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Jakob stared at the food on his plate. Watched the gravy pool in the centre of the mashed potatoes, the way thick clouds of steam rose in tendrils from the home-cooked meal that he was too nauseous to eat.
Around him, his closest friends laughed and joked and complimented. They smiled and they drank and they were happy. They acted like life as they knew it wasn't ending, like the world wasn’t imploding in such a way that no man would, could, survive it.
Beside him, Axel recounted a story of the time someone mistook him for their grandson and chastised him for missing the family get-together. Jakob knew he should laugh at the appropriate times, knew the least he could do was put up a front of being fine, but he couldn’t even give his friend the decency of eye contact. No, all he could do was watch the plate as if it were a ticking bomb. All he could do was count down the seconds until the dynamics of his friendship groups were irrevocably changed. Until his heart shattered in a million pieces, never to be fully repaired.
From somewhere to his left, someone clinked cutlery against their wine glass. The conversation died down as the half dozen people focused their attention on Kevin, who was now shifting on the balls of his socked feet nervously. His wife held onto the crook of his elbow, a shy smile on her face as she took in the eagerly awaiting faces looking in their direction. She emanated happiness, a halo of golden glow surrounding her and bathing the guests in her joy.
“So you’re all probably wondering why we invited you here tonight,” Kevin began, the beginnings of a laugh in his voice. “And it isn’t just because Axel finally beat the video game boss he’d been going on about for weeks.”
Polite laughter making way for anticipatory silence, breaths caught in people’s throats.
“So, we have some news we want to share with you all, news we just couldn’t tell you over text.”
Oh yeah, the text Kevin had sent a few days prior. You both free Friday night? Want to tell you something in person, nothing bad just big! Jakob had read it once, then another, and felt his stomach drop. Logically, he knew what this was. Wasn’t that hard to put it together - a married couple in their 30s could only have so many good things to share so urgently with their close friends. It made him feel sick. Genuinely, physically sick to the pit of his stomach. Jakob dropped his phone, not caring where it landed, and fell to the floor. Tears ran down his cheeks pathetically but he made no move to wipe them away. He didn’t know how long he had sat there for, long enough for his legs to grow numb and the winter sun to dip below the horizon.
When he checked his phone again, Axel had replied for the pair of them. Jakob followed it up with a smiley face emoji and then promptly ignored it for the rest of the night.
“You probably all saw this coming but,” Kevin continued, eyes shining bright.
“We’re having a baby!” Both him and his wife finished to screams and shouts of happiness. People stood and hugged them both, laid their hands on the barely visible bump under her loose floral dress, kissed their cheeks and asked question after question. When are you due and do you know what you’re having and how excited are you!!!
Jakob felt bile rise up his throat and he quickly stood, the legs of his chair loudly scraping on the floor. He muttered an apology to nobody in particular and left the room before locking himself in the furthest away bathroom.
He stood over the sink and gagged but nothing except a string of saliva left his mouth. Sharp tears sprung at his eyes and burnt like acid. He knew it was coming, had known it was coming for at least three days, but there was something different about having it confirmed directly. Hearing it from the horse’s mouth or whatever his dad liked to say. He shoved a fist to his lips to muffle the sob threatening to escape his chest. He collapsed down onto the closed toilet seat and held his head between his knees. Hot, angry tears dropped onto the tiles below, reflecting in the harsh overhead lighting. The soft jazz playing from the other side of the house went almost unheard from the heartbeat thumping in Jakob’s ears along with stifled heaves of his lungs. His legs shook uncontrollably, his fingers trembling where they rested on his thighs.
From outside, someone softly knocked at the door. “Jak? Are you in there? Are you okay?” Axel and his stupid big heart, always trying to make things better. “Can I come in?”
Jakob roughly scrubbed at his eyes and cleared his throat. “I’m fine, go back to the party. I’ll be out in a minute.” He couldn’t let anyone see him like that, couldn’t let anyone see just how pitiful he had become. He was no better than a heartbroken teenager, nothing at all like the grown man he pretended to be. It made him sick, made him want to shake himself until he got a grip. Until he manned up a bit.
“Let me in, I can help.” He knocked again, more insistently this time. He’d draw attention to Jakob’s predicament if he wasn’t careful. “If you don’t let me in, I’m picking the lock. I mean it.”
Jakob sniffled but reached across and turned the lock. Instantly, Axel had barged his way inside the small bathroom. He took one look at Jakob’s red-rimmed eyes and blotchy cheeks and exhaled heavily, running a hand through his effortlessly styled hair and ruining it in the process. Carefully, he sat cross-legged on the dusky pink bath mat beneath the sink, tucking his long legs up underneath his body until he resembled an overgrown toddler. “Jakob. We talked about this.” He looked disappointed, like all his hard work over the course of the past year had gone to nothing. Had been wasted.
Jakob rested his head against the floral wallpaper behind him, sighing heavily as if all the world’s problems lay on his shoulders. “I know.”
“And you said you were fine with it, you promised me you would be fine with it,” Axel continued, big eyes staring Jakob down through his thick lenses. “You have to be fine with this.”
He covered his eyes with one hand, shielding himself from the shame of his actions, the embarrassment of his emotions. “I know.”
“So why are you in here crying, for fuck’s sake? I mean, come on, it’s just a baby. He’s not dead. He’ll still be in your life, our lives.”
Something in Jakob snapped and he laughed incredulously, probably a little bit hysterically. “That’s the problem. He’ll still be in my life with his baby and his wife and his perfect little family, practically rubbing it in that it isn’t me. It’ll never be me, I could never give him what he wanted. He’ll still be in my life but not in the way I want.
