Exhale

Chapter 25 - I Saw Galaxies in His Eyes

For the rest of the party, I sat in my room. I didn't do anything in particular. After all, I just did what I usually do: read. However, despite my attempts to absorb myself into the text, it was impossible. Though my eyes were focused, my mind wasn't. Somehow, no matter what I did, no matter what book I chose, no matter how long I stared at the pages, thoughts kept flooding back to me. I wouldn't have minded, except it was forcing looming memories to reemerge. Thankfully, my repressed thoughts were eventually interrupted.

Knock. Knock.

Like aways, the door opened to reveal Phil. With worried eyes, he looked at me and asked, "Are you okay, Al?"

Looking up from my book, I lied, "I'm fine as always."

"The party was pretty fun, you know," he murmured. His eyes shifted to the floor. "But we really missed you."

All I said in response was, "Is that so?" Then, my eyes drew back to my book, though they didn't read a word.

"Really, I'm not joking!" he exclaimed. "We really did miss you... we were all worried. We also didn't know what had happened, so that made us even more worried."

"Nothing happened." Page turn.

"Al, don't give me that! I know something happened," he replied, frustration filling his voice. "I know you. I know you wouldn't act that way unless something was wrong."

I looked at him. His fists had been pulled into tight clenches, and he was biting his lip. The lens of his glasses were stained with the remnants of tears. His face was scrunched up and his eyes were dewy. His pale face had turned pink from scattered tears from when he was crying out to me.

"But how do you know me?"

With a perplexed face, he looked at me agape. "What do you by 'how do I know you?' I'm your best friend—I know a lot about you!"

"But how are you my best friend?" Looking away and with a quiet voice, I added, "I don't have any friends."

"Al, out of everyone else—including Esmae—I spend the most time with you. Isn't that enough to say that I'm your best friend?"

I looked back. "Even in that case, you're still not my best friend."

"So who is?"

"It's Katherine." With a murmur, I added, "It's always been Katherine."

He sighed. "Alright, so Katherine's your best friend..." He murmured something inaudible under his breath. "But at the very least, I'm still one of your closest friends. You know, since we've done a lot of stuff together and spent a lot of time together. Based on that, I think I know more than you think I do about you."

"Is that so?"

"It is so. And I'm not going to say that it's not so." Walking over to me, he met me at my bed. Pressing onto my bed, he looked at me at my eye-level. "Al, even if you don't think so, I know you. I know that the Al I know, though he acts uncaring a lot, cares a lot. Even when you're not involved, you try to help—you try your best to help your friends when they need it. But then, you always feel depressed because you feel as though no one ever thanks you for it. You know, like what happened with Esmae. You risked your life to save her and hey, you did. Both of you came out uninjured. But when you came out, there were no cries and celebrations for you. Sure, we kinda celebrated a little, but that was cut short when we noticed the marks on your face. You took that as us singling you out. Well, truth be told, we weren't—we were just worried. You know, since those have never shown up on your face until that day... and since we didn't know everything about the X.Q. virus, we thought the worst have happened. So as we gathered around you, worried sick about you, you took that as us isolating you for helping her."