Icarus Melgren was falling apart in my arms, and I had no idea how to help him.

These were not the kind of things I learned in textbooks, and I was never more unprepared for something in my life. I was used to following procedures and tasks like a science lab, but this felt worse than an impromptu test. 

The hug had only been a bandaid to Elion's gaping wound on Icarus by confirming they were done with a simple text. Icarus hadn't expected Elion to be this steadfast with his ultimatum, and I hadn't, either.

I skipped astronomy class, tugging on Icarus' hand to an empty classroom, letting him grieve what once was without worrying about someone else seeing him. I sat beside him at a desk in the middle of the room, his cries echoing throughout the room. 

"Why," Icarus wailed, gripping my hand tightly atop the two-person desk. "Every time I thought we worked it out, it just fell apart. And then, when I thought we finally talked it through, something else just gets dredged into it. I can't just put my life on hold for him. I can't!"

There were no words of comfort I could find that would ease his pain. Although there were moments of betrayal and heartache I had experienced within my affection for Icarus, this was an entirely different scenario, no matter how I tried to empathize. Icarus had never been a partner to me in the same way he and Elion were; that breakups and rejection on this front almost felt like comparing oranges to apples. Both tree fruits with drastically different properties and tastes. 

But I remained at his side in an empty classroom, letting him express his pain. Strangely, this felt like one of our times on the roof, sitting in near silence. Although it had been years since we'd met on his roof, the same rushing feeling returned, my heart beating at being this close to him. I only hoped that our conjoined hands did not give away and that his presence made my heart race in such a way.

It pained me to see him like this, wallowing over another sun he could not reach. While curling his knees to his chest, all I could imagine was a heartbroken shell of a man extending his hand up to the sun amongst the clouds, wishing to be graced by just one ray of sun, to be the lucky one to receive the warmth and strength the sun provides. 

Instead, he was a sunflower, overshadowed by another, blocked from the nutrients and attention he desired. A moon couldn't possibly provide him the warmth and comfort he needed, no matter how hard I tried.

Watching him wallow in misery over Elion reminded me of the pictures I've seen in the books I've studied. Among the myths and deities of old, depictions of religious figures were also shown, including the fall of Lucifer. It was this striking picture and tale that I had once compared myself to, struck down and cast away from the high place Icarus resided. 

What I thought resembled the fractured friendship now clearly resembled the broken man before me. 

Icarus and Lucifer might've been friends if they had shared the same time frame. While Lucifer's fall had been for different reasons, the agony of losing something dear to them was a pain no one should have had to bear. 

I was used to the emotions and feelings being so out of reach from someone yet so close that this was not foreign to me. I knew exactly what Icarus felt, for those same emotions were what I lived through each and every day around him. All the times his eyes fell upon Elion instead of me, nights where he'd spent on the phone instead of the roof below the stars, and the nights I'd set aside those tales of new stars or planets for another day because of those phone calls. 

And yet, the anguish from just Icarus' brief moment of heartache felt a monumental times worse than my own. 

Or I had grown used to the festering feeling of unrequited love. 

Yes, love.

I loved Icarus Melgren.

I loved him more than Icarus loved the sun. More than he loved the warmth, the wind through his hair, or the feeling of soaring through the air. I loved him more than words describe Icarus' ambitions and flaws. I loved him as wild and over-the-top, loved him as though this would be my last time seeing him. I longed to be the sun he so desired to reach, but I was the sun who watched him fall, plummet just out of my grasp, to an ocean I could not meet. 

But I was no sun in his eyes, and I had long accepted that notion.

But maybe Icarus didn't need a sun; perhaps he needed a moon, wrapped in a gentle embrace that could never burn his wings again, at his side as it's always been before.