All things come to an end.

All things come to an end.

The sound of a smartphone hitting the ground was amplified by the hard wood floor making the impact sound much more poignant to the man who had moments before dropped his phone out of sheer disbelief. He reached down to pick it up again and re-read the message that was displayed on the screen. His heart raced as he read word by word that his long-time friend Jim had no more interest in continuing their friendship. The phone fumbled slightly in his trembling hands as his nerves got the better of him, making the simple task of entering text an almost impossible task.

How do you respond to such a message, he was for every fact of the matter kicked out of his group of friends. He tried desperately apologizing for whatever he did to offend his friend to the point where he no longer wanted to be associated with him. Pressing send he hoped beyond hope that he could still salvage this so that his friend might see reason and give him another chance. But when the next message came through telling him to find new friends and with that the chat disappeared as he effectively cut him off and blocked him.

That last bit of the chat being deleted was like a knife in the heart. He could scarcely believe this was happening and it felt like a dream, and it was not real. Hoping in fact that he would wake up any moment now and his friendship was still like it was before. He soon sent a message to his other friend Andrew who was like the sidekick to Jim.

“I wish I could do something to change his mind, but I didn’t know about his decision to kick you out because he knew I would have defended you, I’m sorry that things have turned out this way” said Andrew in the message back to him after hearing about his friend getting kicked out of the group.

He could feel his eyes becoming watery as he fought back the tears, he was not one to cry and rarely did so only a couple of times in his entire lifetime and this was threatening to break that streak. He couldn’t think of what to do next and so he just sat there devastated by the news he had received moments before. From that point to sundown, he went on in a daze, not feeling much of anything. Every little thing he did, all the mundane stuff was all just going through the motions at this point. Come dinner time he could feel like he had shut down emotionally, his life no longer had that spark it did before.

A friendship that lasted for years now gone and with it, any chance of being in that same group of friends whom he had gone through a lot with over the past several years. To face heartache and medical issues, he always had his friends to fall back on. From providing comfort and on more than one occasion a good laugh between friends. And as a person of consistent habit, he now felt a void in his life since it had been a regular thing to meet his friends for some games and drinks at the Dave and Busters. It was so routine that he knew where his friends would that night and despite everything, he still wanted some sense of normalcy and so he grabbed his car keys and headed to the mall where the Dave and Busters was and in the back of his mind, he knew he was asking for trouble by going but he hoped he could at least see his other friends. He figured that they couldn’t all share his opinion of him, and he had to find out for sure if that was the case or not.

Once at the mall he went to the Dave and Busters and walked in and sure enough he could see them all in the distance, all having fun and laughing over jokes and stories they told each other. And there it was, that gut punch feeling filling his body making him feel weaker he could hardly stand and went over to some table and chair and sat down. He asked himself what he was doing there. Taking out his phone he sent a text to Andrew and his other friend Toby to ask if they would like to hang out with him for a while.

He sat there alone for what felt like hours when they both showed up and he could hardly speak, he was holding back his sadness to try and present himself as his normal self.

“Hey buddy” said Andrew as he sat down in front of Sam as Toby sat down a moment later. “Hi Sam” he said with usual soft-spoken voice that always made him sound so innocent. “Hey Andrew, Hey Toby, how are things?” he asked, trying to feel like everything is normal but it was far from it.

“Oh, things are going good” Said Andrew and Toby nodded “Yeah work has been hectic but otherwise fine.” The three of them chatted idly for a short while before Andrew looked at his watch and stood up. “I had better get back, Jim will begin to get antsy.”  Sam simply nods and waves to him as he leaves, and Toby soon excuses him shortly after leaving him alone once again.

He could feel his control over his emotions on the brink of collapse and so he left the establishment and went back to his car and once in the solitude of the cabin. He finally broke down into tears as he realized it was all over, all those fun times together. All those shenanigans they would get caught up in. Stories told over a campfire at their favorite camping ground. All that was now at an end due to some small thing he did that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and he didn’t do it on purpose, he had not wished anything against any of his friends.

As the tears ran down his face, all he could think about was how he would no longer be there to experience those good times ever again and that it was all over now. He had invested so much of his life in his friends and those times they spent together he had no idea what he would do next or where to even begin. It took him a while to calm himself down and start the car up and head home for the night. That night he spent in solitude just basking in the emptiness he found himself in with no way out of it.

Just before heading off to bed his phone chimed, showing a new message that came through and as he unlocked his phone to read it, it saw the message was from Andrew.

“Hey Sam, I know it has been a rough day and I wish things could have turned out differently. But you know how Jim is and when his mind is set on something it’s hard to change it. For what it’s worth you deserve more than what you receive, and you’ve always been a good friend to me, and I don’t want to see it end. Maybe we hang out sometime, just you and me and maybe Toby and some of the others who feel like coming along. Would you like that?”

Sam’s heart fills with a small ounce of joy on an otherwise bleak day. “That sounds good” He texted back, maybe there was a spark of hope after all. Maybe it won’t be like old times, and he will always cherish those memories and his life will be forever altered by this loss but maybe, just maybe there was a sliver of hope for something in his future and perhaps this was a turning point in his life. Still however much of a hopeful spin he put on it, nothing would ever take that pain away of a friendship coming to an end.