NEEDS

MATEO

“So.”

“So,” Lana, Rob and Alex echo.

“So?” Kieran replies, shrugging at us through the screen.

The five of us are FaceTiming now that Kieran’s back from his date. He had been M.I.A ever since school let out for the day and hadn’t once texted to let us know how it was going. I had figured that it meant it was going really well and so I expected him to be ecstatic, but he looks only mildly happy.

“Tell us about her!” I yell, shaking my phone to emphasise my point. “How’d your date go?”

“Did you kiss her?” Alex asks.

“Did you do more than kiss?” Rob adds, wiggling his eyebrows.

I cringe at that, and I’m glad to see Kieran doing the same. “Keep it in your pants,” I scold. “You’re disgusting. This is why he doesn’t tell us things.”

“I tell you things!” Kieran protests. He does this thing where his eyes go all wide and innocent, but I refuse to fall for it.

“Then tell us about your date, bubba.” The nickname slips out, but the frustration in my voice negates it from being noteworthy. We mess around like this all the time, so Rob isn’t too weirded out even after Alex gave him ‘The Talk’. Lana briefly frowns, but she lets it slide.

Kieran ducks his head into his pillow, looking up at the camera like a mischievous little kid. He’s definitely happy about something, but the way he’s dodging our questions makes curiosity burn within me, and I start imagining what that look could mean. Maybe Alex was right – the thought disgusts me.

Kieran gives us a coy smile, and I know he’s hiding something when he finally replies, “There isn’t much to say.”

The peanut gallery “Ooh” at him like middle-school girls, and the curiosity intensifies.

“Did you really have sex?” I blurt in disbelief. I refuse to believe it – there’s no way Kieran got that far. For one, Alyssa isn’t that type of girl, and another, he doesn’t have the best of luck with girls. Plus, there’s been something off with him lately. How could he manage to charm a girl so well in his state of mind? And why do I care?

“On the first date?!” Lana adds, incredulous. Thank god I’m not the only one who has a problem with that.

“God, no! Y’all are dirty-minded,” Kieran fake-gags.

Some unseen tension leaves me, and I can’t help but feel… relieved? I just want what’s best for him, and a fast-paced relationship like that definitely isn’t.

That’s what I reason, anyway.

“Then why are you being so secretive?” I groan, mind whirling yet again. What happened on that date?

“Because you’ll be mad at me,” Kieran admits.

That gets my attention. He says it with a smile, but I frown. Worry creeps up on me, whereas our other friends only seem confused.

“What? Why?”

“Mother hen Mateo has been activated, watch out, Kay,” Alex laughs. I want to throttle him – what if it’s serious?

“Because,” Kieran starts, then stops, scrunching up his nose and moving his head from side-to-side. It’s what he does when he’s figuring out how to say something – or if to say it at all.

“Just tell us! It can’t be that bad!” I hope I’m right. The anxiety is killing me.

Kieran takes a deep breath, then starts talking, the sentences stumbling over each other as he rushes through it. “First, I was really boring and a terrible date, and then I told her that I didn’t like, couldn’t like her, because I kind of maybe like someone else.

Our friends start yelling – both in disbelief and shock. Rob’s moaning about how such a pretty girl goes to waste on Kieran and Alex is just shouting. Lana is squealing and demanding to know who. I’d join them, but it’s that last part that gets me.

Kieran tells me everything. There isn’t a single thing about him that I don’t know, and vice-versa. Well, that’s what I had thought.

“You like someone else?” I hate how pathetic and confused I sound. It’s stupid how hurt I am by this – I know he has the right to privacy, yadda yadda, but there’s a sour taste in my mouth. Here I was thinking that I could trust him with anything just like he trusts me.

And then it hits me – whatever’s going on with Kieran recently must have something to do with his crush. And if it does, then he’s had this crush for weeks. I could possibly understand if he had only developed feelings a day or two ago, but almost a month?

I don’t even know anything about the damn girl. I couldn’t even begin to guess who it is! And it infuriates me.

Has he told anyone else? Do the others know? Why was I left in the dark? Why did he let me set him up if he knew it wasn’t going anywhere? There were so many opportunities for him to say something – or at least hint at it – and he’s kept his mouth shut.

Does he not trust me?

Maybe we’ve drifted, and I haven’t noticed. The thought terrifies me in such a way it shocks me. I know that Kieran’s important to me, but it’s now hitting me just how vital he is. I can’t imagine my life without him – and trust me, I hate how codependent I am.

I always have to be the loud one so he doesn’t forget me. It’s like I’m a freshman all over again – watching Kieran hang out with his other friends and trying so hard to get him to notice me. I knew I had to stand out, I knew I just had to get his attention somehow.

“Who is she?” Lana inquires.

“What’s her name?” Rob asks.

“What’s she like?” Alex adds.

Kieran blushes, grinning like a lovesick moron. “Um… well, I’m not giving you guys a name. Though, if you get it right, I’ll confirm it. Anyway,” he clears his throat, stumbling over his words a bit, “um, she’s, uh… she’s beautiful. But no descriptions because I don’t want to make it too easy. We’ve been friends for a while, and it’s so easy to tell them things. Like, there’s just… no judgement. We can talk for ages about nothing, and when I’m with them, I feel calm. Like we’re right for each other, you know?”

