You weren’t exactly sure what time you woke up initially. You do remember your brain becoming conscious and the vague motion of turning off your alarm. The thought of you needing to get up crossed your mind, but instead of putting your feet on the floor, you snuggled in deeper to the left side of your bed. It smelled like him. The sheets, the pillowcase, the comforter. Every inch of fabric that surrounded you had his scent lingering all over it, embracing you in a cocoon that you never wanted to emerge from.

You felt guilty for how happy you were in that current moment. The circumstances that brought Tao to your house this weekend were horrible, heartbreaking. And then there was Kendall. Your best friend in the whole world who had smiled excitedly as she got ready for her date with Tao. Was she in love with him? No, Kendall didn’t fall that hard that easily. Even if just on the physical level, Kendall had liked Tao fleetingly.  

You didn’t want to think about that right now. Instead, you let your mind pretend that Tao was back in bed with you, engulfing you in his arms and surrounding you with his warmth for a few minutes more. Or, you thought it was for a few minutes more.

When you finally pushed yourself up from your pillow and sat up in bed, you squinted at the strange brightness coming from the window. The sun seemed to be shining extra hard today. Maybe the weather was to be nice and clear, allowing the light through at a higher volume.

Little moans danced in your throat as you stretched out to swipe your phone from the nightstand to your left. At first, your brain didn’t register the time glaring up at you, too focused on adjusting to the brightness of the screen. And then it clicked.

“!”

You sprang out of bed so fast you nearly tripped over your own feet, stubbing your toe against the hard wood in the process. But you couldn’t think about the pain, just gathering up clothes that semi-matched and tugging them on to be “presentable”. As tempting as it sounded, you couldn’t be the one who showed in PJs. The only good thing working in your favor was the fact that your bag was already packed up and ready to go by your bedroom door. Swiping it up, you ran down the stairs and out the front door. No breakfast, no morning coffee. You were going to die during your first class, but that was what you got for not getting up when your alarm went off. Or was it Tao’s fault for leaving his cologne all over your bed?

You shook the thought from your head. That smell was going to become addicting if you weren’t careful.

Due to your tardiness, you drove around the parking lot for a good seven or eight minutes just trying to find one spot that was open for you to legally leave your car in. If you couldn’t find a place you were going to be forced to park across the street and walk.

Finally, you spotted a hidden parking space near the back corner of the lot. You took it before anyone else had even the slightest chance to glimpse in its direction. Slipping both straps of your bag over your shoulders, you tightened them up and ran as fast as your arch-less shoes would take you across the parking lot, towards the tall, judgmental buildings of the university.

Close. You were so close to making it to your destination. But a hand took hold of your arm, yanking you to a full stop. Prepared to yell at Tao that he would just have to wait until after class, you whirled around, but the words caught in your throat when you discovered it was actually Wyatt who had stopped you this time around.

There was no hint of his normal cheerful attitude and from the hardness in his eyes, it wasn’t due to lack of caffeine. “We need to talk.”

You shook your head, confused but not invested enough to give energy to try and think of why he was stopping you and speaking in such a serious tone. “I can’t. I’m going to be late to class.”

“Skip it.” His grip on your arm was still tight and keeping you in place. Since when did the bean pole have arm strength.

Huffing, you grumbled, “Why does everyone want me to skip class lately?”

“Kendall knows.”

Your eyes went wide in fear. “W-what? Why? How?”

Wyatt sighed, pulling you out of the way so you were no longer blocking the door – which had earned a few dirty looks from each passersby that was also trying to get to class. He settled on the side of the building where there was very little foot traffic and some level of decent privacy.

“Look,” Wyatt stared you down, fists on his hips, “Kendall saw Tao at your house yesterday morning.”

You gulped. Crap. Crap, crap, crap, crap. This was definitely not how you pictured this going down. You never even thought about the possibility of anyone you knew being awake at that hour on a Sunday. What was Kendall doing near your house at that time? “I’ll just tell her that I was helping him with homework.”

“Seriously, (y/n)?” Wyatt scoffed. The look of disgust on his face made you shrink back against the cold red brick. Did he hate you? “No one in their right mind would believe that. Besides, she saw the two of you kiss. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together about what you were doing, especially with you still in your pajamas.”

“Oh, my god, nothing like that happened!” Okay, not nothing, but you didn’t go that far. Not yet, anyway. But thinking back, you pictured what the two of you probably looked like from the outside and… yeah, that’s probably where your mind would have gone as well.

