It was the last day of spring break, and I was doing absolutely nothing. Aimlessly scrolling through Facebook, occasionally watching Let's Plays. Sure, I spent lots of time with my friends this spring break, but today was all for chillaxing. I decided to open Instagram, and after scrolling for a while, a knot formed in my stomach. It was a picture of Ashley and her boyfriend, Brandon.

ash_wils: #flashbackfriday to our 5 month anniversary this past week!

Oodles of heart emojis adorned the comments.

sammypants: you guys are SO CUTE!

washingtwin1: #cutestcoupleever

washingtwin2: so happy for you guys!

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that she's found someone who makes her so happy, but I can't just suddenly stop being attracted to her. We're such good friends, but my feelings for her are so strong, and seeing her with someone else still hurts, even though it's been five months. It doesn't get any easier. I double tapped the photo to show support for her, since she's one of my best friends.

I was about to open up my DS to play some Legend of Zelda when my phone vibrated like mad. I saw her name and contact photo (a picture of us squeezing one another with funny faces before homecoming) on the screen and immediately answered. "Hello?" All I heard was sniffling in response. "Ashley?"

She sniffled and whimpered before asking, "Can you come over?"

I immediately sat up in bed and swung myself over the side. "Yea, let me just get some shoes and I'll be there as quick as I can."

She let out a whimpering "thank you" before hanging up. I darted to my closet and pulled out some tennis shoes that I shoved my feet into, grabbed my keys off my dresser, and quickly went downstairs. I stopped in the kitchen and grabbed a bag of mini Kit Kat bars before heading out the door. Ashley's house is a good ten-minute drive from mine, but I sped the whole drive, shortening it to about six minutes. I pulled into her cul-de-sac and drove straight toward her house at the end of it, parking directly in front of the door. Locking my car behind me, I bounded across the front lawn to the door, took a deep breath, and rang the doorbell. Her dog started to bark and I could hear his paws frantically trying to protect the Wilson family from a potential intruder. "Buckley, be quiet, it's fine," I could hear Ashley groan to her dog from inside. The door opened, revealing her red face, hair in a messy bun, puffy eyes, sweatshirt and pj pants-clad, makeup-free self, "Thank you for coming so quick," She said, her voice sounding exhausted.

"No problem, Ash," I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but I didn't want to sound pushy, so I followed her up the stairs to her room.

She sat on the side of her bed and paused the romantic comedy playing on her TV. The floor near her bed was covered in wadded up tissues, and her wall of photos was missing a few slots; it's normally so immaculate. She pat her hand on the bed next to her as a request for me to sit down. I did so, and pulled the bag of chocolate out of my jacket pocket. "You sounded sad, so I brought you these."

She took the bag from me with a face that read 'this is the only nice thing anyone has done for me today' and thanked me before opening the bag and eating a piece. "How are you doing?" I asked. She may not want to tell me what happened right away, so I didn't want to jump right into it.

"Awful," She managed to say before looking me in the eye and asking, "Chris, has someone you really cared about ever done something horrible to you? But like, they admit that it was horrible, and want your forgiveness, and you care about them so much and want to forgive them, but you just don't think you can?"

"Uh, I'm not sure I follow, Ash."

She took a deep breath, looked at the floor, and said, "Okay, I'll just tell you the story. When I woke up today, I sent Brandon a good morning text like we always do, but he responded asking if we could talk on the phone, so I said yes, and called him. When he answered he said that he had to confess something, but wanted me to recognize it as something that happened in the past, and to try to move forward.'

Oh no. I already don't like where this is going.

'He said that while he was visiting his family in Michigan this past month, he ran into his old neighbor friend, Lexi, and that things got more than friendly. I asked what he meant by that because obviously I either didn't believe him or didn't want it to be true, and he straight up said that he had sex with her on multiple occasions," Tears were rolling down her cheeks, "He cheated on me, Chris. We haven't even had sex yet and we were together—in a committed relationship—for five months. How could he just casually have sex with this girl he hasn't seen in years, and stay with me for a month afterwards?"

She sniffled and wiped tears from her eyes as I asked, "And you said he wanted forgiveness?"

"He said that he regrets it because he loves me and wishes he didn't do it, but he still did, ya know? He said he just wants us to move on from it; forget it happened. But he was feeling guilty about hiding it from me for so long, so he wanted to get it off his chest. I told him that I can't talk to him anymore, immediately hung up, called you, and then once you said you were on your way, I cried the most and loudest I've cried in a really long time. I love him a lot, Chris, and I don't know what to do."

She couldn't fight the tears anymore. Her face was in her hands as she sobbed in front of me. I moved to sit closer to her, and held her as she cried. To think that someone could just casually cheat on Ashley like that made me so angry. "Ash, you are incredibly kind, fun, intelligent, and beautiful. I don't understand how anyone would consider doing that to you."

"Thank you, Chris," She said into my chest between whimpers.

"This may be hard for you to hear, because I know how much you care about Brandon," I considered my next words very carefully, "But if he had the conscience to do this, he wasn't as seriously invested in the relationship as you were."

"But he said he loves me and wants us to move forward—"

"I know. But he kept this from you for a month. Do you really think that's a good sign?"

She shook her head 'no' as she cried into my t-shirt. We felt a vibration coming from across the bed. Looking over my shoulder, I saw it was her phone. I reached across the bed to get it, and read 'Brandon 3 Pearson/iMessage'. "It's him," I let her know.

"What does it say?" She asked

I know her passcode, so I unlocked her phone and read it to her. "He said 'how many more times do I have to apologize'."

She took a breath before saying, "Tell him 'you don't need to apologize anymore because I'm done with you'." And she smiled for probably the first time today.

"Oh shit!" I exclaimed as I typed out her message for her.

After I hit 'send', I handed the phone back to her, but she tossed it toward her pillows behind her. "I'm not going to text him anymore," She said with a smug smile, "He doesn't deserve my attention. Especially when someone who doesn't treat me like total shit is sitting right next to me."

"Yea, someone who only treats you like a little shit is right here," I joked, pointing to myself.

And I got her to laugh. If there's one thing I'm happy about being good at, it's getting Ashley to laugh after being upset. Seeing her laughing lights me up inside and out. "Just for that," She said, still giggling, "I deserve to kick your ass at Mario Party."

"Is that a challenge?" I playfully asked

"No, cuz I KNOW that your ass is getting kicked." She bounced off the bed and went for her gaming shelf so she could switch the consoles out. While she worked, I looked around her room, and noticed the elephant in it; a dark pink (I think the color is called 'magenta') gown was hanging from her closet door with golden heels rested directly under it. "That dress is really nice, Ash," It was a really nice color. It'll probably look really good on her.

She stopped dead in her tracks. "Shit, what am I gonna do about prom?"

I could see her mind racing. Prom is a month away. She and Brandon probably had dinner plans, and she probably spent ages picking everything out, and probably spent a lot of money, and had such a magical evening planned in her head, and now it's all gone. Well, maybe it didn't have to be. "Hey, uh, Ash," I nervously began, "I didn't really, well, plan on going to prom, but I know how important it is to you, so I could take you. If you want, that is."

"Oh my god… Chris," She sounded so touched, "I know you don't like dances; you don't have to do that for me—"

"I dunno, Ash," My nerves caused me to cling to the back of my neck, "With you, it might be a lot of fun."

She dropped what she was doing and came over to give me a hug. I held her tight as she thanked me repeatedly. When she let go, she aggressively whispered in my ear, "I'm still gonna kick your ass at Mario Party."

Ashley darted to get the controllers as I said, "Oh, it is SO on."