Thirteen
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His name was Elijah, my closest male friend.
More than just that — he was one of my best friends too.
Elijah was always caring — so, so caring. Soft in his speech, soft in his nature; soft soft soft.
He was sunny mornings, and daisies in the wind, and sparkling oceans. He was canary yellow, apple green and periwinkle blue.
He was Elijah, and he was my best friend.
He has always been a smart person, often the class-topper while I came in second with a gap of just a few marks. Didn't matter though; somehow, to everyone's bewilderment, we never once viewed each other as competition.
We had an easygoing friendship, him and I.
Until, of course, there came the day when he confessed his feelings towards me ran a lot deeper than I could've ever imagined.
Elijah's always been a smart person; I still don't know why he went ahead and did something as ignorantly stupid as losing his heart to me. To me.
To me.
I was seventeen, and attending a Halloween-themed party being held at my Sixth Form college. My body was wrapped in devil's red, my dark hair flowing down my back in all it's wavy glory, and gracing the crown of my head was a band with two horns rising up from each side. My lash lines were outlined with Kohl; eyelids coated with a shimmery grey and black; and my lips adorned a velvety red hue.
Ironic, Elijah telling me how utterly in love with me he was whilst I was dressed up as the devil. A demon. Someone barely human —something with the ability to crush and destroy.
Anybody who broke the heart of someone like Elijah Woods had to be an absolute demon.
"Hey," he said as he came up behind me, "what are you doing out here in the hallway all by yourself?"
I looked away from the long mirror running horizontally along one side of the hallway walls, having finished wiping off a smudge of lipstick from my front tooth.
"Just wanted to make sure my makeup was still fine," I answered, smiling softly, telling him half the truth.
Elijah rolled his eyes, shooting me an incredulous look right after the first gesture. "I don't even know why you bother with makeup. You never wear it to school, and you still look great without it."
I laughed it off, knowing it was him being nice again. That was Elijah, the nice guy who wasn't stingy with remarks that could potentially place a smile on someone's face.
And then, feeling comfortable all of a sudden with just him there with me, away from all the noise of the party, I let him in on the other half of the truth.
"Actually, it was a little too crowded also," I admitted, shrugging with a sheepish expression. "And I kind of wanted to be away for a while. Sometimes I feel claustrophobic like that."
Elijah furrowed his eyebrows then, frowning to himself. "I was actually surprised you even came, Deb. You don't really like parties, unless it's a crowd you know very well and are comfortable around."
"I don't know?" I said truthfully, tilting my head to the side. "I wanted to make memories during my last year at school, maybe? Put myself more out there? I'm always so indoor-ish."
"Indoor-ish?" His lips twitched.
"Indoor-ish." I confirmed, smiling.
"All these years," Elijah sighed with a certain fondness in his voice, "and you haven't changed a bit."
"What do you mean?" I scrunched my nose, my lips forming the slightest of pouts.
"I mean that you're still the same awkward, introverted, very smart dork," he laughed and the sound warmed me, like it always did.
I grinned then. "Good to know you've been keeping close tabs on me."
"Kind of out of my control, Deb."
Something flickered through me—uneasy, and slightly discomforting. But he was my best friend and so I shut it off.
"Out of your control?" I asked, my curiosity getting the best of me. Now, I wish I never asked him that. I wish I just laughed, and rolled my eyes, and then grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back into the party hall.
There's so, so much I wish I can go back and tell the younger versions of me. So much. But it's so, so late.
Elijah didn't move forward, didn't attempt to touch me. He simply leant to his side and allowed his shoulder to rest against the wall. "Yeah, everything's always out of my control when it comes to you," he said, voice trembling ever so slightly, and his eyes filling with such an intense vulnerability that I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. To bury me painfully under stones and concrete and steel.
I didn't respond. I couldn't respond. I wasn't that person — the one confident enough to handle face-to-face confessions. To spill out my heart and allow all that swam inside me to fill up the space between myself and someone else.
I was just frozen to the spot; not breathing, not moving, not blinking. I was just not.
"Not in control of how my heart starts racing whenever you sit down next to me," he laughed weakly. "Not in control of the way my hands shake when your hair keeps falling out in bits and pieces from your messy bun, and I have to stop myself from brushing them away because, yeah, best friends are allowed to do that — but I wouldn't have been touching you with the intention of just a friend." He breathed shakily, "and so I always stop myself just in time."
I was crying by then—on the inside, of course. On the outside, I kept my resolve. That infuriating stoic expression of mine was on full display, whilst within me everything was being ripped apart and there was a knife twisting its way into my throat.
It wasn't that his words touched me—it was that everything from the tremble in his voice to the hitch in his breath to the rawness in his eyes told me that Elijah Woods, my best friend and closest male companion that I would cross oceans and climb mountains for, was in love with me. With me.
With me, who could never love him back.
Not in the way he wanted. Not in the way he loved me.
"Elijah—" I started, shaking my bead frantically from side to side because if I even attempted any more words, I'd be bawling my eyes out and gasping for air. And that was the one thing I could do for him —to not taint the memory of him confessing his feelings for me with the image of me falling apart right before his eyes as a result.
And he must've understood. He must have, because something in his face fell and his eyes deflated and I wanted to die. I wanted to die.
The rest doesn't matter, and is still too full of pain to recall within these pages.
Elijah Woods is a memory now, someone from a lifetime ago. Someone whose heart had completely given itself over to me that when I broke it, he could only mend it somewhere far, far away from me. Wherever I wasn't a part of his life anymore.
I left the party early that night, not telling any of my other friends.
And then, at home, within the sanctuary of my room, I finally permitted myself to unravel and crumble to pieces.
I was crying so hard and so violently, that I didn't understand, back then, why it was that such gutt-wrenching tears were pouring down my cheeks without mercy.
Now, I understand. Because back then, it was more than just the guilt of breaking my best friend's heart.
Back then, even though I wasn't aware of it — I was also crying for me.
Because Elijah had the strength to let in all that he felt for me without putting up much of a fight. And still, the heartbreak I saw swimming in his eyes spoke volumes. But there I was, a coward who was still running away and blocking out a terrifying truth about a boy with overgrown hair and ordinary eyes. A truth that I knew was one day going to come rushing in and knock me off my feet. And looking at Elijah then was looking at a future me.
And if he, who didn't fight his feelings, was capable of being put through such heartbreak — what was going to happen to me? To someone who has fought them off her entire life?
Even worse than all of them, I inflicted a pain so unbearable on the last person I'd ever imagined hurting — a pain that every fibre of my being knew I was going to feel one day too.
And if that didn't make me a monster in my own eyes, I don't know what else could.
Tell me, Daniel, what is worse? Giving your heart away to someone who you know will never love you and watching it get broken — or being given a heart that you know you will never love and breaking it?
Years later, and I still don't have the answer to my own question.
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