Oh My Mona

You'd think if you were in love with your best friend someone would have figured it out by now; but really some people are oblivious, or maybe I just never showed it. But I think if you looked close enough, the signs could be there.

I've been in love with him for a very long time.

As far back as I have memory, he has always been there, like some divinity, gracing me with his presence. I always missed him more then other people, I always let him reach across and steal parts of my food when nobody else could. I let him drag me along on adventures and get stuck down ditches together.

If I think about him to hard it starts to hurt. Because it he could never like me. Its not that I was horrible or anything, he just doesn't like men. He just isn't like that.

I have had to come to terms with that.

That he will never love me back.

Xavier is like a mountain. No, that's a bad description, he's like the sort of thunder that make the whole sky reverberate, dark clouds shuddering, he is strange and something in him seems older then it should be. He has been my rock for a very long time, the person I come back to in the storm and my sky who is often, my storm.

We had been best friends since year 4 and I remember ever so vividly, him with his messy scraggly black hair and his chubby face looking down at me on the playground, reaching down for me. I think he even poked me with a stick when I didn't move.

You wouldn't have believed it but before he came along I was very very alone. I wasn't sure as an only child how to make friends with the others in my early stages of childhood, the social cues didn't hit my brain, or maybe I was just slow. I've mostly grown out of it now but sometimes... sometimes I'm just a bit stupid.

I had been crying. He came to my rescue; pulling me from the concrete with an iron grip and there was something in his eyes that was so sure that it was terrifying for an 8 year old. Xavier was so sure about everything, there was never room for doubt in his mind nor his movements, he was fuelled on clear purpose, always had been.

Since then, we stuck together, attached at the hip. If he was somewhere then so was I, and wherever I went, he seemed to turn up as well. He had grown out of his childlike nature now, losing his rounded face and tiny hands to be replaced with long limbs and smooth hard lines.

I can't name a time where we weren't best friends, we fought of course and things had been rough for him, far rougher then he could ever admit but sometimes I catch myself looking at him when he is zoned out. And I don't think other people realise how much he doesn't say. I can see the thoughts in his head, I want to help him, I want to reach out but I am unsure.

Over the years, we always had each others backs, we helped each other, fought for each other.

There isn't a world where I don't fight for him.

I must've been around 13 when I finally realised, it was like finding a brick in your pocket you didn't know you had been carrying but now you noticed it and then you never stopped noticing. It wasn't hot and contagious like it is described in books, not that you find too many books about a guy falling in love with his best friend; it was the opposite, it was cool and calm, it was just happy being a little cluster of feelings inside me.

Xavier had always been the more handsome out of the two of us no matter how humble he attempts to be, because he just was and neither of us could change that. But when he started seeing girls, developing crushes, I was more jealous then I should've been.

I never wished I was one of his girls, I just. I'm not really sure what I would want to be to him. I think if he ever found out that I loved him that he might disappear on me. I wouldn't blame him, I would be weirded out too.

But doesn't that hurt just a little bit. Its alright, I have learnt to ignore and accept it.

Before I came along, Xavier had this friend, Mona. She was, she was well wonderful. I never had a crush on her or anything, she was just wonderful. Xavier was obsessed with her. He still is now but every time I ask, he just looses himself in his own head thinking about her. I think he is in love with her.

I wouldn't blame him if he was. I wouldn't. Really. I wouldn't.

I would just be as I have always been, slightly bitter about it. Despite what I might think, I have done nothing but supported his frankly hilarious attempts of flattery and his wild chases after every new girl. There was always something new with him.

Seeing Xavier happy made me happy; so if he was happy with Mona or someone else like her, I could be happy with myself too. I could learn to live with it.

I sigh.

Its Friday morning and I have been staring into my mirror for the last 15 minutes. I see the person looking back at me. He looks like me and sounds like me but I do not know if that is me. I bundle away the little black flower that is my thoughts of Xavier and burry them deep, digging up a new grave to lay them in.

I look over myself in the mirror again, watching as my eyes, hazel of course, moved. Were they more green or brown today? I was never really sure.

My hair was still wet from my shower and it dripped into the sink. Drip. Drip. I had heard that sound before. I had been in Xavier's bathroom and I was with him-

I shut it out. I try not to remember things like that. It is not right. he is okay. He is betting better.

I'm just stood there, hands gripped against the side of the sink, watching the water droplets hit the sink. It's quiet. There is a lump in my throat. Maybe if I ignore it then it will go away.

Please go away.

I push off the sink after waiting as long as I can bear. My clothes are screwed up in my dresser and I put them on slowly. Friday seems slower then usual. I'm hungry.

I pull on my socks, and grab my phone, beelining for the kitchen. Opening my phone, I check the time. Its 8:23.

8:23.

Oops. I'm late.

I don't even attempt to skip breakfast because I'll physically die if I don't eat it so I shove an apple in my mouth and shove a chocolate terk bar in my pocket. Its a struggle to put on my shoes as I have an apple in my mouth that I'm trying not to let fall out and I have horrible balance.

For a few minutes I'm just crashing around in the hallway, trying to tie my shoes. Bag. Where is my bag.

I grumble. Of course its upstairs. The house keepers can just clean up once I'm gone so I don't bother to take my shoes off as I run upstairs and grab my bag from where it sits on the floor by my door and then skid back downstairs.

Thankfully I'm out by the bus stop, my apple eaten and in the bin by the time the bus arrives.

It stops in front of me, the door opening. Like my own private coach except private coaches are nothing like this at all. I'm moving down the Isle quickly towards the back; Xavier is already there, drapped across the seats, he smiles at me, but there is pain in his smile.

Something is wrong. I don't look at his legs. I try not to look. We will get through it. He will be okay.

I sit down beside him and pull out my terk bar.

"Mona kissed me yesterday."