At the end of that night, I left the lake by myself around 10 pm. While walking, I spotted Marc while he walked his dog. I called out to him, and he turned in my direction.
"Yo, what's up, decided to take a late night swim with your clothes on? You're soaked!"
"Yeah… something like that," He looked at me with soft sad eyes, as though he took pity on me, almost like he knew what happened. "Uhm, Marc, can I stay the night at your house?"
"Yeah, no problem! Why, though? Get into a fight with your mom?" He seemed to just be playing dumb, but I went along with it. See, the thing is, every day, I walked to school with Carly, we met halfway and took the rest of our walk together. If I was at home, I might end up running into her on my way to school, and I wasn't sure I could handle that. Y'see cause that's something I wasn't sure about. What would happen if we did bump into each other. Would we talk? Would we be silent? Either way, it seems like hell. Man! Wet clothes are the worst, my underwear is all soaked, and my socks smell like a wet dog. I do like to be in the rain though, there's something calming about letting a soft or hard downpour of water soak your hair and leave you bare. Like it really just brought you back to reality. Speaking of… "Hey! Space Case, you never answered my question."
"Huh? Ohhhh… right, nah. I didn't fight with my mom, after all if I got into an argument with my mom, I wouldn't be the one alive to speak about it."
"If you say so… say, do you have your phone on you?"
"Nah it was in my bag but that's all wet, the phones safe but it's dead." Y'see back in that day–– this is future me speaking–– we all still had really bad phones, I'm talking like Iphone 4's. Not the best times. "Oh, but guess what Marc,"
"Eh? Spit it out,"
"Y'know how I really liked Carly, right?"
"Mhm, and?"
"Well, y'see the thing," My eyes started to swell, and my throat closed a little, "Y'see the thing is, uh, I confessed to her today."
"Oh really? How'd it–– uhm…–– How'd it go?"
"Y'see the thing is," I laugh a little bit, tears streaming down my face, with the saddest eyes ever, I laughed, "Y'know she said she loves me too."
"Oh! Then… why? Why are you crying? You look so sad."
"Well, Y'know the thing is, I realized after all this time, I didn't really love her."
"Did you tell Carly that, I mean, that's a 180 to take right after you confess––"
"No, No, no, No, nO. I didn't tell her… she told me. I realized, after all these months, I truly knew nothing about her. I didn't know anything. What's even worse is, get this, I couldn't even think of things I loved about her beyond the surface. Under the makeup, and the hair, under the cute looks and smiles. There wasn't a single thing that I truly knew about her that could justify me 'Loving' her." I sobbed, choking on tears and my throat felt tight. I dropped to my knees in front of Marc. "Marc… why? Why through all of this–– I put so much–– I tried so h–– Who does she think–– who do I think––" I felt my stomach turn as my eyes and insides filled with tears. My body felt like I might die any moment, but at that moment, Marc tied his dog's leash around his wrist and dropped to the ground, catching my falling head on his shoulder and he held me.
Right in the middle of the street knelt Marc and I. Two middle school boys knelt on the ground leaning onto each other, and they both cried. We may not have known it, but that was the moment that their friendship became special. Though we had known each other for years, over a decade, there was never a moment where these two boys were ever so close. We connected our hearts and as Marc knelt over me, he took his sadness, and he turned half of it into his own. This was the first time that they could definitely say that they were "Best friends."