I’m not sure when it started, but I know it wasn’t supposed to end like this.
The air feels thicker than usual today. Like something's hanging in the space between me and Eliot. And I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it's there. I think it’s been there for a while now.
Eliot’s always been the kind of person everyone notices. He has this easy way of making everyone feel like they're the most important person in the room. It’s not even an act it’s just who he is. He’s the guy who can walk into a room full of strangers and leave with all their phone numbers by the time the bell rings. I used to admire that about him. Or maybe I was just jealous.
I guess that’s why I never told him how I felt.
I wasn’t one of those guys who talked about feelings. I didn’t even understand them most of the time. I just wrote them down in my sketchbook, where no one could see them. And that’s where Eliot was too my sketchbook. A part of me that no one could touch, not even him. I’d always figured he’d be there, you know? Like we had this unspoken thing. Friends, sure, but maybe more than that? I don’t know. He never really made it clear.
We’d been friends forever. Like, literally. Since we were in diapers. I remember when we used to lie on the grass in my backyard, staring up at the stars, talking about things we’d never say aloud to anyone else. I think those nights were when I first started to fall for him. Not that I realized it at the time. I was just content to have him there, with me, in my little world.
But that was before... before Oliver.
The first time I saw Eliot with him, I could tell something was different. Eliot wasn’t laughing at his stupid jokes like he usually did with me. He was hanging on his every word, his eyes wide, like he’d just discovered the meaning of life. And all I could do was stand there, pretending it didn’t hurt to watch.
I remember feeling small. Like I was nothing more than a shadow in Eliot’s life. Nothing compared to the bright, shiny person that Oliver was.
And now... now, it’s like Eliot’s a different person altogether.
We don’t hang out anymore. Not like we used to, anyway. He’s always with Oliver. Always. It feels like every time I turn around, he’s disappearing farther from me like I’m slowly fading out of his life.
I tried talking to him about it once. You know, just to see if maybe we could go back to the way things were. But he shrugged me off with this weird smile like he didn’t want to talk about it.
“You’re being weird, Luka,” he said. “Get over it.”
And that was it. That was the last time we spoke.
Now, every time I see him, I just feel this heavy weight sitting on my chest like I can’t breathe. It’s like he’s not even the same person anymore. But it’s not just him that’s changed. I think I’ve changed, too. I don’t want to be this guy who just hangs around, waiting for his best friend to notice him. I want more than that. But I don’t know how to get it.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know where we lost each other.
But I wish I could find my way back.
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