I was too shocked to cry, all I could hear in my head were explosions and white noise.
This isn't real, I kept repeating to myself.
My head was throbbing, my stomach was twisted and I felt like vomiting right then and there.
I didn't know whether to call for them, but I felt it would all be useless.
I slowly turned around to look at the remaining people.
They were all pretty shaken.
I sat on the bench, as I was starting to lose my balance.
After minutes of silence, Kenny spoke again.
"Last night, once we said goodbye to each other, Heidi suddenly called Butters and I and asked us to meet by the pool. We did, that's why they had removed their access on WhatsApp. They didn't want you to know..."
Things were finally starting to make sense.
All of that had happened when I was in bed, after Eric had had that fake ass reaction to my open-hearted talk.
Thank God I was sitting down .
"We were worried about it, because Heidi was sobbing so hard that she couldn't even bring herself to speak." Butters continued. "I thought someone had died for how destroyed she was. Then, when she calmed down, we talked about what had just happened. You had confessed your feelings to Eric and we just couldn't believe it. The rest, you know."
"Oh, God. I really didn't think she would be this hurt..." I said, feeling worse than ever. The image of Heidi crying like that was just too much to handle.
My whole body shook as I burst into a violent sob.
Slowly, I was realising the gravity of the situation. I had just lost my best friends, after all those years.
I had been awful to them and I couldn't help getting drenched in guilt.

"Kyle..." said Kenny, putting a hand on my shoulder. I could see he was feeling really sorry for me.
"Calm down."
"I can't! I HURT THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN MY LIFE! MY LIFE DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE NOW." I said in between convulsions, now screaming from the great amount of agonising pain I was going through.
I couldn't believe that was happening to me, to us.
"You will find other people, I know you will!" Butters said, in that sweet tone that was so typical of him. He was feeling bad for me, too.
"No, I won't!" I cried out. I took my head in my hands as the sobbing turned into a full on anxiety attack.
"I can't live without them! They were the only things that kept me alive!"
"No, that's not true and you know." he said, trying to reassure me.
But nothing could.
"And what about you guys? Am I ever seeing you again?" I asked, in hope that I could at least count on them.
"Well, we were friends because of Eric and Heidi. Without them... I don't think we can." said Kenny.
I was crying uncontrollably at that point and I was doubled over in pain.

"I'm asking you please," said Stan, finally breaking his silence. "Don't do anything stupid to yourself."
I had never cut myself in my life before, but all I wanted to do was die.
So, I told him I couldn't promise him that.
I grabbed my phone to check the whatsapp group, hoping Heidi and Eric hadn't left it, but they had.
That was it, I couldn't stay there on that bench with people who were feeling nothing but pity for me, who had lost all kinds of affection for me.
So, I ran back to the hotel, leaving them there.
Thank heavens I had the room key.
All I wanted to do was sleep and try to forget what had just happened.
Wake up from the nightmare I was living.

As I got into the room, the first thing I did was get into bed, I was shivering so violently that my whole body ached.
Putting blankets on myself, I felt slightly better.
I checked my phone again, nothing was happening.
I had to change the lockscreen, since it was a picture of all six of us at the beach.
I did and I replaced it with a picture of me and Ike, then I threw it away from me and continued crying.
I was exhausted from all those emotions, but I just couldn't calm down.
I was numb, completely paralyzed.
I had never thought I would have caused this much pain to someone, enough to lose them all so suddenly.
With them, my life had a meaning. It made sense because I had people to love me, who I loved back, deeply.
It was still hard for me to process the whole thing.
They said I'd betrayed them in the worst way, by developing these feelings for Eric.
The mistake was refusing to admit it to myself and them.
Technically, I had admitted it to myself, but I was too blinded by the attraction, the dependance, the obsession.
They were done with me. And I was done with life.
I wanted death to take over me slowly, by starving my body and ridding it of life.
Ever so sweetly, where nothing existed and my memories were dead.
For I had lost everything that was ever important to me.
Being told by people who I'd always had an admiration for that I was nothing to them, only hours after considering me their closest friend, was though.
Not only for me, because the hardest part of it was knowing, living with the knowledge that I had caused them excruciating pain.
I had crushed their hearts completely, because I hadn't been honest to them and they'd lost trust in me.
All these years spent happy, carefree and feeling loved, receiving affection...
How could I do this? How could I think that it wouldn't have ruined anything by saying it out loud?
Part of me wished I had kept it buried inside me forever, that I would have died with it.
Now, nothing else mattered. What we had was sick, I was so attached to them that I considered them my all.
Now I had to go on. But how? How does someone keep living like this?
After they threw away their life like this.
I was thinking of getting into drugs.
Or alcohol, or whatever could keep me numb.
I didn't want to think anymore.
I wanted death, so badly.
I wanted it over.
I felt like my family had been torn apart.
By none other than me.
But the worst had yet to come.

I had fallen asleep for only a few hours, my body was too stressed to fall into the depths of slumber.

So, it was easy for me to hear that Stan was knocking on the door of our room, asking me to let him in.

It was about 2 am. I got up slowly from the bed, feeling like a zombie and I went to open the door.

He entered, locking the door behind him.

For a couple of minutes, we stared at each other, nothing coming out of our mouths, until I asked him how things were.

