Friends and rifts

Friends mocking each other is ordinary. But mocking a person for their fears in my view is inhumane. Fears are formed with the experiences one faces in the progression of life. Thus, one cannot be the judge of another's fear without having experiencing the same events with the same impact.

I was in utter despair after witnessing an event that provoked one of my largest fears which lead to the mockery of it. A feeling of being naked in front of a crowd was engulfing me. The friendly sounds of laughter that I used to love and found comfort in was terrifying me. The incident was shocking yet the mocking that continued was somewhat horrifying.
The abandoned shell was calling out to me. But the person I wanted to find comfort in was not. That fact alone broke down the carefully constructed layers of walls. I ended up yelling at him for not shielding me from the knife-like words, as he was supposed to. The explosion was not foreseen. Complete silence followed. I left the place soon after, feeling embarrassed and defeated.

The offender and I made up after a slight exchange of words and a mutual understanding.
But him, the friend, had misunderstood the situation. The yelling that was meant for another had ended up hurting him. He had found his own shell, after misinterpreting the situation.

The cheerful and carefree atmosphere in the gang has dropped down to a peaceful yet heart wrenching silence. The loudest and the craziest of the gang, the main role of today's story was stuck in a corner reading a book with extreme interest. I, on the other hand was trying hard to be invisible and praying that no one would have the courage to come up and ask me 'what is going on'. Surprisingly or not, everyone carried on their own conversations as if to ensure us that we still have hope towards a reunion.

That was a few days after the event that pulled us apart.

It's almost a month since then and the gang is in normal gear simply without us having a conversation. The rift between us had knowingly or unknowingly drifted us apart with the passing of time.

This fact hurts me deep down. He is one of the very few people who I had in my inner circle. A friend I'm grateful to in many occasions. A friend I was proud to have.

It pains me to be the reason behind this new rift that seems to be taking longer than usual to settle. But pride and negligence have joined hands in pushing back the day in talking things out.

From another person's view, the issue seems to be so trivial to be giving silent treatment to each other. But for us, the matter is too unreal and huge that it drives us towards our own personal shells.

Time heals. That's what I relied on for the past month but no such healing was visible. The more sensitive the matter is, I back down and wait for another's entry into solving it rather than my own. But this seems to not work since the friend is also waiting. All what is left is for me to take the matter into my hands and to make the first move. Hope the first move doesn't make it worse.