I guess it wasn’t really a heartbreak. More like a betrayal. Or even the death of a good friend. But he wasn’t dead. In fact, he was very much alive to the people around him, the people he cared about. But not to me. If he was alive to me, he would have responded. If he was alive to me, maybe I’d still be able to trust. But I can’t trust, not anymore, and his silence is still ringing in my ears.

His name doesn’t matter. I have many other friends with the same name, and to associate bad memories with his name would be associating bad memories with theirs. So now, I just think of his face, when I think of him at all. A childish face, really. Overgrown brown hair in a “Bieber cut”. Extremely crooked teeth covered in colorful plastic squares and thin wires desperately trying to do their jobs. Brown eyes. Ordinary. Nothing special. I never understood why every single girl found him so attractive, why every single girl found him good enough to date him in a heartbeat, only to have him dump them the next day.

The most common term for a guy like him? Player. I always wondered why he picked me to talk to, picked me to hang out with, picked me to be his best friend. Him, so popular, him, so sought after, him, in the top three of many girls’ list of guys they wanted to date. And me, just the opposite. Lots of friends, maybe, but certainly not guys fawning over me and wishing to be my boyfriend.

But we were best friends. Though we lived hours away, every single day of the next three months was filled with my phone vibrating, his name flashing across the screen, my inbox constantly filling up. 80% full, 90% full, 100% full. Going back and deleting conversations from earlier that day but still having hundreds or messages from him. Wanting to keep every conversation, wanting to keep every memory. Wanting to keep the friendship.

We talked constantly. Before school, after school, middle of the night. It was one long conversation. One long conversation where I gave too much of myself away to someone I would never see again.

I realize now we almost always talked about me. What I was doing that day. How my teams did in games. How school was going for me. My friends. My life. Not him. Me.

The only times the conversation strayed from me was when we played the question game. In the question game, secrets were spilled with every text, both mine and his. Not just little secrets. Big ones. The things that no one else knew. I knew I could trust him because who was he going to tell? He didn’t know any of my friends. He didn’t know any of my family. His friends didn’t know me.

As we played, however, we both became quicker to judge. At times, I could see why all the other girls liked him; at other times, I thought of how childish he was. I don’t even want to think about what he might have thought about me.

He was the guy who called me beautiful. He was the guy I could tell anything to . He was the guy who understood. He was my best friend. He was the guy who was always there to talk to, who would always text back.

Until he didn’t.

At first I made excuses. He got his phone taken away. His new girlfriend didn’t like him talking to other girls. He lost his phone. He got a new number. The excuses kept getting more and more unrealistic, until it finally sank in. He didn’t want to talk to me anymore. He had moved on, taking part of me with him.

He left me hating myself. Wondering what I did wrong. Wishing for him back. Hoping he would talk to me again. But it wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth it.

I think I liked the thought of him more than I actually liked him. I liked the thought of someone who I could trust not to tell anything I said. The thought of someone who would understand.

After a while, I began to realize that I didn’t need him. I needed to be with and talk to the friends around me, not him, who I could only talk to through a black plastic rectangle.

He did hurt me. He took my happiness away. I got it back easily, though. But he took two things I can’t get back quite as easily. He took my secrets. He took my trust. The secrets are lost, out there for the world to hear, if he wants to share them. But the trust I can get back. Someday.