"And I know that makes me an awful friend, okay, I get it. I understand I’m supposed to be happy for him and that isn’t this what everyone wants and I want to be happy for him, I’m trying to be happy for him but everytime I think about it I want to throw up. So maybe I shouldn’t be in his life if I can’t even congratulate my oldest fucking friend on being a father. Maybe I should end it all and move to fucking Reykjavik and herd sheep so I never have to think about him and his perfect life ever again. Because trust me, I’m no use to him here. I’m no use to anyone here if I can’t even look at him without imagining what could’ve been if things had been different.
“I’m in pain, Axe. I’m in so much pain every single day and I’m so fucking sick of it. It hurts, every time I see them together, it feels like a knife in my gut and it’s slicing and tearing and I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know how to fix it.”
His voice wavered, eyes welling up with tears again. Opposite, Axel opened and closed his mouth a few times silently. “First of all,” he began, low and calming. “Don’t ever think for a second that I, or Kevin, would let you move to Iceland. It’s too cold and we’d drag you back by your ears, provided you hadn’t lost them to frostbite already.” He lightly punched Jakob’s knee in a show of allyship. “Second, you aren’t a bad friend for having feelings, okay? Sometimes love is complicated and mean and it doesn’t work out but that isn’t your fault. I understand it hurts to see Kevin with someone else, I get that, but jesus, Jak, if you want to keep this under wraps then you can’t storm off midway through a meal. Sometimes we have to suck it up and paint a smile on and then drink our feelings away later.” Axel’s words were harsh but the look on his face was sympathetic, like he was trying to be as kind as possible while giving Jakob what for. “Lastly, I’m here for you. So if you want to cry or shout or meet someone else, I’m here. I’ll always be here, no matter what. Got it?”
Jakob nodded, guilt washing over him and making his limbs feel heavy.
“Good. Now, you’ve got two minutes before someone comes looking for us,” Axel ruffled Jakob’s hair once back on two feet. “Take some deep breaths, calm down a bit, and then come back down, yeah?” Axel reached for the handle, stepping outside before spinning in place to face his friend once more. “Oh, and one more thing. You’ll always have a place in our lives, no matter what you’re dealing with. I might not be a therapist but I can give you cake, which is basically the same thing.” He grinned at Jakob before closing the door behind him, his footsteps on the stairs muffled before eventually disappearing altogether.
Jakob stood on shaky legs. He looked at himself in the small mirror on the vanity above the sink - his eyes were red raw and his lower lip trembled. Tear tracks ran down his face in two identical racing stripes. His sandy hair was unkempt where Axel had deliberately messed it up just moments earlier. He tore his eyes away and focused instead on soaping up his hands, meticulously washing away the layer of grime that had settled in his pores from his embarrassing breakdown in the tiny pink bathroom of his best friend slash love of his life.
He ran a hand through his hair, making it slightly more presentable, before opening the door. Instantly, the sounds from below became ten times louder - laughter and the clinking of cutlery while the TV played classical lofi. It was comforting, how his friends were still eating and drinking without a care in the world. Yeah, his chest still hurt and maybe he could still feel a lump in his throat but his friends were waiting for him.
And wasn’t that all that mattered?
--- 6 months later ---
“We had a question,” Kevin started, shifting nervously with his hands in his pockets. “And you can say no, obviously. Don’t feel pressured or anything, like, you can tell me to fuck off it you want. It’s okay.”
Jakob laughed, taking the cigarette offered by Kevin. He leant back against the wall, resting his head on the cold brickwork. He inhaled before blowing it out through the corner of his mouth. “Dude, just get on with it.” He laughed, shoving at his friend with his elbow.
Kevin rubbed the back of his neck, eyes on the field in front of them. Spring flowers were beginning to bloom and the sun was high in the sky. Around them, people waited - either on benches or with a phone pressed to their ear. They laughed or cried or sat motionless, or sometimes, all three combined. Doctors and nurses behind glass windows high above them ran to their stations, silent emergencies five floors in the air. Kevin watched quietly. He wordlessly took back the cigarette.
“We wanted you to be godfather, as well as Uncle,” he finally said, eyes still on the people milling around them.
Jakob swallowed thickly. He thought back to all those months ago, when he sat in Kevin’s bathroom and cried over the idea of his best friend having a child with someone who wasn’t him. When he couldn’t even imagine that he would be welcome in the child’s life, let alone encouraged. If he had told Jakob back then that he would be sitting outside a hospital, his friend’s newborn baby and wife sleeping soundlessly in a room ten stories above them, he would’ve been called a liar. If he had told Jakob back then that he would be asked to be that baby’s godfather, he would’ve been told to fuck off.
“I’d love to, if you’ll let me,” he eventually answered, tears welling in his eyes at the responsibility placed on his shoulders. “I’m so happy for you, by the way. I don’t know if I’ve said that yet.”
Kevin smiled crookedly, crushing the remnants of their secret cigarette on the brickwork by his hip. Jakob felt his heart skip a beat at the sight.
I’ll always have feelings for you, he thought to himself, not entirely sadly. And it was true. He would always hold a special place in his heart for his friend, whether it was altogether platonic or not, but it didn’t have to be so mind-numbingly painful. It was a fact of life - the sky was blue, Iceland was cold, and he was in love with Kevin. But it was okay, he could live with it. He could hold his best friend’s newborn - his godchild - in his arms and not feel utter heartbreak.
It was okay, he was okay.