of Skype calls, phone calls, messages, texts, walking away, extraction, avoidance, and something about trolls:

“Thank you for being my friend,” he said quietly over the phone. Almost inaudible, but just there. 

“You’re welcome,” I whispered back in the echoing stairwell. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you.” 

I love you, I love you, I love you echoed softly in the space around me. 

“Good night.”

.

Yes, it hurts that he can’t rely on me out of all people when I’ve made it clear year after year that I’m not going to give up on him, that this entire situation is going to be sorted out without me, that he won’t say it back to me after all this time. But something about that whispered, vulnerable thank you for being my friend made all of it forgotten and we’ll just continue on this path we always have of trust and distrust, of communication and solitude. And we’ll continue on loving each other in this strange way we always have and giving each other it all in the only way we know how.