"Just like before, Kyle. Heidi and Eric didn't come out of their room, but we called them... They're both hurting quite a lot."
Then, he told me that he and the gay couple ate hot dogs and then spent the rest of the night talking about the whole thing.
No one could believe it.
Not even I could.
" Oh and by the way, it's best if you take a different coach than ours to get to the airport. And I also think you should tell your parents to stop hanging out with mine. I want them out of this."
He said, breaking my heart further.
I nodded, spent. I doubted saying anything else would have changed a thing.
" I won't be sleeping here, in the bed with you. I'm going on the sofa. "

When the lights were down, that's when it started to feel real.
Like, I was actually living that awful moment.
I stared at the ceiling, unable to process a thought that could make me smile.
I didn't know how to smile anymore.
I ended up staying up all night.
How could I be so stupid? Telling Eric about it, falling for his bait...
How could I let myself be fooled enough to believe that saying that out loud would have made things better?
I should have kept it to myself, like I had done all those years.
If only Eric and I had not had that talk in his car...
That was fate, the truth would have come out one way or another.
It was pretty cruel to be my destiny, honestly, but I thought I deserved everything that was going down.
I had lost the willing to live and I didn't know if I would have ever gained it back.
The morning after, Stan woke me up.
He already had his luggage ready, his backpack on.
He gave me a look full of pity.
"I want you to know, even if our friendship had gone cold, that there were good times. I will always cherish them, and so will everyone else. Goodbye. "
He said, and I could see he was swallowing a lump in his throat.
I lost it. I fell into a vortex of sobs again.
I couldn't say anything, for I was crying too much.
That's the worst part of breaking up with someone, no matter what relationship you have with them.
When they leave, but they tell you that they'll remember you.
I managed to say a very tearful "bye."
And then he was gone, everything that had ever made me happy left with him.
I had lost a part of myself, forever.

Hours later I found myself on a taxi, lonely and drowning in my sorrow.
The taxi driver asked me if I was ok, but I didn't respond to that.
Human interaction just wasn't going to happen in that moment.
Then he started the car and I spent the whole time looking outside of the window, watching as we passed trees, clouds, cars and birds.
I wondered what it would feel like to be a bird, to fly free and not have to worry about having feelings for your best friend's boyfriend.
Or anyone, ever.
I had gotten to the conclusion that everything hurt and happiness was nothing but a perfect illusion created by someone who was incredibly mean.
On that hellish day, it wasn't only me leaving that island, it was my soul leaving my body, making me but a shell of a person.

Two Months Later
I trotted through the Denver Airport, earphones in my ears, listening to empowering music.
I wasn't too empowered myself, though.
I hadn't been to that airport in two months, not since that rumbling storm that I would constantly try to get out of my head.
Try as I might, it was there in my mind every day, burning it, hurting my whole body like a bunch of poisonous darts.
The confusion, the idea that I had hurt who I held the most dear, losing them as a consequence.
In that time I had away from them, there had been many developments.
For instance, the moment I got home, I told many people about it, hoping they could understand my pain.
In conclusion, the friendship was toxic and I had been emotionally (and physically, with some pranks) abused and I wasn't even aware of it.
That was a lot to take in, but, thinking back to many aspects of my friendship with those people, I realized that they were right.
I didn't blame them, though.
I knew I had issues with attachment, especially to Eric, but I didn't really want to see past my striking fascination with him.
I was blinded by love, attraction and the feeling of belonging, of family, of people who truly cared about me, more than words could say.
But those people were too fragile, so much that they would often release all of their frustrations on me, with those pranks and their "orders".
Eric, well... He knew how to control people's minds.
He was a puppet master, someone with the ability to convince a group of people into believing he was the fairest of them all, a person with no flaws, too perfect to walk the Earth.
It was scary to think that I would have died for him, that I would have let him do anything to me, to my body.
Despite opening my eyes about them, I couldn't resist the urge to send Heidi a message, which contained my sincerest apologies. I had hurt her, the best one in the group, so I thought she deserved that.
I had told her everything about my obsession with her boyfriend, because she wanted to know.
I asked for her forgiveness, but she didn't reply.
I even sent a letter to Eric, explaining what he meant to me for all that time.
Nothing.
I had to go through therapy to even make sense of what had happened.
The therapist, too, said that I had been a victim of a mental abuse, but that I had been wrong to lie to them, especially Heidi, even if their reaction had been exaggerated.
But then again, they had always been exaggerated people.
I was still attached to them, though, so I would often go to where Heidi was working for the Summer, beg her to meet me to talk, but her only response had been a long message saying to me just how awful I had been to her, to everyone.
Such a message can't be forgotten, as it contained strong, hurtful words she had blurted out as a way to cope with her pain.
In addition to it, she knew what would hurt me the most, because she knew me well.
Her words had stabbed me like a knife. She was right to say I should have left, but what she wasn't aware of was the toxicity of the whole situation, the attachment we had all created, their treatment towards me like I was their little boy and not their friend.
I felt bad for them, because they never would have been able to leave the vortex of possessiveness, control and obsessiveness.
So I had to thank them for cutting me out of their lives, I had surely saved myself from a dangerous situation.
True, I was in a lot of pain still, but I was opening my eyes.
That Sunday morning in the airport, I froze in my tracks when I saw the six of them - Wendy was there too - laughing and chatting with each other, surely ready to take an airplane which would bring them to their sunny vacation, the second one of the year.
I stared at them for a while.
I caught their eye for a bit. It was like looking at a dead body, no emotion came from their faces.
My heart sunk, but then I sighed as I physically, yet symbolically, walked away from them, feeling completely
untangled from them and their dynamics.
I was making my way towards my new life, ready to leave the town that had hurt me so badly and start all over in a foreign city.
It would have been a long journey, but I was ready to take back my life.

The end.