Favorite Friend

Team

I'm a piece of shit is pretty much the only thought that circles around my brain for the next few days.

Every time I close my eyes, the same images replay in my mind; Aaron staring at me after he pulled back from the kiss, my mom's concerned look when I refused to eat the menudo that abuela made just for me, Melissa's crestfallen expression when I stormed out of her office, the way Chloe winced when I snapped at her.

And then there's Bryce's voice echoing in my brain: I don't understand why AJ keeps him around. I don't understand why he ever did either. When I look at myself in the mirror, I want to fucking punch my reflection. I don't understand how I could mess everything up so bad in the span of only one week.

On Sunday morning, guilt has eaten away at me enough to get me to sit down at my desk and look at the new thought log Melissa gave me for the first time; I feel like I owe her that much after what happened.

It's similar to the last one -the one that's a bunch of shreds in my paper bin now-, except there's a bunch of questions at the bottom that I have to answer.

At the top, I'm supposed to write my negative thought. After a moment of hesitation, I scribble down the one that has been playing in my head like a broken record: I think I ruined our friendship.

The first question is: Is there any substantial evidence for my thought?

I grip a little tighter onto my pencil, fighting the urge to stuff the sheet into one of my drawers and never look at it again. My throat feels a little tight as I clumsily write: It's been nine days and Aaron still hasn't texted me, even though we never go a day without talking.

I gulp as my mind flashes back to the day at the ice cream shop, to his grin when he told me he would spam me with croissant reviews every day.

He was the first to pull back. He didn't follow me or try to stop me when I left the playground. He didn't say anything. And I couldn't tell what the look on his face meant.

The image is burnt into the back of my eyelids by now; Aaron sitting in front of me, his face shrouded in shadows, blinking at me like he couldn't believe what had just happened. The more I think about it, the more the expression on his face turns into disgust, into anger. He's never been genuinely angry at me before.

My eyes start to burn at the thought, so I quickly go on to the next question. Is there evidence contrary to my thought?

I can't think of anything. I can't remember if he kissed me back; time moved weird in that moment and I was so high I was convinced I could taste the stars on his lips. He did put his hand on the back of my head, but Aaron has always been a tactile person around me. Now he'll probably never want to touch me again.

The next question almost punches a hysterical laugh out of me; What would a friend say about this thought?

I skip it and end up at the last question: Will this matter a year from now?

Aaron always asks me that. Usually, it helps put things into perspective. But this isn't me embarrassing myself at a party or stammering a little when I order at a restaurant. This is Aaron. Everything in my life is tied to him in some way; my political compass, the music I listen to, the voice I hear in my head when I try to calm myself down, every childhood memory I have. If this is really it and I ruined everything, it'll still matter in five, ten, fifty years. Nothing matters more than him.

Even now, after only a few days without him, I miss him so much it hurts. With shaky hands, I grab my phone and open the chat again, but I can't bring myself to type. Instead, I stare down at our last messages and at the photo he sent me before the party. I've been looking at it so much that the picture is ingrained in my mind at this point; the contrast of the bright shirt against his skin, his hand holding the phone, the dimple in his cheek as he smiles.