In my world, when one crazy thing happens, three more follow. This time wasn't the exception at all. The night everything with Leela and Alex happened, after I went to Charlie's home to talk to the boys, the feelings continued spilling.
It was raining still, so Oliver's dad picked him up shortly after I arrived. Charlie and I were left alone, Alice was studying with her classmate in the dining room, so my friend and I went to his bedroom. The original plan was to jam, so he grabbed his guitar, but I sat on the floor and I still needed to speak.
"So many things are happening to me, there's so much in my head right now" I confessed, exhausted.
"I can imagine," Charlie put his guitar aside, "with everything that happened today and what's been going on with your health. It's a lot."
"Yeah, but it's not just that" I started.
He crossed his legs as he listened carefully. "Tell me about it, darling."
I laughed at the therapist position he assumed, I took a deep breath and began throwing up information.
"During those days when everything with Luke happened, I was very sad. Sad and alone because Leela had Alex and Darcy had Elliot. No one understood how I felt, and honestly I believe everybody just expected me to get over it quickly. I had no one to confide and no one to keep me company. There was just one who was there," I sighed, "and that was Oliver."
He hummed indicating me to continue. "I might or might not have caught feeling for Oli."
Charlie removed his glasses in shock. I grinned and continued as I carelessly glanced at the ceiling, "not might, I did catch feeling for him. Yeah, I like him, like, a lot."
"You surprise me," he said, "Oliver is my friend, don't get me wrong. I love him. But what the hell does he have?"
I chuckled at his question, "I don't know." I sighed as I thought of him, "I don't know how to explain it. He makes me laugh a lot, I guess." I tried to find the reasons but they were beyond my understanding. "I'm surprised you didn't notice on your own, I'm so easy to read."
He laughed, "believe it or not, you aren't. I can read Darcy and Alex like an open book, the other boys don't express much, and Leela is very expressive, indeed... But you!" he pointed at me, "You're a Pandora box. I swear I never know what you're going to do next."
I didn't know whether to feel flattered or insane. "You really are the first person that tells me this in, like, my whole life" I said. "It's probably his nose, though" I joked and Charlie laughed. Oliver's nose is slightly big and pointy, I fucking love it.
After the jokes, we started talking about love. Charlie got serious.
"Was there ever someone important for you?" I inquired in true curiosity. Charlie had never spoken of any romantic interests, not even in the slightest.
"There was one," he said, "back in my hometown. I didn't want to catch feelings because I knew I was going to leave and I didn't want to put her through that. In the end she found someone else" he finished with a dark look on his face. This was definitely something that pained him to talk about.
"That must have sucked, I'm really sorry" I said. "Life really is a bitch, huh?" I tried to joke it off.
He chuckled as he looked down at his feet. "Look what you make me do, you make me talk about this ridiculous things and get emotional" he said.
I smiled, "if not me, then who will?"
After some time of jokes and laughs and subtle comments, Charlie felt the need to continue talking a little more. "You know... There has been only one time since then when I genuinely thought of taking the risk. Falling in love, I mean."
"When was that?"
He looked at me with a knowing smile. "Some time at the beginning of this year, I really liked Darcy."
I smiled back at him, not even slightly surprised by his words. Anyone who had eyes could see the complete devotion Charlie had for Darcy.
"I noticed that, actually it was easy to see" I said. In fact, he didn't seem surprised by me knowing either.
"Yeah, but... it didn't work" he simply said, almost in a defeated tone, as if he remembered the times with a certain melancholia.
"Is it really over now?" I asked. He seemed to get even gloomier as he thought about it.
"It is, I mean," he sighed, "it's been so long and so many things happened in the middle. Bad things. When the problem with Oliver happened and she got mad at me..." he looked at me.
I could see it was something that still haunted him. "Something really broke between you two that day, didn't it?" I asked.
"She didn't even let me explain," he seemed hopeless, "I was going to tell her, but I wanted to do it in person. I even tried to talk to her later but... she didn't listen. I just don't get what she saw in him, what was all the fuss about."
