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“Congratulations, you two!” our mothers excitedly announced as we walk up to them in our robes, holding our high school graduation diplomas. I glance over to my right, shoulder to shoulder with my best friend George, his grin wide and proud across his face. I smile back, a quick exchange that communicates “We did it.”
Our families are very close, almost as close as George and I are. We’ve all been around each other since we met in preschool. I was in the corner crying my eyes out when I felt a small tap on my shoulder, and there he was. He handed me a cookie that the others were working hard on frosting and said “Hey, you look sad, and I know I don’t like being sad, so here’s a cookie to make it better! I frosted it myself,” and offered a sincere smile that spread the warmth to my face. Ever since then we met each other every day after preschool, usually at his house, as he had a trampoline and I had an empty backyard.
Moving into elementary school, George and I became closer than ever. The school we attended was fairly small, averaging about 300 kids total, so we always stuck together since most of the kids seemed really shy. Yet, so were we. Moving into middle school got a little rocky. George was fairly good-looking, so he’d attract a lot of girls and guys and other friends, meanwhile, I made some new friends from my football team, and we wouldn’t hang out as often due to the new wave of homework we weren’t used to. However, we still found time for each other and still stayed close.
By freshman year, everyone dropped George just because he didn’t have as much money as they did, typical. I remember the night he came over to my house, which was the first time ever, and banged on my window crying. I opened the window and he snuck in. That was also the first time he hugged me. I just stayed there, holding him as his fragile body was racking in sobs and there was the largest ocean of tears stained on my t-shirt I just took out of my dresser. After that night, we were back to hanging out every day. We would do homework together, play video games together (sometimes he’d just watch and comment on why I sucked at the game I was playing), and some nights he’d fall asleep on my bed, and I’d have to carry him back home across the street. Things were always platonic, keeping behind the line that, if passed, would cause a whole new world of emotions. However, senior year I noticed him stumbling closer to that line.
His first pushing was one night we agreed to go to this high school party together. It was a friend of ours and George wanted to go so badly, but he’d only go if I went with him. Even since preschool, I haven’t changed and still wasn’t a party person, but he flashed those doe eyes at me and they almost twinkled in my mind (strange…), so I agreed to go if he would buy me McDonald’s next time we went. He quickly agreed and went to the party. At the party, some friend in our friend group snuck away with George, leaving me with the boys and we just hung out. I was left still wondering where he went off to.
What I didn’t know was that he was in another room that had all the alcohol in there. He was quite a sheltered child, so his parents didn’t let him near any alcohol as a child or early teen. The friend he went with, we call him Sapnap, offered him a drink, telling him it was just a fruit juice mixed with Sprite. He took it and trusted Sap, but ended up getting a captain and coke, and by the time he returned, which was an hour later, he had drunk two full pint glasses of the drink and couldn’t think straight. He stumbled over to me, flinging herself on me, and slurred out “H-hey CLAY!” smacking me in the back. I usually go by “Dream” to those around us, so I was kind of shook when he just called me by my first name around everyone. “Come get this drink I had, IT WAS SO GOOD,” he screamed in my ear. By then, the group congregated in the living room, so it was just us two. I shushed him and looked at Sapnap hiding around the doorframe, and Sapanp just snickered and ran away to Karl and Quackity, leaving me with this demon I knew as my best friend.
“Alright, Georgie we gotta get you home. Wait, are your parents home?!” I exclaimed. “No, no, no…,” he paused, “They at friend house.” His broken English was bad but still understandable, so I walked him out of the house and on the street towards our neighborhood. It was about two blocks away, but when I finally got near his house, he made a dead sprint towards my house and was about to pound on the door until I caught up and, luckily, stopped him from breaking down my front door. We go to my room, water bottle in my hand, and I told him to lay down in my bed and drink some water. He, surprisingly, listened and obeyed, drinking almost the whole bottle of water. His eyes slowly shut, but not enough to travel into unconsciousness.
He looked up to me, and whispered, “Hey, where you parents?” I turn around from fixing my hair in the mirror, “They are out having a party tonight as well. I think it’s best if you stay here, I can use the couch while you occupy my bed.” He looked up to me, and said, “Dreamy, you sleep here. I go in corner of bed,” his baby language getting worse as he continued to speak. I complied and left to get ready to sleep, but by the time I got back to the bed, he was out cold. I grab my phone and charger from next to my bedside table and go to head to the couch before I feel a force dragging me back towards my bed. George grabbed my wrist and immediately trapped me in a bear hug, head in my neck, his quiet breaths brushing past. I decided that I wasn’t going anywhere and was too tired to fight it, so I got comfortable in my bed, my heart racing, and new feelings raced through my head, questions upon questions forming.
