The Day We Met

Eight: Shattered

*Jared's POV*

After the party, I stayed in school. And by accident I've heard Oliver and his friend Arthur talking about how much fun it was, and Oliver mentioned that the song was inspired by Theo. The song talks about how he admires Theo from afar, and how it broke his heart. While He and Arthur were talking,  they  didn't notice that I was just there standing behind the walls and listening to them talking. I was surprised upon hearing them talk. I stood there for a moment, torn between stepping out and pretending I hadn't heard anything, or walking away to process it all. My heart whispered and it drummed in my ears. I quickly looked away, unsure what to feel. My mind raced — had there been signs? Clues I'd missed? My thoughts tumbled over each other, growing more tangled as the seconds passed. As Oliver and Arthur were done talking, they stood up and walked away outside the school, then I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. The air felt different, heavier somehow, now that I knew. The quiet that followed was almost deafening, leaving me alone with the sound of silence. I had been in love with Oliver since the day we met. He was just so kind, funny, and always seemed to brighten his day with a single smile. We'd talk sometimes after class, laughing over shared jokes, and I thought—hoped, really—that maybe he felt something too. Every little interaction seemed like a sign, fueling my quiet hope that someday, I'd have the courage to tell him how I felt.

Now, I am driving home with a heavy heart and a lot in mind. Everything is still processing in my head, I don't know if I can handle these things going on right now. Sheets of rain blurred the road ahead as I navigated quiet streets, my fingers tight around the steering wheel, as the soft hum of the radio played on a song that was sad, slow across my chest, a weight I couldn't ignore, the words of his voice still ringing inside my mind. Oliver wasn't feeling the same, his heart belongs to someone else. I was left with the pieces of something I still can't figure out.

Streetlights cast a hazy glow through the rain-streaked windshield, illuminating my face in fleeting glimmers. I swallowed hard, feeling a lump form in my throat as I thought of all those  moments I'd held onto thinking surely must mean something to him, too. How had I misread it so completely? The thought made me small, as if clutching something invisible nobody else could see. Made me think that's why he pushed me away the night that I kissed him.

As I stopped beneath a stoplight, I glanced over to the empty passenger seat beside me, imagining Oliver there, laughing, just as he had so many times before. I clenched my jaw, pushing back the tears that threatened to blur my vision even more than the rain. The light turned green, pressing on the gas, feeling as though every mile I drove pulled me further away from him.

I knew immediately that when I drove back home I would run into silence, the dead silence that awaited in my room once again. In the meanwhile, however, now I'd just drive; this road forward was to absorb me a little further and further out from memories, beautiful pains, one felt both beautiful and in pain by the same beat.

Maybe I'll just admire... love him from a distance.

*Oliver's POV*

As Arthur and I were leaving the school, I saw Theo, with Jessica. My whole world shattered. It feels like
I'm breaking out.

He was standing so close to her, close enough that his shoulder brushed her's when he shifted his weight. I caught the way his eyes met Jessica's easily, the way his head tilted slightly to listen to her, and the little smile that pulled at the corner of his lips. It was the smile he gave me so many times-one never quite fully there, as if he was saving the rest for someone else. Guess, in a way, he was.

There are some moments that  I spent with him that I could let myself believe maybe—just maybe—I could be more than just a friend, I didn't even know if we were friends at all. Maybe someone who knew him better than anyone else could be the one he would call on a cold night to just talk about nothing. He was at the centre of my universe for such a long time that I'd almost started building constellations of every interaction with him. A shared laugh became a star. A lingering glance became a comet. And slowly, I built an entire galaxy around him without ever asking if he wanted to live in it.

But here I was, standing in the middle of his world, watching him drift further away with every small laugh he shared with her. It felt as if I was made of glass and someone had thrown a rock right through me, jagged crack spreading from the center outward. I'd never understood how something so ethereal could hurt so much, but it was as if a pressure built inside my chest, getting heavier with every heartbeat.

The ache inside me was dull at first, just a slight pang, but as they loitered on that street corner, it deepened to something raw and aching. The way his hand brushed against her arm so perfectly - something so small, so trite - yet it felt like a thousand tiny knives twisting in my chest. I could almost hear the brittle shattering of my own hopes echoing in my head, as real as any sound I ever heard.

I tried to look away. I told myself to just turn around, go home and forget. But I was rooted in place, like I needed to witness this, to absorb it all so there'd be no more room for denial. If I just saw enough, maybe I'd stop hoping. Maybe I'd finally learn that the space I'd been standing in his life was but a shadow he was passing over to get somewhere bright.

I turned to Arthur, and I can see the sadness that he felt for me in his eyes. A tear dropped in my eye, like a waterfall falling with a high pressure. Arthur grabbed me and forced me to go. But I stayed for awhile to watch them talk, and maybe I'll hear something. Somehow, it made me think that the song was useless-like it was nothing important to him. I even wonder if he likes the song. Nonetheless, it was all nothing to him.

And in that moment, I was desperate to hate him. I wanted to hate every detail I could make out across the street; how the head lay back at the angle of his ears, the casual swagger to the line of his body, the way he seemed so sure of his place next to her. I wanted to curse the way he fit so innocently into her world, as if he'd been carved from some part of it I'd never been let touch.

Now, the thing was, he had not been at fault. He had done nothing wrong. He just happened that she's the girl he wanted. It was I who had built daydream castles and mistaken his actions for something else and had let every moment he'd spared me gather into this false hope.

And as Arthur and I walked away, I told myself that this was the last time I’d wait for him, the last time I’d let myself hope. For once, I’d try to find a place where my heart could be whole, a place where I didn’t have to stand on the outside looking in. But even as I told myself that, I knew a part of me would always be there on that street corner, watching him with someone else, feeling the quiet, inevitable shatter of love slipping away.