I Miss My Best Friend

I met him when I was 15 years old. We were freshmen in high school. He was the best friend of the guy I liked, let's call him Luke. So Luke introduced me to Max shortly after we became a thing. I didn't want to admit it at the time but deep down I really had a thing for Max. I let it go and me and Luke were together but I knew it didn't feel right so I ended it shortly after. I don't remember how it happened bit a few months later me and Max got to talking and we ended up staying up all night talking over FaceTime. I thought it would be best to just let it go because I just got out of a relationship and Max was Luke's friend. We didn't talk for a long time and school was out so I didn't really see him around. Halfway through summer he called me one night and we caught up after not talking for a long time and just catching up. He asked me about the new guy I was with, Tom, and I told him we were good. After that we stayed in touch the rest of the summer and talked every so often.

When school came back around (sophomore year) I found out I had a class with Tom and Max so I figured out we could all sit together. I wanted them to become friends because I really liked having Max around and I really liked Tom too. One night Max faceted me and asked if we work on homework for that class so we did but after we stayed up all night talking just like we had before. I felt guilty because of the connection I felt with him and that me and Tom never had quite as deep conversations. For the next two weeks we talked on FaceTime every night and became close. One day I asked Tom to hang out with me and Max and he agreed but when I asked him to meet up he started acting weird. He called me and ended things and I was crushed. I went on to meet up with Max and he healed me while I cried.

After that day we became even closer. We hung out all the time and did random things. We continued to talk on the phone every night. In a few months he became my best friend. Along with that I saw a new side of him. He was broken and suffered from anxiety and depression. I learned other things too like how he used to get high a lot but it made his anxiety worse and once it was so bad he went to the hospital. He didn't connect with a lot of people. He hooked up with a lot of girls bit felt nothing towards them. As much as I knew I should stay away, I didn't. He was different from the other guys I was friends with. No one understood my attachment but I saw good in him despite everything.

A little while after that my parents went out of town so I invited Max and a couple other people over. I had never drank before but I wanted to try it so we all got drunk. I was also never one for hooking up with guys I wasn't with but that night I did with Max. I regretted it after because he started to treat me like all his meaningless hook ups and it put a strain on our friendship. I didn't want it to be meaningless. Deep down I really wanted to be with him.

Over time things got back to normal and we got back to calling each other every night. One night after a concert that everyone was at he asked me to meet up with him. We went up to school and played on the football field and fell asleep cuddling. When the sun rose I tried to wake him up and he pulled me on top of him... after that we pretty much became friends with benefits. I settled for that because he could never bring himself to commit to me. It went on the whole summer. I was in love with him. Eventually I told him how much it hurt me because I had feelings for him and he told me he couldn't be with me so I said it had to stop.

Junior year now and I started talking to a new guy, Marc. Max was upset about it. I told him I would end things if he would be with me and we fought about it for a few months because neither of us could get our way. Marc had asked me to go on a date and I told Max I wouldn't if he didn't want me tòo and he said I should because he thought that I really wanted to. What I wanted was for him to stop me and tell me to stay but he didn't. After the date he told me that he was sorry for not being enough for me. I told him that he always was. A week later he said we could make it official.

I didn't realize it till later but up until this point I had been spiraling into depression. I would get really sad and he would let me come ever and held me untiI stopped crying. I became very dependent on him. I had no goals or aspiration. I didn't want to grow up and the world seemed so meaningless. He was the last thing holding me down to the world, keeping me from ending it all.

One night I was drunk and I called him because I wanted to tell him something. He came and I lost it and told him that I was scared to go to college because it meant losing him. I didn't think I could live without him. I put endless pressure on him and that is my biggest regret. He told me it was all going to be okay and that we don't have to think about it right now. The thing is he never stopped thinking about it. The week after that he was distant with me. I asked him if everything was okay and he didn't reply for several hours. I was worried and my gut told me that I would lose him. Later that night we finally met up and he told me we should go back to being best friends. My heart was shattered into a million pieces. I told him we could work it out because we were always more than friends and he knew it too. He's very stubborn and he always had to be right. His mind was made up. I didn't sleep that night or go to school the next day. We planned to meet again to talk about everything we has spent the night talking about. That day I convinced him to stay. I told him I would get better and I wouldn't put my pain on him anymore. He agreed but he never saw it my way. To him if we stayed together longer it would only make the breakup worse. We agreed on going into college single because we would go to different schools and we didn't want to try long-distance. We didn't have the mindset of a high school relationship. We could see ourselves being together in the real world, but we are 17 and we have a lot of growing up to do. No one knows what they want at 17.

Over the next couple weeks we had the same fight and constant breaking up and getting back together. On one night he sat in my driveway and wouldn't leave because he didn't think I was going to be okay. I told him to leave. He made me come with him because he didn't trust me when he said I wouldn't hurt myself. We went to his house and I laid in his bed crying out my eyes out. He told me that he would stay with me because my health was too important. I told him that wasn't what he wanted but he said it didn't matter what he wanted.

  A week later things ended for good. My whole world was falling apart. Nothing mattered at all. He wasn't coming back. That day I took a bottle of all my medication. By some chance my friends heard about the breakup and came straight over. They cried with me. I told them I wanted to die. I saw the pain in their eyes as they broke down asking me to not think like that. I told them about the pills. That night I slept in a hospital. I missed the last 2 weeks of my junior year. I tried to go back to school but I couldn't do it. The crowds in the hallways were the worst.

  I'm doing better now, it's halfway into summer. I've seen him a couple times but it isn't the same. I miss him so much. I miss his family and his dog too. He tells everything gets better in time and I hope he's right. I think to get better I had to learn to make myself happy and not rely on people. I learned a lot of things too. He's still my best friend and one day, no matter where life takes us, I hope we find our way back to each other.