The hardest part about realizing you have the hots for your best friend is wondering if it’s one sided.
Once I realized that I wanted Joseph to kiss me in the elevator, I spent the next two weeks watching all his behavior through an entirely new lens. He never openly flirted with me or tried to ask me out, we just happened to see each other almost every weekday.
All the things he would do that I never noticed before started to scream at me in different ways.
When we sat at the table to study, he always sat across from me, and his foot would casually rest against my ankle. If I interrupted his reading, the corner of his mouth would curve into a smile at the sound of my voice saying his name. When my water bottle was empty, he would get up to fill his and take mine too, though I could tell his was still full.
The behaviors could all mean nothing, but they seemed like something.
When I would sneak glances at him, he would already be looking at me.
He looked at me a lot.
Had he always looked at me this often? Had I just been oblivious? Every time I caught him felt like confirmation that my attraction to him was a mutual feeling.
So, I started baiting him to make it happen more.
I would play with the neckline of my shirt, showing small peeks at my collar bone or cleavage as I read. When I caught him looking, he would blush and lightly chew the inside of his lip as he turned his face away. The profile view of his jaw and neck was an unintentional temptation counterattack.
I dropped my pen under the table on a day that I was wearing a skirt. He was quick to retrieve it for me, but noticeably took his time to get back up.
When he was talking to me, I would lightly tap my bottom lip, pretending to think about what he was saying. He would almost immediately start stumbling over his words at the sight. After a small sigh to collect himself, he would continue.
However, no matter how much I baited him, he never did anything about it. His blushing, sighs, and small lip bites let me know he wasn’t indifferent to my behavior. He just never took any action.
He would look at me, and talk to me, but he wouldn’t touch me.
And it was driving me crazy.
Two weeks of indirect seduction attempts with no response was all it took for me to become desperate with desire for my friend. Each day he looked at me, and did nothing, was torture. If my internal screaming had been auditory, it would have shattered the lens in Joseph’s glasses.
The longer he did nothing, the more I thought about him. I wasn’t just attracted to Joseph, he meant something to me. Memories of my first year of college were intertwined with the way he laughed at my jokes, the way he held the door open for me, the easy flowing conversations we constantly had, the celebration dance we did when I passed a test, and the hugs of comfort when I failed them.
Joseph was one of the most wonderful people I had ever met in my life.
Despite the number of romantic dates I had gone on with other guys, none of them were as enjoyable to be with as Joseph was. I preferred being with him, and there might be an important reason why that was the case.
One day, on our usual elevator ride, I watched his lips talk to me and his hazel eyes sparkled playfully behind his glasses. As his baritone voice spoke to me, I found myself smiling at a joke that I honestly didn’t hear.
The rumble of his laugh made me want to put a hand on his chest and my fingers in his hair. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Are you ever gonna make a move, Joey?” I blurted at him, even though he was mid sentence.
His mouth hung open, the words he had been saying died in the air, forgotten by both of us. Eventually he chuckled and a smirk crept up the corner of his inconveniently distant mouth. Staring me down, he leaned forward, and put one arm up against the elevator wall by my ear, trapping me in front of him.
Anxious excitement had my heart pounding in my ears.
He stopped short though, not closing the distance entirely, and instead whispered quietly. “Even if I did, Tiffy, you wouldn’t reciprocate.”
As my friend, he heard countless stories of dates that tried to kiss me and how irritated I was by presumptuous men. Even the good dates I went on, where consensual kissing happened, all eventually evaporated into nothing after a relatively short time. Joseph had spent an entire year watching my fickle emotions eat through guys and always seemed amused at their eventual demise.
This moment was different though. I had never wanted it to happen like I wanted it now.
Which is why I decided to make the first move.
He didn’t pull away from my hands as they wrapped around his neck to pull him to me, and it did not take long for the soft tension to shift into him lifting and pressing me against the elevator wall as I desperately kissed him. Our bodies responded as if they had been waiting for this moment long before I consciously realized it.
We didn’t hear the ding of the doors, but an old librarian that had seen us together all year long walked in on us. “Dear god, it’s about time you two,” she muttered at us as we ran out of the elevator, blushing.
