My last Sunday as a college student. It’s crazy to think about. I’ve been doing that a lot recently: thinking. I’d say it’s probably borderline overthinking really. Do I tell Olivia I like her or just try to forget about it and move on, let her be happy with her new boyfriend? What courses would Patrick like to do beside Medicine? What the hell am I wearing to Prom? I’ve started to feel a little like a stereotypical teenage girl. It’s a little weird really. I mean, what kind of 18-year-old lad stresses about whether a girl likes him back or not? Probably all of them, to be honest. They just don’t show it. Or write about it, like I’m doing.

It doesn’t help either when you’re on a walk with your dog and the girl you have a crush on calls you to talk about her new boyfriend. Yeah, it’s pretty sucky to be honest with you. But it’s what I’ve got to do as her best friend. I’m there to listen, even if it hurts me a little.

“Sam?” It’s always nice hearing her voice. “You there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?” I was walking up a pretty steep hill at this point, practically being dragged by my Husky. “Could I get your advice on something? It’s Luke related.” I don’t think she heard me sigh, and even if she did I’m sure she just thought it was another pant as I climbed the hill. “Course you can. Shoot.”

“So we were talking for ages last night and it was really good but now he’s not responding to me. I’ve been left on delivered for 11 hours.” It was 12:36pm. “I don’t think that’s that bad. He’s probably still asleep.”

“But what if he’s not? Should I check his snap score and see if it’s—” I cut her off immediately. There’s no way I was letting her check his snap score. That’s grade A crazy talk. “No.” I finally reached the top of the hill. “Don’t check anything. Put your phone down and mute it. Hide it if you have to. Then go and do something else. Watch a show or go outside or something.”

“You think that’ll work?” She couldn’t see it but I rolled my eyes.

“Yes. Trust me, it works.” How do I know? I’ve done it when she’s not responding to me. Learnt it from when me and Hannah were dating. “Okay, I trust you.” There was a pause. “So, what’re you up to today?” I felt like she was using me as a distraction but, honestly, I didn’t care. Ever since her and Luke started dating a few weeks back, I haven’t spoken to her much. She’s busy a lot. She works two jobs and then Luke, obviously, comes before me in her priorities so I’m kinda left getting responses every 3 hours…

I don’t like it but what can I do about it?

“I’m just walking my dog. Probably going to hop on some games with Patrick later. I finally got to a high enough level on GTA to do heists now, on my new account, so we were gonna do that. Might continue my binge of How I Met Your Mother instead though if he’s not available, so I’m pretty busy today.” As I spoke, I stopped thinking about what I was saying. I’ll be honest, I might’ve made all that up. I don’t really remember what I said. I was too focused thinking about how much I missed the old Olivia. The carefree, animal-loving, goofy Olivia who had time for her best friend. “Actually, I’m just at my house now,” I wasn’t. I was still ten minutes away. “I’ll speak to you later, yeah?”

“Sure, I’ll talk to you later.” I smiled, even though she couldn’t see me.

“Don’t focus too much on Luke. Enjoy yourself. See you.” The phone hung up and I let out a heavy sigh. Yeah, I messed up. The one time I actually had her attention and could speak to her freely, I hang up on her. What’s wrong with me? Sometimes I really do wonder what the hell goes through my own head. I know it’s meant to be other people wondering that but, my days, looking back on things, it does sometimes feel like someone else’s choices just in my body.

Okay, so what? I missed a chance to talk to a girl I really like one-on-one with instant responses. Big deal.

Fine… it is kinda a big deal to me. It is now, it was then. I’m going to let you in on a little secret here: I don’t tend to do well with mistakes. I often overreact. Take today as an example. I might’ve overreacted in how I dealt with missing that tiny, minuscule opportunity.

“I love that we’re doing a mini pub crawl!” I couldn’t really hear Eddy over the noise of the crowd inside the pub but I’m pretty good at lip reading. Patrick was sat to my left, looking less amused and pretty reluctant to be there – but he clearly knew how much it meant to me. “Yeah, it’s cool. I just don’t see why we needed to do this the night before our last Monday?”

“I messed up today and I wanna forget.” Was my very mature response. “I’m gonna drink so much tonight!” Was my dignified and totally respectable follow up.

Oh, and I did drink so much. I drank... way too much. The night started pretty tame. We were sat in a pub – the local Wetherspoons – and we each had a pint in front of us. I needed a second one pretty quickly. Then a third. And by the time I’d switched to a different drink, my mates were finally on their second drink. So, yeah, there was a lot of drinking.

I tend to handle my alcohol fairly well. I can drink a few pints and still only be tipsy. Eddy isn’t me. After one, he’s pretty much gone. I say this because after his second drink, he started getting a little unhappy with other people in the pub for being so loud. One thing led to another and the next thing I know, I’m holding Eddy’s right arm as Patrick holds his left. We were pulling him back because, just a few feet ahead, was a super annoyed, very large, slightly racist-looking man, who was ready to knock Eddy out cold. “Let me at him! I- burp- I can take him!” We knew he couldn’t but he was slipping from our grasp. We didn’t have much choice. Either we let go and Eddy gets knocked out or Eddy slips out from our grip and he gets knocked out. One way it’s Eddy’s fault, one way it’s mine and Patrick’s. We only had one option really...

I didn’t realise until after we were kicked out of the pub for Eddy’s ‘fight’ how hard it is to drag an unconscious human. We only dragged him to the doorway but still - it’s hard. After the fight, we made our way to the second pub of the night. This one was a lot less eventful. We drank, nursed Eddy’s face back to health and talked a little about nothing specific. Same went for the third and final pub of the night. After that, we headed back to Eddy’s.

“You know, I really do like you guys,” I was drunk but still not drunk enough to admit I love my friends, “and I trust you too.” Everyone took a sip from their can. “Can I tell you guys something?”

“Yeah, of course.” They both said. I was too far gone to tell whether they both said the same thing, one said “yeah” and the other said “of course”, or whether I misheard them say other, completely different, things. Either way, I took it as an okay to tell them my biggest secret.

“I really like Olivia.”

There was dead silence for a moment. “Yeah, no kidding, you’re best friends.” Patrick responded. Eddy raised his can and nodded, as if Patrick had just said something incredibly profound. As much as I do love my friends, sometimes they can be real idiots. “No, I mean I like love her-like her.” Their faces said it all, and then they actually said it all.

“Oh. You like-like her.”

“Yeah.”

“Does she know?” They took turns asking me questions. Patrick first then Eddy. “No, I haven’t told her.”

“Yet, right? You’re gonna tell her, right?”

“I don’t know. She’s got a boyfriend now and we’re going to be living nearly 200 miles away from each other soon so I don’t know if it’s worth it. Plus, we’re best friends and I don’t wanna ruin that like I did with Hannah so... yeah, I don’t know.” My words came out without me thinking. Which was useful because my brain had officially clocked out at this point. “You okay with all that?” Patrick asked. I didn’t respond. I didn’t know how to respond. I thought I was okay with the choice I’ve made but I guess I’m not.