walk next to you, so I did’; or ‘you don’t need to give me any reason to show that you are good enough, cause you already did that ages ago’. It’s someone knowing that you like having stuff written down so you can come back and look at it later without you having to tell them. It’s someone having a whole ass folder on their phone for me with stuff you wrote about me, including whole ass paragraphs about my goddamn smile and what you feel like when I cry and what hugging me feels like. It’s finally being first on someone’s list.

Hugging you is dancing in a field of dandelions, collapsing with laughter, and looking at clouds until we’re looking at stars.

It’s being convinced that you’re cursed to never have a best friend, so much so that saying the words ‘best friend’ is practically a jinx. You don’t tell friends that you love them anymore or make much of an effort because it’s never reciprocated and what are you thinking, don’t do that. Don’t make it a big deal, no-one cares about your issues. People have their own problems. You complain too much. You’ll never have what they have, you’re not meant for it. You’re not meant to have a best friend or have someone in your life that knows me as well as they know each other. But that’s fine. That’s okay, you don’t need that. You’re not meant for it.

Hugging you is having someone know all of that, and finally finally saying the words before you, so you don’t have to say it first.

This is why you are my best friend, you say so casually, like you didn’t just stick a smiley-face band aid over my entire soul.

And you tell me I’m amazing.