“It doesn’t matter if you two slept together or not,” Wyatt snapped at you. “What matters is that Kendall called me bawling her eyes out because someone who is supposed to be her best friend is seemingly seeing the guy she was crushing on behind her back. And I had to pretend that I had no idea or else she’d think there was a conspiracy against her.”

This was unfair. Everything about this just felt so completely and utterly unfair. Why was it the second you got the tiniest sliver of happiness, it was interrupted or brought to a screeching halt?

“She met him in a bar and they went on one date. Why is she taking this so hard?” Still leaning back against the building, you slumped your shoulders and sighed. You felt like you were being pressed down under a giant shoe, barely able to push back to keep from being squished flat.

Wyatt rolled his eyes. “You really are dense, sometimes, you know that?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” you frowned.

“Kendall went to that bar on purpose that night,” he explained. “She’d been harboring a crush on Tao for weeks before that.”

“Sh-she never told me that.” Why wouldn’t she have told you that? She told you about every other crush she’d ever had in her life.

“Because she knew you would have the same attitude towards it that you did that night. She didn’t want you to judge her.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Yes, you were.”

You weren’t sure when Kendall had arrived, but now you straightened back up, a knife digging into your heart as you took her in. Red-rimmed eyes bore into you with betrayal. Her normal well-put-together look was absent as she was dressed in a simple shirt and shorts that didn’t scream her personality at all. Her hair fell over her shoulders, no proof that any effort beyond brushing was put into it. You hardly recognized the person standing in front of you and it was killing you.

“Kendall,” you whispered lowly, buried in the guilty that you couldn’t escape, “if I made it feel like I was judging you, I’m sorry. I never meant for it to come out that way. I just didn’t understand.”

“Yeah,” she scoffed. “Of course you’re backtracking now that you’ve been caught.”

You insisted, “I was going to tell you. I was just trying to figure out how.”

“What does it matter! It still , (y/n)! Did you even know why he cut our date short that night?”

You shook your head slowly. “No, he ne-”

“It’s because he saw you that night.”

You were back to flattening yourself against the brick wall behind you. Was it really all your fault? The timing of everything made sense. You’d made eye contact with him and the look on his face hadn’t been mere boredom or indifference. Looking back, it still wasn’t readable, but it wasn’t as blank as it should have been. If you had never gone to spy on Kendall that night, would she have been the one comforting and kissing Tao this past weekend? Would he have fallen for her instead?

Kendall’s eyes were watering again as she held your gaze. “He saw you and decided that I wasn’t interesting anymore. He actually wanted to pursue you – like, really pursue you. I’d gone on that date hoping, just a little bit, that I might be able to make him stick around when the others couldn’t. But I wasn’t relationship material to him. Somehow you are. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?”

“Kendall, I-” You bit your bottom lip, afraid of making it worse. “I didn’t know how you really felt about him. That you liked him like that. You never told me. So I didn’t think you would take it this hard. And I didn’t mean for anything to happen with Tao. He just kept sticking around and he was kind and sweet and nothing like the way the two of you described him. Next thing I knew, I was letting him come around.” You took a deep breath. You hated what you were about to do, but you couldn’t stand to see Kendall so broken. “But that doesn’t matter. I won’t see him anymore. I’m sorry.”

Wyatt stayed silent, eyes flickering back and forth between you and Kendall. He was caught in the middle and there was nothing he could really say or do.

Part of you was hoping Kendall would see your sincerity and tell you that you didn’t have to stop seeing Tao. Was it a selfish hope? Absolutely. Saying that promise out loud felt like bullets ripping through your chest. They tore at you to the point that you didn’t think you’d ever heal from them. You wanted to keep Tao. You wanted to keep feeling his skin against yours when you held his hand. You wanted to keep tasting his kiss and sneak him into your bedroom for more late night conversations. You didn’t want to give up your small bit of excitement and joy that you’d found in your rudimentary life.

But Kendall was your best friend. Had been since you were barely in your preteen years. She came first and you couldn’t imagine what life would be like without her. You didn’t want to. So, you made the promise that ripped you to pieces.

Kendall’s reply was exactly what you’d been expecting. She nodded her head once and walked away.

Wyatt groaned, giving you one last look of sympathy before running after your best friend. “Kendall, wait up!”

Left alone, you sniffed back the tears that you were stinging at the corner of your eyes. Class had started already and there was no way you were going to walk in late in this state where everyone would turn to look at you. So, you walked through the courtyard like a zombie, barely able stay on your feet and avoid running into the other students who were going about their normal daily schedule. Their lives weren’t falling apart around them, getting ripped at the seams. That’s what it felt like to you. Because now you wouldn’t be able to walk into the math lab with an indifferent attitude, just wondering how long you’d be hanging around there that day. Every time you’d go to the children’s shelter, you’d be reminded of Tao and his ability to connect with Daeyoung.