After that night, I woke up to an empty bed and a note on the table next to my bed. I told myself to push those awkward and weird questions and feelings deep back down into my chest. We could deal with those some other time. Wiping my tired eyes, I read the note, saying, “ I’m really sorry I made that mistake last night. I didn’t mean anything by it I swear. I’m really sorry. -gogs xx”
And we didn’t speak of it again. Ever since then when we’d hang by ourselves, small touches and words of affirmation were had/said and they would go unannounced. We’d just leave them be because dealing with them would be a much greater hassle.
That is where present us are. The only difference, I still have those butterflies when our hands would accidentally brush each other grabbing the same thing, or when he’d come over and sit on my bed while I was speedrunning on Minecraft or something. All he would do is just sit there scrolling through Twitter and I had to force myself to focus on my game. Or when he started greeting me with hugs, OH BOY that whirled something within me. I just couldn’t take anything as domestic anymore, and it was my fault. When he’d come over and we’d watch a movie together and he’d fall asleep on my lap, it was my fault that I got those beautiful, yet terrifying butterflies in my abdomen. Everything that used to be normal was tainted with this anxious, comforting feeling that I’d rather not put a label on yet.
Back to the present day, and George and I are being roped into taking the 5th photo in the past five minutes. My mom yells, “Clay, sweetie, hold up your diploma!” I snap out of my trance and feel an arm around my back and a smiling George, looking up at me and posing with his diploma. “Oh.. right.” I stutter. I hold up my diploma and, hesitantly, wrap my arm around George’s shoulders, smiling for the camera.
We are in the car on the way back to my house to get ready to head to George’s house for a small graduation party. I run inside and change as fast as I can, fixing my hair and wearing my best outfit, and decide to go over to George’s house early. As I’m approaching his doorstep, I notice that the inside door was open and I had a full view of George, dancing to our song.
A couple of weeks prior, I had a massive breakdown when I realized we were going to different colleges. I went running over to his house and fell into his arms, and despite being shorter than me, he put his chin on my head and rubbed slow circles on my back, saying “It will be okay Dream, we will visit often and we can video call every night if you need.” I said, “Can we?” with stars in my teary eyes. “Yes, of course, you idiot,” he replied and hugged me tighter. Then, I felt a small shift and George was grabbing his phone. He opened an app and started playing I Couldn’t Be More in Love by The 1975, and started swaying us to the music, shushing my cries as he went about.
So what about these feelings I’ve got?
We got it wrong
And you said you had enough
What about these feelings I’ve got?
I couldn’t be more in love...
Ever since then, we’d play that song in times of distress, completely disregarding the fact that the song was a love confession song. We just used it to speak the secret words that were stuck in our heads.
I could’ve been a great line, I could’ve been a sign
Overstayed my time, say what’s on your mind
Maybe I’ll rely on all the things that I did right
Because I’d give you all the years of my life
This time, however, he was slow dancing by himself in their kitchen, quietly humming the lyrics to himself as he finishes the last-minute cleaning. I just stand there in awe, in awe of his beauty, his grace, the way the edges of his lips grow upwards into a lovely smile, a smile George only has when he’s satisfied. A smile he makes when I would envelop him into my hugs.
After a few minutes, I move towards the front door and open it ever so quietly, and come up behind him, and without thinking, wrap my arms around his middle and place my chin on his head. This startles him, and I can’t feel him jump in my arms, head quirking to see who just made contact with him, something he didn’t like making with people he didn’t know or like. I felt him soften as I made eye contact with him.
“Hey,” George starts. “Hiya, nice song you’re playing,” I respond.
He looks away, slightly blushing (but I won’t say that), and says, “It’s my favorite.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, getting closer to his face.
“Because it reminds me of you.”
I get impossibly deeper in his stare, almost as if our souls are looking right into each other. I can hear his staggering breath against my face, warm and uneasy.
“Is that so?” I smirk down at him. He looks away, but leans closer to me and starts to say, the only response that I get is a faint hmm
A few seconds later, George speaks up and says, “Every time this song plays in my playlist, you pop in my head and I can’t stop thinking about you.”
This time, I say a small, “Same here,” and then we swayed slowly to the music. Letting the lyrics move our bodies, letting ourselves go, without the pressure of labeling where we are right now. They knew they would be leaving each other in the next few days, but it didn’t matter at this moment. At this moment, they were just enjoying each other's company. If George felt the kiss I subconsciously left on his head, he didn’t say anything about it.
If I was falling so deeply for this friend in my arms, I wouldn’t say anything about it. If George was feeling the same, he wouldn’t say anything about it. We can just simply do this, without question.
That night after the party, I fell asleep next to George, his head resting on my chest, rising and falling with every breath I made.
I simply fell so hard.