I want to gag. Every word he says makes me hate this girl more and more. I’m already racing through all of Kieran’s female friends in my mind, searching my memories for a moment where they’ve looked at him maybe a little too long to be just friends.

I can’t believe this crap. ‘Like we’re right for each other’ – how on earth can she be right for him when I don’t even know who she is. Any girl who doesn’t understand that Kieran and I are a package deal needs to move along because that just isn’t how it works. My jaw and fists clench. Who the hell does she think she is? She can’t have been in Kieran’s life for that long, I would’ve known. I always know when someone likes him, and I’m always the one that tells him because he’s absolutely oblivious.

And yet, Kieran had said that they’ve been talking for ages, and that he can tell her things, and that she makes him feel calm. That’s such horsecrap. That’s our thing, not hers.

My blood feels hot, the more I think about it. She’s the reason Kieran’s been off. She’s the reason he’s been so secretive lately. She’s the reason Kieran’s drifting.

“Do we know her?” Alex asks, clearly as lost as I am. Kieran doesn’t respond, still smiling. “That’s a yes then.”

“Hey, I didn’t confirm it!”

“You’re so bad at lying,” Rob laughs. “Also, you’re simping hard, dude.”

“I know,” Kieran sighs, his bright mood dampening a little. Does that mean she doesn’t like him back? “I don’t think it’ll ever work, but I don’t want to give up on it. I’ve invested so much into this, you know? And even if my feelings aren’t returned, I still want to remain friends. I’ll probably always want more than that, but I’m good with whatever I get.”

“Kieran, let me talk to her, and I’ll figure her out,” Lana suggests. “Trust me, a girl knows best.”

“She’ll come around,” Alex assures him. Rob says something similar, and I would echo the sentiment, but I can’t risk it.

Every inch of me is dripping in bitterness. I don’t understand how Kieran’s developed this relationship with some girl without me knowing. We’re supposed to be the forever friendship, not this apparently one-sided relationship of theirs. It’s Kieran and me, till the end of the line, over everyone else. Not Kieran and some nameless girl.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying Kieran can’t date because that would be messed up. It’s the fact that I’ve just found out that I’m on the outside for the first time since I’ve known him and apparently I’ve been in the dark for a long time. All while Kieran and his new chick secretly fall in love, I guess.

“Mateo!” Alex’s loud voice snaps me back to reality. “What’s your verdict? We all reckon he should go for it.”

Control yourself, control yourself, the tiniest bit of logic I have left repeats over and over. I butcher that part of my brain into pieces, then set fire to its remains. “Enjoy yourself,” I mutter, ending the call and chucking my phone away from me. It hits a wall, but I couldn’t care less.

Everything’s wrong. Everything’s wrong, and I hate a girl I don’t know, and I hate myself for being so needy, and I hate Kieran because I can’t even blame him.

The thing about Kieran is that you can tell he’s bound to go places. He’s got all these ambitions and the determination to make them happen, whereas I don’t know what I’m doing. He has so many doorways open, just waiting for him to walk-through. He wants to make a change, to put something good into the world and I… I don’t even know.

All I know is that I want to be by his side through it all. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that I wouldn’t be – that I’d eventually become second-place. There will come a day in the future where I’ll have to watch him meet a special girl, and I might have already missed that day. There will come a day when he tells him he’s in love with her. There will come a day where he proposes. There will come a day where they get married and start their life together, and I’ll have to watch as I slowly fade from his mind.

But he’ll never leave my mind once.

As much as I love Lana, I don’t need a girl – I’m starting to suspect my feelings for her are strictly platonic. I don’t need romance or a family or any of that crap. All I want is to be part of Kieran’s life. And I’ll have to give him up one day or another.

It guts me, leaving me overwhelmed by this feeling of utter hopelessness. I can’t- I can’t hold onto him if he really wants to move on. I can’t hold him back. When the time comes, no matter what I want, I’ll have to let go and accept that that’s it. That’s the end of Kieran and Mateo, best friends till the end of the line. The. End.

A sob rips itself from my throat, my chest so tight it feels like it’s caving in on itself. I’m so angry and hurt and downright miserable. I can’t stop thinking about the future. I can’t stop thinking about us. I can’t stop, I can’t stop, I can’t stop!

I’ll be left with nothing but memories. I’ll be with nothing. How am I supposed to cope with that? How am I supposed to accept the fact that everything we’ve been through – every night we spend together in my bed or his, every day we spend together at school, every call, every text, every smile, everything – will become a memory? How am I supposed to accept that he might not even think back on it?

Years down the line, will he remember how we became friends? How he had tripped me over at soccer and instead of apologising, told me afterwards that I should come to his pizza-party celebration to make up for it? Will he remember our first argument? How we stayed mad at each other for weeks until I made a big show out of apologising in front of everyone? Will he remember our first win? How I had hoisted him onto my shoulders for kicking the winning goal?

God, everything hurts. My entire body aches. I’m burning from the inside-out. My lungs expand and expand, but I feel so empty. There’s a part of me missing like I’m incomplete. Like my other half has been torn from me. Like without Kieran I’m nothing. And he’s not here.

Because he’s not the type of person who needs somebody else to feel whole.