It was finally too much. Too much to keep bottled inside. Too much to keep lying about. I had to tell him. I had to tell him before he walked away-

“I LOVE YOU.”

Lyndon froze, his back going rigid as he stood up straighter. I swallowed my pride, knowing that I had to say something now, or I was never going to say it.

“I love you,” I repeated, silently begging him to turn around and look at me. “As more than friends. I have since middle school, you know? Since we started talking all the time and I found out that you liked My Chemical Romance.”

The joke didn’t land. He didn’t turn around. I twisted the end of my shirt between my fingers. Was this a bad idea? Probably. Did I care at the moment…probably.

“Lyndon, please turn around,” I pleaded once I was met with silence. “Please say something.”

Looking back, I wish I hadn’t asked him that. I wish I had just let him walk away from me. I wish I had just suffered in silence.

It would’ve hurt a lot less.

He did turn around, but he looked sad, almost sympathetic, for me. He shoved his hands into his pockets, his eyes trained on the ground.

“Chia…” he said slowly, and my heart thudded to the bottom of my stomach. I knew that tone. I knew it all too well.

He was going to tell me something he knew was going to be hard for me to process.

I wasn’t ready.

“Please,” I begged. What was I begging for, exactly? For him to love me like I loved him? Or for him to let me down gently?

He just shook his head, his blonde hair swinging. “I’m sorry.”

“Please.” I took a step towards him, but he took another step away from me. “Please don’t break me like that. Please.”

“Chia, don’t do this to me.”

But I’ve already started. How do I stop? He is ripping me apart. Piece by piece. Bit by bit.

“Don’t do this to ME!” The tears prick the back of my eyes as I tried to hold myself together. “All you’re going to say is ‘I’m sorry’? That’s it? That’s all I get?”

He scuffs the ground once with his shoe. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Everything. I want you to tell me that you love me back.

One can only wish. But wishes don’t come true.

“Anything but ‘I’m sorry’!”

“Fine!” He throws his hands up, his blue eyes finally making their way to mine. “Fine! You want something else? How about, ‘Chia, I only love you as a friend’. Is that what you wanted?”

And just like that, he broke me into a thousand pieces, shattered in the grass, burning in the sunlight. Just like that, I fell apart, righr in front of him, and he didn’t care. I know he didn’t care.

Just like that, I stopped feeling. I stood frozen. I don’t know how long I stood there. All I know is that Lyndon left me, saying something about going home once I quit responding to his outburst. I stood there until the sun was close to setting and I knew my mother would be making dinner around this time. I stood there, like a statue, frozen, but I couldn’t be a statue, because I was broken, littered on the ground.

This time, I don’t think I could ever be put back together again.

I guess that’s what happens when you try to love your best friend.