Ex Best Friend

The dark purple, deep bags under the twenty-six-year-old's eyes pulse as they sink deeper. With the speed of light and the lucidity of a lifetime, the trauma of his teenage years replayed in front of him before he could blink twice.

“Oh, G-d… no,” Mike whispered. 

Horrified, he lengthens his strides in an uncomfortable attempt to walk a little faster, as if he were walking on cinders to please a mad king. 

“Okay, it’s okay. Stay cool, Mike. Maybe he hasn't seen you yet. Quick, hit the vape over your shoulder. He won’t recognize your side profile…” He says to himself as he fumbles around in his pocket. He turns his head to the side towards the street and takes a large drag of his mango-mint-flavored vape. He exhaled with a buzzed relief, hoping he’d disengaged the situation. Looking back ahead, he notices the piercing gaze that unflinchingly encroached upon Mike.

No luck.

“Keep it together, just keep walking.” He whispers in a hyperventilating hush, staring forward past the gaping, wide smile and vigorously waving hand of the bald man with a shit-brown aura emanating off of him. 

“Hey! Mikey! Mikey! Mike!! It’s me, Drew!” The insincerity behind the peach-fuzz-headed man’s eyes was palpable. The words felt slimy as they touched his ears.

“Oh, hey Drew. Good to see you. Gotta run, have a good one, dude!” Mike says through grit teeth as he hurriedly walked past with a shy wave.

With that slight acknowledgment, the bald incarnate of Judas himself turns on a dime to replace Mike’s shadow on the sidewalk.

“Hey! What’s the rush? Where are ya’ headed?” 

“Um, I’ve got to keep moving. I’m running late for a meeting.” Mike replies sheepishly.

“Oh, nice! A meeting, huh? Well, push it off so we can get a drink! It’s been years.”

“Yeah, it has been,” He says meekly. “But, I’m afraid I don’t have the time. Sorry.”

“Oh, come on. Let’s catch up for a spell, then. I didn’t know you lived in the city!”

“Yeah, I moved here four years ago. But, no. I’m sorry. I don’t have time for this.”

“Four years! Wow. I guess we haven’t seen each other in a while… Since, like, high school?”

“Yep. Something like seven years now.”

“Wow! And through all that time, you never thought to reach out, huh? Some friend you are!”

“Um… sure. But, please. Like I said, I’ve got to go and you’re slowing me down. I really need to go.”

“Oh, come on! I can keep up!”

“Maybe we’ll catch up another time, dude!”

“Hey, hey! What’s the matter? Why can’t we catch up as we walk now? I don’t mind. Come on, what have you been doing? Working at all? Did you ever even graduate? Hahaha!”

“Yes, I graduated. With honors. Yes, I work. You may not mind, but I do!”

“Woah, woah! Hold on a minute! How come?”

“Dammit, Drew… You just… Ugh. I can’t say it.” Mike hesitated.

“What the hell is that? Come on, we’re pals. And you clearly still have a little ways to go. Come on, I’m your boy, you can tell me.”

“No. No… I… I just can’t. Please… you’re going to make me late. Please.”

“Well, now I don’t really care.”

“What?!”

“Now you have to tell me what’s going on. I mean, really. You haven't called or sent a text in over seven years and now- what? What is it? You can't even spare a minute of your time for your so-called 'best friend'?”

Mike didn’t say a word. Instead, he shook his head from side to side in disgust and began to pick up his pace. He started into a light jog.

“Hey. Hey!” Drew shouted from behind him.

As Mike managed to put a few inches between the two of them, he felt a tight grip squeeze his arm. He was yanked backward and spun around.

There in front of him loomed the tomato-headed-ass-hole who was practically frothing from the mouth as he seethed.

“Tell me why, RIGHT NOW!”

“Woah. What the hell?”

“Tell me why!”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t, ok? You still wouldn’t understand. Now, let go of me!”

“Not until you explain why you up and left out of nowhere!”

“Fuck off!” Mike shouted back, shoving the crazed lunatic off of him. The five inches Mike had on him helped him send his aggressor flying backward through the air into a garbage pale.

He quickly turned and began to hurry away. He bound across the sidewalk with a few running steps before what felt like half a ton careened onto his back, nearly toppling him over. 