That was the end of our friendship. From that moment on, everything was different. I learned that every date I had been on that year was a pale mimicry of what a true relationship was supposed to feel like. Everything was beautiful.
Joseph no longer sat across the table from me, but next to me so that we could hold hands. We snuck kisses in between the bookshelves of the library. I didn’t walk him to his car anymore, because he came home with me to help me make dinner. We steamed up his glasses so often that he vowed to get contacts.
We started going on adventures together. Mountain hikes to see alpine lakes, summer festivals to ride the ferris wheels together, blockbuster movie dates, art gallery visits, and fireworks shows. The entire experience was constant laughs, smiles, and kisses.
Everything was beautiful.
Until suddenly it wasn’t.
One day he wasn’t there after my class was over, so I headed to the library without him. I figured he must be running late and rode the elevator alone without thinking, but he never came. I had messaged him but received no response. His silence was an anomaly that planted a seed of fear and panic in my soul.
Frantic concern had me checking my phone constantly, but he never responded. I went to his parents’ house to find him, but no one was home. My daily routine started to include swinging by there to see if anyone was home. I checked for two weeks before I relented.
My roommates asked where he went, but I had no answers. I was hardly sleeping because my mind constantly conjured horrific situations that could explain his absence. However, the news never confirmed any of my imaginary tragedies. He was just gone.
Summer semester ended, and my sophomore year began. Now that campus was brimming with people, I saw one of Joseph’s friends on my way to the library, and immediately approached him.
“Hey Clark,” I called, and he smiled at my approach, “have you heard from Joey recently? I’m worried about him.”
“I haven’t heard from him for a few weeks, but I wouldn’t think much of it. Moving across the country and starting his first year of law school probably has him super busy.”
Clark spoke about it so casually, but I felt like I had been thrown off a cliff at his statement.
“Oh,” I began, doing everything I could not to emotionally break down on the spot, “you’re right. I’m sure I’m just being a worrywart.”
He tried to continue talking to me, but I dismissed myself and went to the library. My head was spinning the whole way there.
This past spring, Joseph had been accepted into a law program that was one city over. He had been debating on whether he should move there or just commute. He had never once mentioned that he was going to be leaving for school.
Why would he not tell me? We talked about everything, didn’t we?
A small irregularity seemed to creep out of the shadows and lay hold to my heart. One thing that had never changed during our romantic relationship was how we talked to each other. The conversation flowed and we still connected like we always had. I had thought it was the hallmark of who we were as a couple, but suddenly realized that the conversations should have evolved.
We never talked about us. I assumed that it was because we were intensely present in one another’s lives and neither of us needed to define it.
We never talked about our feelings. It felt absolutely unnecessary because every electric touch spoke more words than we could ever convey.
We never talked about our future. I thought it was because there was an implied eternity to how we shared our lives together.
These were all clues to something I had missed and desperately did not understand. Joseph was gone. But those words did not capture the nuance of what happened.
Joseph left me.
Other people knew he was going, but not me. He had chosen not to tell me. He had not even bothered to say goodbye.
I wasn’t sure when I arrived at the library elevator, but as I got inside and the doors closed, the emptiness became an oppressive weight on my chest. My breathing hitched and I slid down the elevator wall to sit on the floor and sob into my hands.
There was no way I could understand what had happened, but I didn’t need to. The truth of the situation was staring me in the face. The irony of it was beautiful and painful.
Riding the elevator alone was the final phase of our relationship.
My heart was decimated, and I had to avoid all the places that were haunted with memories of him. I started studying on the second floor and, even if I didn’t consciously realize it, I always took the stairs from that point onward.
The doors to the elevator opened, pulling me back from my trip down memory lane, and I stood there with Kendrick’s luggage as silent tears streamed down my cheeks. This happened so incredibly long ago that I was ashamed of these tears.
Why did this still hurt so much?
The most frustrating part of this whole situation, the part that made me rage whenever we crossed paths, was that even though I thought he was a piece of shit for what he did to me—
I still missed him.
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