You’d always said that you were attracted to the artistic type – the deep kind of person that could look at the world around them and see what others couldn’t. Tao was that kind of person. No, he didn’t paint or draw or stare out into the horizon for twenty minutes straight as he tried to find his next inspiration, but he did see the world a little differently. From the way he talked about how he liked to spend his time, he was stuck somewhere between nature-loving and materialistic.

No. Not stuck in between. An interesting mixture that you’d never seen in another human being. How someone could be seemingly shallow and yet full of love and compassion for others was a concept you couldn’t comprehend. But you wouldn’t be able to explore his thoughts and get to know the person below the conceited mask anymore. You had to let the most fascinating person you’d ever met go.

“(y/n)!”

No. No, no, no, no. You didn’t want to do this yet. Please. Couldn’t you have been spared just another day or so?

Sighing heavily, you turned around just in time for Tao to skid to a stop in front of you.

“I ran into Kendall and-”

“I know.” You didn’t want to do this. The waterworks were already starting and you couldn’t hold up the dam for much longer. Unable to keep eye contact with him, you stared off the side, concentrating on the weeds starting to sprout through the cracks in the sidewalk. “We need to talk.”

Looking around the courtyard, Tao took your hand – probably for the last time – and led you away from the eyes of others. Once again, you were in the shadow of one of the buildings. It loomed over you as if trying to find the best angle to watch your demise.

“This had better be a talk about simply not being affectionate in front of Kendall.” There was no menace behind his warning, only worry. He already knew what you wanted to say. That just made it harder.

You shook your head, still unable to look at him. “I can’t see you anymore, Tao.”

“The hell you can’t!” he screamed, making you flinch. Grasping your shoulders just firmly enough to keep you in place, he leaned in close. “She does not dictate your life, (y/n).”

That did it. You snapped your head so you were now glaring into his eyes. “No, she doesn’t. But she’s still my best friend. And you dated her. It’s not right and it’s not fair to her.”

A strange growl rumbled in Tao’s throat. “One date! It was one date that doesn’t even matter because she’s not you! No one is!”

“It may have been just one date to you, but it was everything to her!” Tears were streaming down your face now. “I didn’t know how much she liked you because she never told me, but I do now. And no matter how much I’ve fallen for you, she’s still my best friend and I can’t lose her over something like this. I’m sor-”

Tao didn’t let you finish your apology as he pulled you into his chest, wrapping his arms around you and trapping you in. “Don’t do this,” he whispered. His lips brushed against your ear as the words left his mouth. Their touch left the faintest feeling, like a ghost’s caress that you wanted to chase after. “Don’t go. I can’t lose you. (y/n)… I love you.”

Damn it. Why did he have to go there? You wanted to argue that it was too soon for him to be feeling anything close to that emotion for you, but with the way he said it, you knew he believe it. And you were falling in love with him more and more every day.

Panic washed over you and filled you up. Every muscle under your skin was trembling. Your body fought against what you were doing, screaming at you that what you’d decided to do was wrong. It physically hurt in a way you hadn’t expected or thought possible.

With what little strength you had left, you managed to peel yourself out of Tao’s embrace. He fought you at first, his arms tightening over your shoulder blades before finally loosening enough to let you go. Looking up at his face, you watched in horror as a single tear fell down his face. Your hand twitched to wipe it away. 

You ran. You ran past the other students, in the opposite direction of where your next class was. You weren’t in any condition to be around people or trying to concentrate in class. Driving wasn’t really an option either since you could hardly see so when you reached your car, you simple threw yourself into the backseat. You used your bag as a pillow and shoved your face into the nylon mesh in a sad attempt to quiet your sobs.

Instead of feeling relieved that you would still have your best friend, resentment was starting to bloom in its place. Why did you have to give up what you wanted most? Hadn’t Kendall already moved on? Wasn’t she just talking about another boy she’d gone out on a date with just last week? Why did you have to suffer like this? Tao was never going to magically decided to go out with Kendall again.

Frustrated, you punch the backpack several times. The initial swings didn’t hurt, but soon the nerves caught on to what you were doing and you whimpered. “Ow.”

Shaking off the stinging in your knuckles, you crawled into the front seat. You needed to get home. You just wished the one person you needed right now would be waiting there for you. But the house would be empty when you pulled into the driveway. You wanted advice and you wanted to know what to do so the pain in your chest would go away.

You wanted your mom.