For a moment I feared he would cry, I had never seen him so utterly broken and open to show me this side of him.
"I'm sure you'll get to work it out. Just give her more time" I advised.
I decided to give him a way out and started talking about myself again, he seemed to appreciate it as he got himself together again.
"What about Luke, then?" he asked.
I sighed and smiled in a nostalgic way, "it's over. I mean it" I emphasized my words while looking into his eyes as I could perceive the doubt in his gaze. "I felt something really strong for Luke back then, and I was sad for a long time, but it's over now."
He smiled back to me as he spoke, "I really liked you two as a couple, it would have been nice" he confessed.
I smiled as the thought came to my head, "yeah, it would've been. There's actually a Taylor Swift song that talks about exactly that..." I joked and we both laughed.
"I guess it's common, those things happen. You know, those relationships that don't get to happen..." he said.
"...But it would've been good if they did" I completed. We both smiled at each other, knowingly, with a certain tint of nostalgia behind it. We both knew what our hearts had been through and we deeply understood each other well on the inside.
Minutes later my grandfather came to pick me up. When I arrived home all I could do was talk to Darcy and tell her she really needed to talk to Charlie, as soon as she felt ready.
After several days, I felt ready to talk to Leela again. I was calmer now, I wasn't going to snap at her. We started texting again, calling each other 'babe' again and, soon enough, she invited me over to her house to work on some decorations for the Talent Show. As we were in her bedroom cutting cardboard boxes and drawing, I decided to confront my mistake.
"I wanted to talk to you about what I said," she looked at me, "about the message I told Darcy to give you. I didn't know she was actually going to say it, I just said that because I was angry but I didn't mean to hurt you feelings. I don't want you to think it was on purpose" I finished.
She chuckled softly, "at that time I did believe you did on purpose. I was really hurt" she said.
"I know," I looked down in shame, "but I swear it wasn't. I'm really sorry for the way I acted. Not just that time, all these days. I've been a dick and I'm sorry" finally I looked at her.
"It's fine now. I'm glad you said it" she forgave me.
We continued our craft silently, I believe we had made peace but the wound was still open, and I wouldn't expect otherwise. We were interrupted by my grandmother calling saying my new kitten, one that Alex gave me, had fallen down the stairs and was injured. I spent many days struggling with her, taking her to the vet every time she relapsed. We discovered she was allergic to certain medicines, so we took really good care of her. She recovered quickly and she is now a five-month-old terror.
Since we're not allowed to have peaceful days, as soon as Leela and Alex were okay again, other news struck.
Darcy's relationship with Elliot had taken a dark turn. He had become toxic and, in my opinion, psychologically abusive. He became jealous of Oliver and he insisted that Leela and I hated him; he complained to her about us every day and questioned every single moment she spent with us. The cherry on top was the day Darcy had the slight suspicion that she might be pregnant, and he carelessly said it must've been Oliver's baby.
He made her so anxious. How could he change so drastically? He was dreamy at first, he listened to her and never judged her, now he was making her miserable every day. She wasn't sleeping, she cried for hours every time they fought and he said something hurtful; it was something really painful to see. We all could see how abusive the relationship had become, but she still wanted to try. She still tried to meet in the middle, but he wasn't backing down.
Eventually she couldn't take it anymore and made the wise decision of ending things, but he didn't left without claiming one last time that she had been cheating with Oliver. After that, he deleted her of all social media and erased her from his life.
She was heartbroken.
As Darcy was going through her grief, she found herself guarded by her friends. Leela and her bonded over feelings in common, she understood better than anyone. I tried to be there for her as much as I could, I tried to bring her out to see her friends and do stuff, it was all that I could come up with. I had her go to see Charlie so they could slowly begin to spend more time together again.
Darcy, Charlie, Oliver and I hung out one night. Charlie and I were jamming with the guitar while Darcy was basically rotting in his bed, occasionally coming out to see what we were doing or grab a glass of water. I was eager to perfect the song we had just learned because I wanted to sing it for Oliver when he arrived. When he came, he went straight to the bathroom, and I looked over to Charlie.
