The Friends Who Were There

The Rabbit had friends at school.
This was true.
There were other animals.
They ate lunch together.
They played games together.
They existed in the same places at the same time.

For long stretches of the day, this felt like friendship.
Not something questioned.
Not something examined.
Just a fact of the day.

At lunch, there were video games.
At break times, there were shared spaces.
Shared movement.
Shared routines.

It was easier when there was something to do.
Where the Rabbit did not have to find words from nothing.
Conversation was not the main structure of these friendships.
Activity was.
Silence was not uncomfortable if something else was happening.

The Rabbit remembers a best friend from primary school.
Or believing there was one.
The shape of it made sense at the time.
Three rabbits.
Always three.

But never quite evenly balanced.
There was always a slight tilt in the group.
A gravity the Rabbit could feel but not explain.

Eventually, the other two shifted closer together.
Not dramatically.
Not cruelly.
Just gradually.
As things tend to do.

The Rabbit did not protest.
Did not confront.
Did not ask why.
It simply adjusted its position.
Like furniture being moved slightly to make space.

From the outside, nothing looked wrong.
From the inside, something was always slightly off-centre.

By sixteen, the group had expanded.
More animals.
More noise.
More movement.

The Rabbit was included.
Often present.
Rarely absent.

But even then, something remained consistent.
The Rabbit was with them.
But not fully inside them.

Because speaking, real speaking, required something the Rabbit did not fully trust.
Spontaneity.
And trust in spontaneity was never automatic.

So the Rabbit became skilled at presence without full participation.
A kind of social proximity.
Close enough to belong.
Not close enough to disappear into it.