My guess is that it used to be okay.
They probably met in a quiet little bar on a rainy thursday night. Or maybe at a mutual friend's party. Or at a Red Sox game. Anyway, let's stick with the bar story.
He was probably sitting alone by the counter while the other guys talked and played pool. Then she hurriedly strolled in, sogging wet. She was probably on her way home from work or school when the downpour started, and she needed shelter.
He watched as she stripped her trench coat off along with her hat, which she wrung dry right there on the bar floor. The first thing that popped in his head was, "This bar is too ratty for a girl that beautiful."
She caught him staring, and she smiled, in her usual friendly way that always attracted guys like him. He avoided eye contact by sipping awkwardly on his bottle of beer. Next thing he knew, she was sitting right beside him and they ended up talking until half-past twelve. And they probably wouldn't have stopped if only the owner wasn't closing due to his own drunkness.
He probably couldn't stop thinking about her until they saw each other again, two days after. This time, it was in a coffee shop. Nice setting change.
Her brown hair was in a messy ponytail and the white apron that she wore was covered with coffee splotches. She was manning the register, and he was next in line. Her face lit up when she saw him, and they chatted up again, causing the other customers' nose to puff out smoke. They probably laughed about that a couple of times throughout the years.
But anyway, they saw each other the third time when he was jogging around the park. As fate would have it, so was she. That's probably when they realized that they weren't going to get rid of each other anytime soon. So that's when they started being best friends.
They went everywhere together. New york, Washington, Texas, Minnesotta, even once to Brazil. He probably has their photos locked up in a safe back home. They also did everything together. Rollercoasters, tattoos, zip lines... they went crazy. But hey, if you couldn't be like that with your bestfriend then who could you be like that with?
They were there for each other through numerous broken hearts, and by the time they were both 25, he had completely forgotten about the romantic way he thought about her years ago.
So one day, she asked him out for lunch. He thought it was only gonna be the two of them but he was surprised when she showed up with a guy on her arm. That was followed by an awkward introduction, which was then followed by a series of dates in which he was the third wheel.
The other guy was handsome, smart and really nice. He played hockey and was a lawyer. But despite all that, he didn't like him for her. He didn't like him at all.
And on New Year's day the next year, he found out why as he watched them kiss just as the first firework exploded to life against the pitch-black sky. He knew why. Finally. He was in love with her.
Completely and irrevocably. There was not even a shadow of a doubt on his brain that they were meant to be together.
Yet, as he watched her laugh gleefully as the other guy held her close, he knew she didn't feel the same way. So he hid. Not himself, but his emotions. He tried to shoo the feelings away. He tried to find someone else. But he still loved her, and she still loved the other guy, and the other guy still loved her back.
When he was drunk with whiskey on his room on Saturday nights. he would sometimes wish that he would leave her and break her heart. And then he'd come, like a knight in shining armour, ready to make it better. But he couldn't even linger on the thought. Because that meant that she would hurt. And he didn't want her to.
