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Bradey sat in his red gaming chair, agonizing. Wouldn’t Eric just reply to his letter, already? It was killing him.
Him and Eric had been through so much together. Eric, his funny little sidekick. Bradey couldn’t stop watching Eric’s videos. He saw his friend, and his heart lept out for joy. It was like an addiction, if he was away from Eric for one minute he felt himself dropping, he’d feel sick and get a dreadful migraine. They had spent so much time together, Bradey reasoned, that at some point, they souls must’ve merged. All this time, Bradey thought filmmaking was passion, but the truth was, Eric was his passion. There was absolutely nothing more important to him.
What did this mean, Bradey asked himself? He had never felt this way about anyone before. All he wanted was to be with Eric, for the rest of his life. He recalled a conversation…
“Eric, what do you wanna do when you grow up?” Bradey asked his good friend, sitting next to each other by the cornfield.
“I dunno. I guess, be a youtuber,” he shrugged.
Bradey smiled “Really?”
“Yeah, I guess. How about you?”
“I’d like to keep making my videos”
Eric laughed “Yeah, big surprise there.”
Bradey giggled “Yeah. You and me can make videos together, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, that’d be nice” Eric nodded.
“It’s be more than nice. It’d be perfect,” said Bradey, grinning at the very idea “I was thinking we could work together at the gamestop, and when we get back from being around games for 8 hours, together, we’ll go back to our shared apartment, and we’ll watch Jurassic World. We’ll laugh, we’ll cry. We’ll listen to Monster by Skillet, and it’ll make us real inspired. We’ll make videos. We’re exhausted from working a full time job and working on our channel, but it’ll all be worth it, because we’re doing what we love, and we’re with who we love, and nothing else matters in this mortal world.”
“Yeah, sure” Eric nodded “that sounds pretty good.”
Bradey woke from his daydream, with a pounding headache. Truthfully, he didn’t care about the games and the dinosaurs as much as he did one man: Eric. He would sit in his room by himself for hours, thinking about all of these feelings… He’d listen to “Bring me To Life” By Evanescence, and he would cry, for he knew at this point what he felt, but could not face it. He’d listen to “Monster” by Skillet, because it was Eric’s favorite song, and anything that could get him a little bit closer… well, he’d take every inch. The only way Bradey was able to confront what he felt for so long was to make his videos, and using these two songs, over and again.
“Bradey!” one of his friends would always say “Why do you use Monster so often?”
Bradey would suddenly become serious and solemn, and he would simply say, “I don’t know. I just like it.”
He went on like this for months, when he had finally had enough of it. All he could listen to was Skrillex, the only videos he could watch were the ones that featured his good friend, the only movie he could watch was Eric's favorite movie, Transformers. One day he was practicing his saxophone, and all he could bring himself to play was “Monster”. He did not know the song, he simply guessed the notes, and sounded horrible, so threw his alto off and collapsed on the floor. Why did he feel this way? Eric was only supposed to be his friend, not his… well, you know. Bradey couldn’t even bring himself to say the word. These feelings were totally wrong, and he knew it.
He couldn’t go on like this any longer. He sat down at his desk, and pulled out a piece of notebook paper and a pencil.
“
-
Bradey folded up the letter, and put it in an envelope. He grabbed his keys, ran to his car, and drove over to his friends house.
When he arrived, he felt nothing short of sick. He exited his car, and he could’ve sworn he was about to throw up. He collapsed right in front of his yard, passing out.
“Bradey? Bradey, are you alright?”
Who was that? It didn’t quite sound like Eric…
“Bradey, it’s Eric's mother. What’s the matter?”
Bradey didn’t know where to begin. “I...it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine. Where is Eric?”
“Oh honey, he’s at football practice.”
Shit, that’s right. He suddenly lost any motivation to get off the ground. Eric’s mother grabbed his arm, and helped him sit upright. Suddenly, Bradey smelled something. She smelled like Eric. Of course she did. Bradey felt a pang of jealousy that she was around him enough to smell like him, oh, that most wonderful smell. He imagined that it was Eric touching his arm, helping him up. Bradey would tell him what had happened, they’d both laugh, and they’d go inside and play video games. But when Bradey opened his eyes, all he saw was a middle aged woman. He sighed.
“Thanks for that. But, could you please give this letter to Eric when he wakes up? It’s important.”
Eric’s mother raised an eyebrow “Can’t you just tell him? Why write a letter?”
“M’am, it’s just too important”
She sighed “Okay, I’ll let him know.”
The lady went back inside, and Bradey struggled to get himself on his feet. Slowly, he sat himself down in the driver's seat, and one last time, took a look at the childhood home of the love of his life. His mother had planted daisies in front of the house, there were just as beautiful and radiant as Eric’s soul. He imagined them together one last time, and he knew he had done the right thing.
And, now, here he was. Sitting lonely at his gaming desk, a week later. Eric had told him he was busy with football practice, but Bradey didn’t buy it. Eric always made time for him. Or, at least, he should’ve. God, why did Pope cancel that pep band game? He could’ve talked to him about it then. But alas, it would seem he was destined to be alone forever. He said another prayer for a letter from him, and then clicked on another one of their vlogs.