I was looking at the ceiling from the comfort of my bed, trying to sleep and get enough rest for the exams the next day at school, but I could not help thinking that Alan would be at that moment in Ralf's club along with all those bad companies, probably ignoring the fact that the next day we had exams or relying too much on their intelligence.

I could not stop thinking about the consequences of the decisions Alan was making, and that I should do something like his friend to help him realize his mistakes. But at the same time, I kept feeling that part of me that told me that Alan should take responsibility for his own decisions, and seek for him a way out of them. To placate that anxiety that tormented me, I went to the kitchen to have a late-night snack.

I could not know if it was better to look for ways to help him or leave him to his fate, but he also knew that time was running out. After all, this was our last year and it was only a couple of months before the entrance exams at most of the universities in the city, and in some others had already begun. The time Alan would realize his mistake and start thinking about his future was something important at the point where we were, or it would be just like Mr. Andres said, and Alan would lose a year. A year, in which the point of no return could happen in case of mixing with the dirty businesses of Ralf and the people of the club.

I went back to my room and picked up my thoughts book again, seeing the thought of "Friendship" again. I read it again trying to think about whether the friendship I had with Alan was a real friendship or a false friendship like the one that described the thought. Sitting at my desk with the lamp on, I looked to the top where I had some personal photos, most of them with my parents and my little sister, and I focused on the photograph that I had taken when Alan, Axel and I had coincided in the same school group.

I took the photograph and put it under the light of the lamp. It had been more than two years since we had taken that picture and almost six since we had met. At that time, Alan was not the kind of person he appeared to be now, and that memory made me realize that it could not be that Alan really was not acting like that at the moment. Back then, the young man with short hair who wore glasses instead of contact lenses was a person who cared about Axel and me enough to put aside any commitment to help us when we needed it. For a moment, I remembered a thought that I thought would be the key to being able to help Alan realize things.

I had to admit that reopening his old wounds could put our friendship at risk, but like his friend, he wanted the best for him. Even if this meant that I would not be able to see him as a friend again. But I preferred to know that he corrected his path and turned away from me, rather than see how he hurt himself more. I returned to see the book of thoughts again, and reviewed the thought that would be the key to recovering Alan: Mal de amores.