He’s my best friend. He’s not perfect… DEFINITELY not perfect. But he is amazing. And I know he’ll always be there. No, I don’t secretly love him, but no girl could ask for a better boyfriend. And I’ve never seen him more depressed than he is now.

I can tell that he’s felt this way for a while… since a couple months after he asked her out. I think he thought their relationship would be easy, like in the Hollywood romances. He couldn’t have been more mistaken. I knew right away that this was a bad plan. I had been friends with her for at least a year, and I knew that she was all about the drama- she’d do anything to get attention. And honestly, as the relationship went on, I think he was blind to the fact that it was going downhill. I should have told him right away. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had never seen him more happily in love.

First I just noticed little things, like her sometimes leaving him out of conversations, and some subtle flirting with other guys. But within the next few months, things started to get worse. Suddenly I would see her hanging all over guys who were not her boyfriend, going ice skating with “a friend”, or completely ignoring him for a day or two. The sad part is, whenever he would start to wonder about her, a simple kiss or hug just made it all better. She’s good at playing with her toy.

And NO ONE uses my friends as playthings. It’s gotten to the point where I’M the one sitting by him at lunch, the one he’s talking to about how sad he is half the time. She makes me so angry, and it’s starting to ruin my friendship with her. He needs to break up with her…



*****
“Hey Josh.”
“Hey Amy.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing….”
“I’m not stupid!! You know you can tell me.”
He sighed, then paused.
“It’s Melissa again.”
“I thought so. What happened?”
“She hasn’t talked to me for a week.”
There was an extremely long silence.
“Josh, why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you put up with the crap she gives you every day?”
He thought about it for a minute or so.
“I really don’t know… I guess it’s because I don’t think I could get any other girl.”
“Are you joking?”
“Does it look like it?”
No, it honestly didn’t.
“There are millions of girls in the world. And you are amazing. You’re one in a million. You’ve just got to trust that the right one will come along.”
He looked into my eyes for a long, long, time.


*****
“Melissa, can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Yeah, sure, babe,” she said with a flirtsy smile.
“I don’t feel like we’re doing okay going out.”
“Haha, very funny sweetie… Wait, you’re serious?”
“Yeah. You ignore me, you mess with me, and you seem like you like other guys better than me.”
“What are you talking about?!”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“I’m the BEST thing that’s ever happened to you. I’m the ONLY girlfriend you’re EVER going to get.”
“There are millions of girls in this world that I could go out with. I just have to trust that the right one will come along. And you’re obviously not her.”


*****

She came to school the next day with a scowl on her face.

He came to school with a smile bigger than the sun.

He’s one in a million.