Follow the Leader

MAY: Fish out of Water

When Lana and Simon told us they were dating now, I wasn’t surprised in the least. There are a lot of things in life that you just see coming, and your best friends falling in love falls into that category. Easily.

It takes one spark, one flicker of emotion. The brushing of hands. The sharing of a private joke. A moment spent alone. Then we move to the sideways glances, the secret smiles, the smoldering eyes.

The four of us had been friends for the longest time, so it was weird. There was a partition. It used to be Lana, Simon, Henry, Tate. Now it was Henry, Tate, SimonandLana.

And though I’d seen it from the beginning, Henry was devastated.

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For a while, anyway.

I think he felt betrayed in some part. I understood it because I felt it in me too, smaller and more subtly, but it was there. In forming something they also broke something, and gluing the pieces back together would only make it look the same. But its composition, its essence, was irrevocably altered.

When I first heard the news, I just smiled then jokingly asked Lana How Far Along She Was and Can I Name the Baby? She pouted in response, and Simon just kind of shook his head – expectant that I’d say something like that.

Henry was quiet. It was just a second, maybe two seconds, he blanked out of the conversation. I saw the distant look in his eyes, the downward stare, then he quickly snapped out of it and offered them his congratulations in an eerily calm voice.

Simon and Lana were too busy with themselves to notice anything else. Like how Henry stopped talking as much, or how he spent more time by himself, or how he started taking an interest in reading. Drunk on words.

I have this strange hypothesis that Henry fell in love with Lana after she started dating Simon. He had never taken special notice of her before. Maybe he felt a bit stupid that he hadn’t. Maybe he felt like he had lost to Simon in some way, which was another new thing for him.

Henry and Lana had always been some sort of leaders, always arguing and waving fists and shoving each other while we decided what kind of misadventure to go on today. Simon and I would wait for their arguments to die down, chatting about the weather in the meantime. And when Simon realized he wanted more from his relationship with Lana, the first person he came to for advice was me.

He asked if a Boy with no confidence had the right to love a Girl full of herself. He didn’t say who the Boy or the Girl was, but I knew – like I always do, always have.

We met up on The Hill after school everyday. Whenever I got there, Simon would be leaning against Lana, or Lana would have her head in Simon’s lap, or the two of them would just smiling at each other.

I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it; seeing someone who I loved as a sister and another I loved as a brother love each other in a totally different way. But I relaxed when I saw the serenity in Simon’s smile – one that proved that he was Sure of This, Absolutely.

Then I’d see Henry off to the side, longingly looking at them from afar. He was Unsure of This, Clearly.

One afternoon in the library, Henry asked me if it was okay for an egotistical Young Man to be in love with his Best Friend’s Girl. I wasn’t sure how to answer that, because I knew who the Young Man and the Best Friend and the Best Friend’s Girl were. That made it harder to pick an answer, because I knew several of them but none of them seemed fitting.

The honest answer, the answer that I most believed in, was No, That Wasn’t Okay. It could happen, and it would be painful, but it wasn’t okay to betray your friends. No matter how much they have hurt you. Because you still Love them, and that should always come first. Always.

But when he looked at me with those sad eyes, I told him the answer I wanted. Yes, it’s okay. Yes, don’t down on yourself anymore. Yes, chase after Lana if you love her. Yes, you can love her. I mean, you’re already there – aren’t you?

And he smiled, like how Simon smiled with Lana, and I felt guilt-ridden relief wash over me.

The week after, Monday after school, Simon was alone on The Hill when I arrived. He had had a fight with Lana. I held his hand and listened as he told me what happened. I kept quiet and said nothing, though. The look on his face was robbed of all trust. It’s always the ones you Love most who can hurt you the most. And seeing his face like that, so torn and confused, I became afraid of saying what I wanted to say because I, too, had the potential to hurt.

Tuesday, it was just Henry and I. He had had a fight with Simon. He picked at a thread on his shirt as he grumbled out the story. Sometimes his eyes would shift away, unable to look at me, and I would sense a lie – or at least a half-truth – in his words. He wasn’t telling me the whole story, but I questioned nothing. Just waited for his wrath to die out, until he was too tired to speak anymore and left only with his own truths. Even if they were ones he kept locked away from himself.

Wednesday, it was just Lana and I. We didn’t talk at all.

Thursday, I was alone.

Friday, I waited by myself. I traced the skyline. I counted imaginary sheep. I waited, because I knew they would come. And they did. Late, but they did. Lana and Simon came hand in hand, smiling reassuringly like everything was all right again.

Henry sat beside me, stiffly tense, abnormally quiet for once.

I spoke before the awkward silence could settle in. A rock skipping contest, I announced. We hadn’t done one of those in ages. Simon stepped up first, pebble in hand, standing before the downhill stream.

The moment Simon looked away was when I first saw it.

Henry’s eyes flickered over to Lana’s direction. And for once, Lana looked back at him. Not a brief glance, but completely locked eyes with him. I saw a lot of things in those eyes, but mostly I saw guilt. She shook her head, slightly, and glanced back at Simon with flushed cheeks. Henry never turned away.

It was far from coincidence.

I looked at my friends. The beautiful Lana, the sensitive Simon, the stubborn Henry. I wondered if I was supposed to feel jealous of Lana, or disappointed in Henry, or pitiful for Simon. I wondered if I was supposed to feel left out of the loop, lonely, or invisible.

I wondered if Simon was an idiot for letting Lana out of his sight. I wondered if Henry was an idiot for letting his emotions get the better of him. I wondered if Lana was an idiot for letting love win out over Love.

But mostly, as I watched Henry and felt something tugging at my chest, I wondered if I was an idiot for allowing myself to follow their example.


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I know the theme is pretty thinly spread but... [insert poor excuse here and FLEES~]