Drew Starkey Imagines

He's All I Think About

He talks to me like I'm just air. Familiar. Always there. The kind of comfort you never really notice until it's gone.

But I notice him. All the time.

I notice the way his smile tilts more on one side when he talks about her. The way he runs a hand through his hair when he's nervous, or how his voice drops when he's telling a secret no one else gets to hear.

I notice everything.

Because I'm in love with him.

Hopelessly, silently, completely.

And he doesn't know.

⸻

We've been friends for three years. Three birthdays. Countless late-night drives and 2 a.m. phone calls. I know the exact brand of cereal he buys and forgets to eat. I know the song he skips because it reminds him of the girl he hasn't stopped loving since sophomore year.

She's beautiful, of course. Blonde. Bright. Laughs like wind chimes in spring. The kind of girl who doesn't even realize she's shattering you every time she walks into a room and looks straight through you.

And Drew? He talks about her like she's poetry in motion.

"She looked amazing today," he says, collapsing onto the couch beside me like his heart is a balloon, and she's the string tugging it higher. "God, she doesn't even try, you know?"

I bite the inside of my cheek. Nod. Smile.

"Yeah," I whisper. "She's... something."

But it's not her he calls when he's unraveling. It's not her who brings him coffee when he's running on fumes or knows which hoodie he wants when he's sick. It's not her who holds his secrets like glass and never lets them fall.

It's me.

I'm the background of his favorite photograph. The footnote in his story. The one who's always there, heart bleeding behind a calm smile.

⸻

I pretend it doesn't hurt.

When he talks about her. When he wonders why she doesn't look at him the way he looks at her. When he asks me how to get her attention, not seeing that mine is glued to him, all the time.

Sometimes I write it all down. The pain. The longing. The fantasy of what it might feel like to be chosen by him—not as a friend, not as the fallback—but as the first choice.

I write it in spiral notebooks at 1 a.m. when I can't sleep. I scribble it into poetry I never let anyone read. I hide it in song lyrics, in doodles, in the way I say his name like it's a prayer.

He never sees.

Maybe he doesn't want to.

⸻

There's this moment that happens sometimes.

It's small. A glance. A hesitation.

We'll be laughing, shoulder to shoulder, and he'll look at me a little too long. Eyes soft, smile fading just slightly. Like something's there—like maybe, just maybe, he sees it too.

But it always passes. He shakes it off. Goes back to talking about her. Like the thought of us was a glitch, a daydream not worth exploring.

And every time, my heart sinks a little deeper.

⸻

Tonight, he's talking about her again.

We're lying on the floor in his room, lights off, only light is the lamp glowing faintly on his bedside table. His voice is low, thoughtful.