“Guh… I… Can’t… Breathe.” Mike gasped. 

“That’s right, fucker! I got you! Now,” He spits through a wicked smile, squeezing Mike’s neck even tighter. “Tell me what your problem is!”

Mike had him in a playground headlock with no means of escape and no bell around to save him.  

“I… refuse…” He choked. “You… won’t… listen…”  Darkness began to creep in from the corners of his vision and his face burned as it turned a darker shade of red.

“Tell me!” He screamed as he plowed an uppercut square into Mike’s mouth and nose. Blood immediately began pouring down onto the concrete and pooling underneath their feet.

“Fuh… Fine… I’ll… Tell… You!” 

“Finally!” Drew grunted as he shoved Mike away, who fell onto his knees. He gasped for air, choking on his blood.

“You… Wheeze psycho… Fine. Do you really want to know why we stopped talking? Why you had no idea that I’ve been living here for years?”

“Um, duh!”

“G-d, my nose! It feels like you broke it, you prick!”

“Oh, come on buddy, you’re fine! Right? It was just a joke anyway! You know that, right? Come on, it’s me!”

“That’s right. It is you! You’re the whole problem.”

“Haha, what? Me?!” Drew laughed.

“That’s right. You! You wanted to know so bad, so you’d better be listening!”

“Ha! Oh, please. What could it possibly-”

“All you’ve ever done is laugh! Everything is a joke to you! Even when your friends get hurt! You think the pain you cause has no consequences!”

“What? Because I bopped you one and you bled a little? Come on, I was just messing around. Plus, you ‘refused’ to tell me. What else was I supposed to d-?”

“You don’t get it! You’ve never understood, even now. You think that inflicting pain on people has no downside! That they'll be fine in the end. That you can just say and do whatever you want, as long as you claim it as a joke. As long as you laugh and can get someone else to join in, ‘it’s all good.’ There shouldn’t be any repercussions, right?”

“Mike, I’m sorry I jumped on ya I jus-”

“You weren’t there for me when my dad died.”

“... Mike.”

“You sent me one text weeks after it happened.

After that, you went straight back to making sure every day of my life was hell while I was suffering. I was miserable for the years we were ‘friends’, but I had nowhere else to go. You made sure that every day, you did something to pick a fight with me or found something to argue with me about. 

Now, after seven years of zero contact, you think we can pick back up? As if we’ve always been so close. As if you didn’t remind me of how little I meant to you every day and every night. 

When we’d talk alone, you’d say things to make me laugh. But, not because you wanted me to have fun with you. You just needed an audience.”

Drew was silent.

“I didn’t want to tell you any of this because I know you. I know how sensitive and insecure and meek and cowardly you are. 

I know how truly alone you’ve always been, living alone in your house, feeling sorry for yourself that your dad ran out on you, so your mom had to work two shifts at the diner to pay for your meals and your rent. 

You only hurt me because it was easy. 

What wasn’t easy was keeping this all hidden from you for your sake. I thought I was doing you a favor. Because I loved you. I loved you even as you ripped my heart out of my chest day in and day out, slicing holes in it and laughing as you pointed at my blood and performed with it for laughs. Even my laughs. 

The worst part is that, once a year or so when I was at my lowest, you’d say you were sorry. I was a fool to ever believe you.”

A harsh wisp of wind blows through the air and fills the silence between the small, cowering, ghostly figure and the bleeding, steaming man. 

“Oh… oh G-d Mike… I’m… I’m so sorry. I… really… Is there anything I can do to-?”

“No,” Mike snaps. “That’s the saddest part. Yet, you’re doing it again. Feeling sorry for yourself now that you’ve heard about the hurt you’ve caused. Trying to reject the blame now that you’ve made someone cry. 

It doesn’t really matter though, right?”

“Wh-what? What do you mean?” Drew asks quietly.

Mike wipes his nose on his sleeve as he slowly takes a few steps forward. As he approaches Drew, he outstretches his bloody hand and rubs his shoulder before grabbing it tightly. With his strong grip, he pulls him in closer by a step and slowly creeps his lips open to reveal his bloodied teeth, clenched together in a tight smile.

“You’re fine, right? Come on. It was a joke.” 

“Oh, I…”

“Don’t follow me, Drew. I’m running late for a meeting.”