I stood at my locker, praying that he wouldn’t walk up to me. It was bad enough, having to deal with this secret on my own. Why would things be any better if fate brought him right to my face? The very face that was trying it’s hardest not to cry. As he got closer and closer, I found myself creating scenarios in my head, where I told him everything that I was thinking, where I could tell him anything I wanted. Except I didn’t want to tell him everything. Not just yet, anyway. All I really wanted him to know was one thing. Just a few words, that were small, and meaningless, yet they meant everything in the entire world to me. And I wished that I could tell him. But I couldn’t. And as he continued getting closer, all I could think about was how much I wanted to avoid this confrontation.
I walked closer to him, avoiding eye contact from everyone around me. I wished that this could be easier, talking to him. It never had been this weird, this tense, this difficult to talk to him. We were friends, and I never thought that things would be this way. He had been there for me, through all the girlfriends I had ever had, all the nights I had spent drinking myself into oblivion, he had been there. We had just talked, like a couple of guys. Like a couple of friends who knew that all we had to do to get through these hard times was stick together. And I had been there for him, too. When his girlfriend had dumped him just two weeks ago, he had been devastated. He didn’t know what to think, what to say to me, I had just been there for him. It was one of the greatest friendships I had ever been in, this one. And it completely sucked that the world didn’t recognize our friendship as they recognized other friendships. No, two guys couldn’t talk all the time, or hang out all the time, or talk like the best friends they were. We had always run the risk of being called gay, or homos, but it had never been like that.
But now it wasn’t even like a friendship. Something since that Saturday night; it had changed everything. All the things that had been said, all the things that had been bitten back. All the things that had happened, all the things that hadn’t. I approached him, and leaned against the locker next to his. I tried to force a smile onto my face, but when I saw the terrified look on his, I decided against it.
“Hey.” I choked out.
“Hey.” He whispered. I could see in his face that it pained him to sit here and attempt to have a normal conversation with me. I didn’t know what he was hiding, but I felt like he could see right through me. I felt like he could see right through my trying to play it off as cool, like he could stare right through my eyes and right into my brain. Where he could see all of the things I was dying to tell him, the thoughts that Saturday night had only pushed more to the surface.
He had made it all the way to my locker. And here he was, right in front of me, leaning against Megan’s locker. The very same Megan who I had cried to him about for hours on end. And he had just sat and listened. That was what made this the hardest. He knew so much about me, and he probably didn’t even know that he was on Megan’s locker. But if he did know, he probably would immediately apologize. And tell me that it didn’t matter anyway. And even though talking about Megan only caused bad feelings to rise he would know how to make me feel better. And that’s what made it suck the most. He was such a good friend, and he would be the person who I would talk to about awkward moments like this. Because he would laugh it off with me, and help me to laugh it off too.
But now it was just awkward. And I knew he hiding something, but I couldn’t tell what. and I could tell that he was looking through me, seeing all the feelings I was feeling right now. And I knew he probably knew that it pained me to sit here and pretend things were normal. And I hated that he knew so much about me. And at the same time, having someone that knew so much about me, possibly more than I knew about myself sometimes, was something that I knew not many people got to experience, and I was not willing to let that go. And somehow, he was slipping away from me. I closed my locker, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t I sighed.
“How did we get like this Aaron?” I asked him.
He shrugged, and, removing his elbow from Megan’s locker, ran his fingers through his hair. He sighed, and took a deep breath.
“I don’t know Ellis.” He replied.
Ellis was looking at me, staring into my eyes, waiting for me to explain the reason. As if I knew any more than he did. How does one go from being such good friends to something like this? And I wanted to tell him, because I think I knew what was making it awkward for me. All the things I wanted to spill to him. But I couldn’t. Not here, not now. And I had no idea how he felt, but I knew how I felt and what I felt right now was a desire to talk to him. I really just wanted to let everything off my chest, because now everything was weighing down on me, pushing me into the ground, willing me to fail. And I knew that I wouldn’t be able to survive this way for long. I knew that sometime, I would have to tell him, or else things would always be like this. And I was not willing to lose a friendship that meant so much to me, just because of one little secret.
I stared Aaron down, willing him to tell me all the answers. But he remained silent, lost in thought. I wondered why he wasn’t speaking to me. Things had never been this quiet between us. Hell, the only quiet moments we had had were when I was brooding about Megan, and he was sitting with me, knowing that what I needed most was peace and quiet. And that was what made this awkward silence even worse. The fact that he wasn’t talking, even when he knew I could see right through his eyes, see how uncomfortable he was feeling.
