A blunder of a friednship

To say that Liliana trusted Hector with her life is an understatement. They met when they were eighteen and in college, they hit it off right away. She was seated two seats in front of him and could hear his laugh and strong voice. She could tell he was smart, open minded and she just knew they would become great friends. Meanwhile, Hector thought the same thing. He could hear her talk, he thought she was really smart and he thought she was very funny as well, so they started talking.

They quickly realized they were right, Liliana found Hector to be funny, smart and easygoing, a trait she felt would be a very good influence on her. Hector thought Liliana was kind, smart, funny and responsible, a trait that he felt would have a good impact on him.

This friendship developed very quickly. They bonded over their love for movies, their love of being organized, which people thought was odd, nevertheless they kept bonding. They spent hours talking on the phone even though she had always hated that particular activity but she did it because she felt the bond was very strong and he could be a friend she could count on for the most, if not the rest of her life.

On the other hand, Hector could not believe this bond was made so quickly, they talked about their love lifes, they freaked out over Marvel movies together, they even cheated on tests together. Their classmates and their teachers even thought they were going to end up together but one thing Liliana didn’t realize is that as much as she saw him as a close friend/potential best friend, she was starting to develop feelings for him, strong feelings.

Hector saw her as a close friend and just like Liliana he started developing feelings, however, they never seemed as strong as Liliana's feelings, so Liliana never thought much of it, therefore she started dating other guys. However, nobody compared to Hector. Throughout all of this, Hector listened to her talk about these guys and he knew that she couldn’t date those guys for a long time due to her feelings for him, because of this he felt safe in this situation, until two years later that is.

Two years, that's how long it took them to fall apart. It all started when Liliana switched majors and made a new friend, Mark. Mark was older, nicer, smarter, kinder than Hector, but nevertheless she loved them equally. Because she was extremely happy to have found a friend that cares so much about her, she told Hector about Mark. Due to the way Liliana described Mark, Hector felt insecure for the first time in two years. So he did what he thought would be best, try and get her attention again, mistake number one.

He would try to belittle Mark verbally when Liliana talked about him. However, Liliana realized his intention really quickly, so she decided to play along with his games, mistake number two.

To Liliana this game Hector was playing meant that he was feeling the same she had been feeling for the past two years, mistake number three.

She decided to make Hector jealous, so she told him that Mark was really nice, smart, funny and that she was starting to develop feelings for him, feelings she had never felt before, and this worked, mistake number four.

After weeks of faking feelings and multiple jealousy filled actions from Hector, Liliana went out and got drunk with some of her friends, so she decided to call Hector, mistake number five.

“Hello?” Hector picked up the phone. “Hi!” Liliana replied enthusiastically. “I’m drunk”. “I noticed, where are you?” Hector asked worriedly. “I'm in my house, I just got home. Don’t worry”. “Okay” said Hector, relieved. “How are you?” ”Drunk,” she said bluntly. “Can I tell you a secret?” Liliana asked.

“Of course” he replied. “I liked you, like really liked you”, she said and for a moment she felt like she could be sobering up, and she thought about how she could possibly be ruining the friendship. “I know”, Hector replied “I liked you back”. Liliana didn’t know if she wanted to scream, or cry, or curse or do all of those things all at once. She could feel the tears about to run down her face, so she just said “I have to go, I have school tomorrow”. “Sure”, he replied. She couldn’t think straight so she just decided to go to sleep.

The next morning she went to school but she couldn’t focus on what was going on, she didn’t know if it was the hangover or the sinking feeling that she had made things awkward and uncomfortable with Hector. Until she got some texts, one from Mark and one from Hector, both saying the same thing. “How are you feeling?”.

She decided to reply to Mark first. So she left the classroom and started recording a voice clip telling him about everything that happened the night before. Then, she waited to reply to Hector. “Hungover”, she texted back. “Too bad, you should take an aspirin”.

Liliana wanted to ask him if he forgot about last night or if he was just pretending that nothing happened, trying to think which of the two options was the least hurtful, but before she could even think more of type anything she got another text saying “We need to talk”. So Liliana just replied “Give me ‘til Monday, I need to think”. “I get it”. That was the last thing he said all weekend.

But Mark on the other hand was very supportive and helped her process everything and managed to calm her down everytime she had a panic attack over the topic.

When Monday came, Liliana and Hector talked for two hours. “How can you sum up two years of friendship and feelings in two hours?” thought Liliana.

That two hour talk came down to one thing. They’ll still be friends. But the universe had another plan, fast forward a year and a half later and they just send eachother happy birthday texts, and a casual meme every few months but deep down they both knew this “friendship” will never be the same. So they did what they thought would be best, they hid their feelings all over again, mistake number six.