“Hyeri, I- I don’t know how to say this,” Gyuri took a deep breath. I was in the middle of studying for my exam when she called asking if we could talk. Hearing that what she wanted to talk about was urgent we met at the intersection near my house. The warm spring breeze swept past us as we both stood in front of each other under the lamp post. Gyuri’s been my friend for two years now, we met through mutual friends, but became really close even though the both of us go to different schools. We’ve shared many secrets with one another and tell each other nearly everything.

She took another deep breath before she looked up at the sky and let out under her breath, “For the past few months I started to talk to Mark. I know you like him, but I don’t know how it happened we just got close and,” she shrugged.

“What?” I asked her. Piece by piece every moment that I spent with Mark where he seemed preoccupied and like he was hiding something made sense. On multiple occasions where he had his phone out and I was by, he would abruptly turn his phone over or lock it, not letting anyone see what he was doing. Those times we hung out as a group and he would look elsewhere, more specifically at a certain person. Even that day he asked me to formals with a huge poster and chocolates, his focus was elsewhere and not on me, the person he was asking. How during formals even though I was his date, he wasn’t even next to me for even half the night that teachers and other students started to think that I went by myself because he was with someone else.

“I feel bad for it I really do.”

“Then why did you do it?” I couldn’t think of any other questions and my head was on the verge of spinning and I could feel a lump form in my throat.

She swallowed, “I, I don’t know,” she sighed, “I understand if you’re upset with me and would want to stop talking to me or cut me off, I would completely understand and would do the same thing.”

“Then why did you do it?” I asked again, “Do you know how many people said to me that they think you’re a fake friend to me and that the two of you were dating behind my back even though it’s obvious how I feel about Mark? How I told all of them that they were wrong and that you would never do that to me because you’re a good person. I defended you to people who thought wrongly of you, but you proved them right and now I’m the fool.”

“Look I tried stopping my feelings for him because I knew you like him, but I couldn’t. We started talking and when I found out you liked him I told myself that I would get over my feelings for him and tried to stop talking to him, and we stopped for a little bit. Then a few days later we would start talking to each other again and the cycle repeated,” she tried to explain.

The first few tears started to roll down my cheeks.

“He knows how you feel about him, I don’t know how but he knows and,” she took a deep breath, “He doesn’t like you back. I’ve asked him how he’s felt about you and he doesn’t like you back. I tried talking to him how he felt about the both of us and every time he would ask the question back to me and not answer it himself.”

The hot tears continued to stream down my face and I couldn’t take it anymore, I turned around and started to head home.

“I’m sorry,” Gyuri yelled out behind me.