After a few minutes, reality kicked in. I knew that staring at him, willing him to solve everything, was not going to do any good. So I blinked, and moved my gaze to the floor. I waited for him to say something, but when he didn’t, I sighed.
“Aaron, I-’’
“No. Ellis, I’m sick and tired of this. Obviously we aren’t ready to talk right now. And after everything that happened, it makes sense. Okay? Let’s just either be completely honest, or end this, right here, right now. Just tell me right now, either let everything off of your chest, or we can’t be friends anymore.”
Ellis sighed, and moved his gaze up to the ceiling. After a moment, he looked at me, and smiled wistfully. “I have to go to class.” he said, and he turned and walked away from me. My eyes welled up, and I stared at the receding figure that used to be my best friend. And all of a sudden, I was pissed off. At Ellis, at myself, at the world for letting this happen. I sniffed, and turned around. Screw math class, I was going home to eat Breyer’s, and drink some of my parents’ scotch. No, all of my parents’ scotch. And I would go into my brother’s room, and smoke some of his pot, because right now I needed to relax. I would deal with his wrath later. Possibly while I was high. All I would have to do was give him a hundred bucks, and he would forget the entire thing. I wasn’t the kind of person who was into getting high, but right now, I needed something to calm my nerves. I knew my limits, and I was nowhere near becoming addicted to anything. I hadn’t ever smoked enough of anything to become addicted. And I wasn’t planning to now. I would smoke just enough to get myself away from the extreme sadness that would eventually sink in. I just had to make it home before the reality that I had just lost my best friend set in.
As I walked away from Aaron, it took all of the strength that I had not to look back. But it was better this way. It was better to keep my secret, and forever avoid the risk of rejection. I wanted to cry, but I knew that I had to get to English. The fact that it was my best subject, the one that came so easily, it might help me to get past everything that had happened. As I heard a door slam, I knew that Aaron was leaving. And it was no surprise to me, he was probably going home for the rest of the day. He might even be drinking some of his parents’ scotch. Maybe even smoking some of his brother’s pot. And I felt a knot in my stomach, hating the fact that I knew exactly what he was doing. I hated that I knew that right now he was probably tapping his fingers on the dashboard, keeping one hand on the steering wheel, and thinking about the mint chocolate chip Breyer’s he was going to have when he got home. My eyes filled up with tears, and I turned from the hallway and into the bathroom. I took a deep breath, and blinked a few times, willing my eyes to dry.
As I zoomed out of the parking lot, I tried to think of other things, but I found that my mind only wandered onto what Ellis was probably doing. He was probably getting ready to go to class. If he wasn’t upset at all by the loss of our friendship. If he was actually upset, he was probably in the bathroom, staring at his reflection, willing himself to calm down. Because he would never dream of leaving school early. Not like me, who would leave whenever I felt like I couldn’t handle it all. School would just upset me more. I would find myself staring off into space, or, more embarrassingly, starting unknowingly at someone. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate, and, honestly, I would probably miss more of the lesson than I would by going home. But not Ellis. He had always said that school helped get his mind off of his problems. He had told me that focusing on schoolwork was easier when he was upset. He was weird, that was it. I sighed, and tapped my fingers on the dashboard, keeping one hand on the steering wheel. Mint-chocolate chip Breyer’s. That was all I wanted to think about right now. I decided against my brother’s pot. It was better to just drown my sorrows in ice cream, than to run the risk of getting into trouble with my parents or my brother. Whatever, it was a chick thing to do, but I would drink some of my dad’s hard scotch to make it a little less weird.
I decided that I was almost ready to leave the bathroom, but all of a sudden the reality of the situation sunk in. I hadn’t told him, I would never tell him. Aaron would never know how I felt, and I would never know if he felt the same way. And that came crashing down like rain in one of those sudden summer thunderstorms. I slowly walked out of the school and into my car. Only when the door was safely shut, the windows were rolled up, the radio was playing, and my seat was leaned all the way back did I allow myself to cry.
I could not remember ever feeling this awful. Not even Breyer’s was tempting me right now, and I just wanted to lie down and forget about everything. I closed my eyes, but all I could see was Ellis’s face as he walked away. He didn’t know, he would never know. And that wasn’t okay, but I supposed it would have to be. We weren’t going to be friends anymore, and I didn’t know how I was going to take that. So I closed my eyes and tried not to let the tears come.
THE END.
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