"Start" I commanded.
"Don't you want to wait for him to come out?" he asked.
"No, no. Its fine, just do it" I insisted. He softly smacked the side on his guitar, counting, and I began singing. "I just sorta always feel sick without you baby"
We began doing Sweet Dreams, TN by The Last Shadow Puppets, I felt too nervous to do it in front of Oliver so I preferred he would just walk in the middle of it, I guess. The song expressed exactly how I felt for him.
Second later, he came out of the bathroom singing too, and shaking his arms, but I couldn't even look at him. When we finished he clapped like crazy and said it was amazing.
That whole night was insanity, the boys jammed with their guitars, I did a revision of the choreographies for the play, and Darcy cried. We ended up at three a.m. sitting on the floor, talking about anything. Suddenly, I had a moment of self-loathing and intended to walk home but Oli didn't let me. I was avoiding getting in the car with him and Darcy, but I couldn't get my way that night.
When Darcy said she felt in a position where she could be truly friends with Oliver now, she didn't lie. They started talking more and they had more trust, Oliver was clearly comfortable with her now. She told him about Elliot and all the horrible things he said to her, even the ones about him. He soon became a support system for her, they talked every day and he gave her advice. They even joked about how their 'child' would have to choose between their football teams. All these things she told me about, but it was starting to feel like too much for me.
"Last night I managed to have an actual conversation with Oliver, finally. I just had to ask about his favorite band" I said, chuckling. My relationship with Oliver, on the other hand, was decaying. We barely talked.
"I was talking to him too" she said as she began to tell me everything they talked about, which clearly took all night. I felt as if she was comparing the situations and, if that was the case, she won.
I slowly started feeling uncomfortable about bringing the topic of Oliver with her, for several days I had this bad taste in my mouth about what was really going on behind my back, because I clearly didn't know anything. It was a really bad feeling the one I had, and in my head there was a war because one voice told me it was okay to feel this way because of what I felt for him, but the other voice told me I had no right to claim him because, in a sense, I stole him first. Also, who was I to rob her of her closest friend at the moment, when she needed him the most? Whether I liked it or not, he played a major role in her life now.
One night, as we were walking home to get ready for a night out, I decided to bring the matter to the table.
"Darcy..." I said to get her attention. She glanced at me as she smoked her cigarette, "do you really not mind my thing with Oliver? Because I feel like you do."
"I don't" she simply said, not looking at me.
"It's because I feel like you always feel the need to show me how much you guys are close and it hurts because you know I struggle to get close to him."
"I'm going to be honest with you," she said. I felt my chest sink in advance, "I don't think the story is over yet, you know?" I felt my heart break with every word. "I don't know whether it will be a conversation, another kiss or if we're going to fuck, but something will happen" she finished.
I felt a lump in my throat, "you could've told me this before."
"It's something I started thinking now," her words were careless, "but don't worry. So much time can pass before something happens. You can do what you want." It felt as if she was letting me borrow Oliver, I felt nauseas.
I did my makeup and hair silently at home, we barely talked. The drive to Alex's house was also silent, by the time I arrived I told Leela everything and she couldn't understand Darcy's sudden change of mindset. Alex left for work, he was being the bartender at the club that night and he left us in charge of the house. I started drinking until I felt tipsy enough to start dancing and laughing as if nothing happened. We took pictures in Alex's mirror and we joked a lot but, as soon as I was left alone with Leela, we lied down on the bed and we started talking.
"How are you feeling, babe?" she asked. I gave her a weak smile.
"Sad," I chuckled, "I don't understand what's happening. Why did she say that?" A single tear started falling down my right eye into my ear.
My friend grabbed my hand and rubbed her finger on my palm to comfort me. "I don't know why, babe" she said.
In the dining room, Darcy was dancing and having the night of her life, probably telling Charlie everything. I bet she must be telling everyone that I got it all wrong and I'm exaggerating, I thought. At a time like that, I couldn't trust my own head. Could this be it? Could this be the way I lost my best friend? Who was really in the wrong now?
Who was the real enemy?